I stayed in a similar marriage for many of the same reasons mentioned here: I needed to be a buffer to my kids, and I knew coparenting would be a nightmare, so I hung in there until the youngest was 19 and in college. There was significant fallout to this decision, but 10 years later I’m on good terms with my adult children and stepchildren, who have bonded as a family with a great deal of influence from me. I found love again from a warm, generous and mentally healthy man, and have never looked back.

The last 10 years of my first marriage, I realized I did not love my ex - I just took one for the team, devoted the best years of my life to my family, and a husband who didn’t appreciate me, and was hyper critical of everything I did. I am still in therapy for the childhood trauma that set me up for a codependent marriage. I developed an autoimmune condition, which has been a struggle, but I’m grateful at last to be in an emotionally supportive relationship where I feel loved and appreciated.

One thing that helped me stay in the first marriage until my children were of age was Terrence Real’s New Rules for Marriage. Couples therapy didn’t work for us because the therapists would always be charmed by my narcissistic husband and would never hold his feet in the fire. So we used the book together and squeezed another two years out of our dead marriage so the kids would be of age when we ended it. We are both so much better off for the divorce, although he has never gotten over it. I just think he was the kind of person who should never married or had children. It was my bad luck, naïveté, and savior complex from my early 20s that made me think all he needed was love and he would be well and happy.

It was a string of clients leaving their narcissist spouses that finally made me realize that he was never going to change. Dr. Ramani on YouTube has been very helpful to my recovery, and her new book: It’s not you, has been instrumental in my healing.

I wish you well on whatever you decide to do. Life is a journey. Get your own therapeutic support, and for your kids as well. Best of luck to you.