hasty_05 made a brilliant comment on my post about what would a person with self-respect do when she said, "Your soul and mind knows you need to stop living with this man and work on healing yourself. But then you second guess yourself because you still haven't made this guy love you enough to find you not annoying."

And it was like a lightbulb moment.  

I am still desperate to get his approval, and that's why it's so hard to leave him.  I guess the brain of the baby in the garbage bag went into, "Show people you can be what they want you to be" and I've been doing that ever since and it got REALLY bad with him.  I'm stll desperate to show him that I can be what he wants me to be.  I can get the doors unlocked when he wants and have his mugs all the way he wants them and make the world less annoying and less difficult for him.  

I'm trying to figure out what to do with that desperation.  I realize my original plan of trying to gather as much resentment and hatred for him so I could feel justified in leaving a monster or a narcissist isn't going to work.  I was planning on continuing to avoid him as he avoids me, and enabling this silent treatment to go on for weeks until I finally got the courage to leave and then I'll pack my stuff and tell him, "yeah, this isn't working out.  I'm gone" and walk out.  But that would require me to sustain an extreme level of disgust and hatred of him and belief that he was a monster to me, and my anger was already fading today.

Plus he is NOT a monster or a narcissist.  Unreasonable and unbearable, yeah, I'll agree with that, but he's also loyal, has integrity, and I know in his own oddball, cranky old man way, he cares about me.  He's also, ironically, been the first person who has helped me stand up for myself and demand for things like pay or resources that were owed to me.  I was a complete pushover before I met him and he was the person who taught me how to set boundaries with other people, which is hilarious because he HATES it when I say no to him and hell has broken loose when I did.  

Yeah, he's no Prince Charming, but looking how I spent years desperate to please him made me realize that he wasn't as bad when we first started our relationship.  He wasn't as easily annoyed or explosive, and I do think my codependency played a role is making him worse.  A normal women would have told him on occasion when he went too far or that he needed to take a chill pill, but I just did whatever he wanted me to do and agreed with him on stuff even when I disagreed and let him get carried away and explode everywhere and get worse and worse.  I enabled the hell out of his temper and fussiness and getting into fights with people.  True codependent all the way, will enable your destructive habits and tell you are right even if I think you're wrong.  

And I'm NOT saying that he isn't to blame.  He's a grown ass man.  Even if I was actively pushing him to explode at everyone and become increasingly intolerant of everything, he made the decisions to act how he did, so that's on him.  But I need to acknowledge my role in this, and how my enabling codependent dishonesty caused this situation that is harming both of us.  

So yeah, I can't go the "He's evil, stay angry until you're brave enough to leave, now go" route.  He deserves better than that.  I'm not saying he deserves me giving this relationship a second change, but more, he deserves my honesty, something he never got in this relationship from me.  I'm going to take some time to think of what I need to be honest with him about.  God that's scary, being honest with him.   I hate being honest with people in general, but it's going to be an anxiety-inducing heart attack that will kill me to be honest with him.  I'm supposed to tell this man, who has gigantic anger issue, who blows up at the smallest thing, who's sarcastic and mocks me when I try to speak up, that yeah, hey, um, you have some very destructive behaviour, and I'm sorry, I've been enabling those behaviours for years now.  If this relationship is to continue, something needs to change.    Otherwise, we're REALLY bad for each other.  

Since I managed things that needs to change, let's mention one: It can't be just his discomfort that matters.  He gets so upset when he perceives that I'm being insensitive to his needs or that I'm disrespecting him or ignoring him, and I'm the hurtful, disrespectful monster, because I move his mug or something, but my pain when he's giving me the silent treatment or saying punishing things (and dude goes for the kill when he wants to punish with his words, he wants you to feel like piece of shit he think you are) doesn't.  I know he's rationalizing that as he's punishing me for being disrespectful to him so I should feel pain, but, no, even if I was being disrespectful, (and dude is too unreasonable for what constitutes being disrespectful), my pain still needs to matter as much as his.  Okay, I realize that his pain at having to fumble with keys or wait 10 seconds for me to wash his mug is too much for him to handle.  That's trauma beyond compare.  Good god, what kind of a monstrous woman would disrespect a man like that?  Okay, no pain can matter as much as that.  But still, my pain at being given the silent treatment and told I'm a piece of shit needs to matter a little.  

Heh, okay, clearly still a little angry ;)  If he can be sarcastc,  I can be too.  But yeah, it can't just be his discomfort and distress that matters.  

Anyways, just writng my thought out, as I try to figure out what to do next, and what will I say.