I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach for about 2 months that I was just right on the edge of sanity and being commited. When I was trapped in a vehicle and "talked" to yet again and he ended up actually turning the vehicle around because I would not say what he wanted me to say, we returned home. After the start of another round I was walking in our hallway and heard shattering glass..his fist through a window. It was another moment that I felt outside my body and was watching this movie again. The only word that came out of my mouth was "wow". But my gut said...that's it...I'm outta here.

I think the big AHA moment was when i went to the beach with a friend's family for his birthday and they came to pick me up,and could hear my parents in the house screaming at me over something minimal...my dad had lost it because my mom knew about my beach trip but he didn't. It was shortly after that, that i became majorly depressed,suicidal and overrun by panic and stress and i ended uphaving to move out

It's funny, in retrospect (this regarding my ex husband) I had a lot of moments that should have been aha moments. Years of them!
After 9 years, whith a toddler, I started my own business, and was proud of myself. For the first time, ever. I was proud of how I was juggling the business, my son, and running the house, and still cooking three meals a day, cleaning and doing laundry. And there were three aha moments that led me to leave.
The first was my new partner in the business, who is now my boyfreind, and a kind man, amazing person. He tried to help me and my husband, even as his own marriage crumbled and he lived in our home because his wife moved her new boyfreind in. We bacame best freinds, and he was freinds with my husband. The respect, care and consideration this man showed me I had never seen before, and when I said as much, he told me, this was normal. This is how normal people treat eachother.
Second aha moment was my son. He looked at me in a sundress one day at 3, and said "Mommy, you look bootyful! Why Daddy say you are ugly?" And I thought two things. One, my toddler could see I was treated wrong, and he grew up seeing this as normal, and still saw it as wrong. Two, What was he learning from this? Is this how I want my son to treat the women who are in his life? Do I ever want to make it more likely my own son will look at me and tell me I am stupid or worthless? Do I want to perpetuate this treatment?
But the straw that broke the camels back was my husband. One night, after working late, I came home to a house party I did not know we were having, with a tired son, and walked in to my husband asking what was for diner. I explained I had left a cassarole in the fridge, I had called and left a voicemail, texted him and left a note with instructions of how to warm it up in the oven. But since we had guests, I'd whip something up real quick. And I did. After everyone left, my husband told me that I needed to quit the business. That he didn't get married so he'd have a wife who worked, or didn't cook diner for him everynight. Why even be married if I couldn't fulfill my marital vows? That was it. I looked at him and told him that I would move out the next day, he could have the boy on the weekends. He said "You will never make it without me. I do everything for you, you are worthless without me." And went to bed. I stayed up. I realized, I didn't need him, he did nothing for me. I did it all. And how much easier if I did it all without an emotional ball and chain? Besides, if he wanted a housewife, he married the wrong woman.
And so while he was at work the next day, I moved onto my businesses property, took my son with me, and I have not looked back once.

No big aha moment for me, just the painfully slow realization that if I didn't leave, I wouldn't survive.

Oh no, please don't think you're stupid or naive. Wait until you hear my aha moment... lol.

We broke up after 20 years. It was his doing...more or less. Or maybe I called his bluff. Heck I don't know as he was so manipulative. But anyway I had left and it was 2 days later. I rang him and told him I still wanted to keep trying at our relationship.

And he told me I would need to do an awful of convincing to make him think that he would take me back.

Then.... something snapped inside me.

I thought WTF? ME .... convince HIM? Why do I always have to convince him? It only hit me then. Does the guy EVER see that he does anything wrong. Does he really think he is so perfect? I was astounded! I was so tired of trying to be what he wanted, and he said this sentence to me in so many other ways over the years, but 2 nights away from him and whatever way he said that sentence, something died in me.

That was my aha moment. I figure he expected me to beg him to take me back, but I didn't.