I am soooo angry, but anger is so much better than depression. I'm sick of being put down. I'm sick of feeling like I'm a bad person. I'm sick of taking all of my husband's verbal abuse and believing it. He is the master at putting his faults on everyone else. Whatever he is, he says I am. He tells me I'm selfish, when he is the selfish one. He tells me I can't handle the kids, when he is the one who can't handle the kids. He tells me I'm inconsistent with them, when he is the inconsistent one. He tells me I'm always weak and ill, when he is the one with the health complaints. I know logically what he's doing. But emotionally, I take the beating. Emotions are no match for logic. I'm so angry that I let him do this to me, but knowing it and changing it are two different beasts. Tonight I'm angry. Tonight I want to scream at him for being such a self-absorbed jerk. But tomorrow? I don't need him. I doubt I ever did, but for the longest time he had me convinced that I was so weak I could not live without him. Likely it is the other way around. I don't care anymore, I just want out. I was trying to stay in the marriage for the sake of my kids, but now I'm looking for other options.  This relationship is killing me. I rock my inconsolable son at night with a mantra running through me head, over and over:  I want to die. I just want to die. It's not true, I really don't. I have a lot to live for. I have a lot of people counting on me to whom I am completely irreplaceable, most of all my disabled son. But at 2 am, all I can think is how can I go on? How can I keep taking this abuse? This slow, deliberate attack on my character, myself? It's not worth it. I'm not helping my kids by constantly being depressed. When he travels I do sooooooo much better. My energy level is ten times what it is when the opression of his presence weighs me down. I thrive when he's away. I stay because I need his income. There has to be another way. I'm thinking about moving back by my parents. I don't know if I can, I don't know if it would work out, but I know I need to get out of this situation. It's not good for any of us, and it's certainly not the example of a marriage I want to set for my older son. I don't want him thinking that this is how women should be treated.I realized tonight, a little too late, that I didn't put up enough of a fight. I never do. I'm a terrible fighter and my husband always gets the best of me, so I don't even try. Instead, he attacks me and I say nothing. Regardless of what I didn't say but should have, I realized that I am a damn good mother, a better parent than he ever will be, and this load of crap he's been feeding me about him having to pick up the slack because I can't handle it is a bunch of crap! He doesn't parent. He's as much or more of a child than my kids are. I think he feeds me this crap so I won't smarten up and realize what he's really about, because any half way intelligent person would leave him. As I plan to do. Anger is the opposite of depression for me. It's empowerment. Depression is opression, anger is a positive force. I won't take this crap anymore. Maybe he'll leave, maybe he won't, but things are going to change. I've had enough.