My waking nightmare

[Lorelai]

I wasn't sure how to respond to my H's email yesterday of apartment listings. He suddenly has this idea that he should move back into our house from his mom's and be with the kids and I should move into an apartment. Obviously, I think this is a bad idea. Since I didn't know what to say, I opted for now to not respond to the email. So today he came over to see the kids who were both snuggled up on the couch with me when he arrived and immediately asked if I'd read his email. I'm sorry to say that I lied and said I hadn't seen it, but that I would look in a little while. I couldn't tell him the truth, that I saw it and didn't reply or tell him what I really think, which is that I need to get an attorney and also that this separation has been enough change for me and the children and we don't need anymore change in our lives right now. For now, I'm just avoiding discussions like this with him because that angry behavior he talks about, where I break a glass and yell and scream, that comes not only from times when i'm off my medication but from when he provokes me and says just awful, disgusting things to me. I can't believe this guy used to be my husband (I guess technically he still is.) He wore his wedding ring here and then when I was getting some earrings off the dresser I noticed he had it on the ring stand. He is just so odd and I HAVE to detach for my own sanity and to be a good mom to the kids and to focus on finding a decent full-time job so that all he has to pay is child support and we can keep our contact to a minimum. When I was pregnant with my first baby I was chatting with a colleague at work about pregnancy, marriage and kids and somehow she started telling me about her divorce and how awful it had been. At the time her daughter was 15, but she and her husband divorced when the daughter was 2. She said he left to be with an OW and that there was so much anger that when they exchanged their daughter they didn't even speak and that to this day, 13 years later, they still didn't speak or even look at each other during drop offs and pickups. It broke my heart to hear that story. I wondered what that must have been like for their daughter. I also thought that I never wanted to be in a situation like that, a divorce and a bitter one at that. But I literally can't be around my H without erupting in anger over all of this. It's such a unilateral decision. And when I'm nice and treat him "neighborly" he gets agitated and tries to provoke me or says things like "See, you're being nice now. I KNEW you weren't mentally ill. It's just another manipulation tactic." The other day when I came home after he'd been watching the kids I was on the phone with a good friend who was trying to make me feel better about all of this and she said something that made me laugh really hard. I was pulling into the driveway and I literally said, H is looking out the window right now and I can't let him see me laughing because he'll say my sadness and devastation over this whole thing is all an act.
That just isn't normal. The more I think about it, the more I prepare to drop the rope, which looks like it will be very soon...