I felt the need to come here and update how things have changed!!

I wrote my original post in August 2020. I remember in my therapy, this was a month before my own "deadline" of having to leave. I never did and kept making excuses.

In the end, we bought a bigger house together and it brought up even more resentment and unhappiness. Despite not wanting to move, he forced the issue and we moved. He kept complaining about the smallest of things - everything was annoying him (this is also how he forced the situation for us to move, because he started complaining about how terrible our old house was and their neighbours and so on).

We moved in around May or June 2021 and following a business trip where I was alone for a week in November 2021, I realise just how unhappy I was to return home. I will never forget the feeling of complete crisis, sitting at LAX airport, just trying to talk to anyone who would be awake at the time. I didn't want to go "home".

The next day, I broke up with him and went on another business trip for a week. This was a moment of my life where my whole future was uncertain, it was the first time ever that I faced this and it felt overwhelming, but I kept reminding myself to just stay in the moment to get through it.

Within a few days, I found my own place to live and I moved out, arranged for the house to be sold and get on with my life. December 2021 was probably the best time of my life and I just finally felt free and happy.

I was sure that I wanted to stay single for quite some time to just spent time with myself. And of course, when you say that, someone arrives and I am already back in a new relationship. Everything feels so different.

Ending the relationship seemed so easy for an outsider to say, but it was honestly the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life. (I even went to past life regression to figure out just why I couldn't get myself to move on).

It turns out, this guy was a narcissistic abuser. Being with someone like this for over 20 years, means I didn't know or see any other way. I just assumed this is how love worked and you have to live your life for someone else and to please them. I still recognise these traits and it's turned me into a co-dependent in my current relationship.

Despite being separated for over 8 months, his words still haunt me all the time. All my insecurities, all my anxiety; it all comes from the way in which our relationship developed. Turns out, I'm not unaffectionate at all, it's just who I was in that relationship - maybe I didn't want the affection because of the resentment from all the hurtful things he would say.

After the initial separation, I kept feeling happier and happier, I felt happiness in my life that I never felt before. I felt alive again!

Of course, as things have settled down and we are still sorting out the divorce, my demons come back to haunt me from time to time. There are great days and then there are days where I feel down. I even had to hide my new relationship for two or three months, because I still felt I owed that to my ex.

TLDR summary: if you find yourself in a situation like I was in and you have that gut feel that you need to get out, just do it. It took me a long time to get to that point - from Feb 2020 until Nov 2021, but it was worth everything in the end. I don't know what my future holds, but I know that whatever happens, I can make things work and I can shape it myself, without constantly being coerced into things I just don't want to do by someone else.