Hello, this is my first post. I often search the internet for people in similar situations and read comments, so I figured it was time I made my own post.
I have been living with a husband who is bipolar for 10 years. The first few years were fine. I ignored small instances of violent outbursts, most of them were directed at other people. Time went on and we had a child together, and things began to unravel. He began to be angry more and more, I started to feel like I had to hide things, like how much I spent on something for example, and he began to feel like I was withdrawing myself and not communicating. I am very non-confrontational and anxious around people who are confrontational, so I started walking on eggshells to avoid making him mad, and yes, I stopped talking and communicating with him. So things spiraled down and down, me feeling scared of him, him feeling like I didn't want to talk to him. This last year it all came to a head. He became paranoid that I was cheating, that I wanted out of the relationship. He explodes at the smallest thing, like how I clean something, he makes me feel so small and stupid. Nothing I ever do is right! All he does, it seems, is rehash old issues we've had in the past, talk about how I should have handled this, how I should have said that. I feel like he blames me for everything. All throughout the last ten years he has been breaking things, throwing things, etc. whenever he is in a rage (often) but now he also began pushing me, knocking me down, hitting me. It has come to a point where I said I needed time apart so we can both work on ourselves before we could be together again. He makes it seem like either we will be together, or we won't, and if it's the latter, then he is going to either kill himself or go away forever. I don't feel like it's fair that because I want us to do the right thing and work on our own well being before we continue being together, he's making me feel like I'm being selfish. I don't want our child around the abuse and rage that he has every other day. I don't think it's fair to keep walking on eggshells. He also hasn't had a job in years and I have had to try to keep our head up without his income. He refuses to see a doctor or go on meds.
Sorry if this is confusing the way I wrote it, I just am looking for some kind of support here. I don't know what else to do, and it's hard to try to "make myself better" and learn to be happy again, when he's insisting we need to work on our relationship.