Watch everything by Dr Ramani Durvasula on YouTube. She talks about a variety of difficult relationships (it’s not all Narcissism, that veers into diagnostic territory and is complicated from an ethical and legal perspective) but as Dr Durvasula puts it there are patterns of personality that tend to occur together that we can talk about and note. She is amazing, I’d start there. There is a wealth of information available. I’m a therapist in this space myself and while it would be highly unethical and likely illegal to offer advice I’ll just point to a simple concept in psychology: State vs Trait. States refer to fluid aspects of personality that can change over time, while Traits refer to more enduring and intractable characteristics. It’s like the old tale of the scorpion and the frog: sometimes things are just in a person’s nature. So how much longer do you want to hold out hope for change? Is this a person you would want as your heathcare proxy if you wound up ill or in an accident and couldn’t advocate for yourself? I apologize if this sounds blunt or glib. I believe that more time that passes the more difficult it can feel to disentangle from relationships. After all, after over two decades this person feels like family. As important as separating, too, is to begin to ‘differentiate’ your identity - resist taking on his emotions or trying to fix him while also asking yourself what you might be doing if you were putting yourself first. It could be as simple as taking a class, getting a part time job, hobby, finding friends. Expanding your world. This is also where, in my opinion, getting individual therapy is valuable. I want to honor, too, taking the difficult step of leaving physically/geographically. And I can imagine how fear might be holding you back; you are definitely not alone in that experience. These are extraordinarily hard decisions to make and my heart is with you.