You're amazing. I know you may not feel it right now, but your actions show how incredibly strong you are.
I don't mean this to sounds disheartening, but it truly does take a hell of a lot of hard work for a very long time to heal from an abusive relationship, and it does leave scars. But it is possible to come out whole and strong on the other side.
My own abusive relationship was on a span of months rather than years. I started really doing the work of processing it about two years after I escaped, and I feel like it took me about two years from that point to feel like I had moved past it in my journey of healing.
But on a good note, I think just about any woman here who has escaped from an abusive relationship will tell you that things started to look up really, really quickly. I'm willing to bet that one year from now you will be amazed at how far you've come and how much happier you are. In may be a long healing process, but the first improvements will come fast and feel really good. Not being abused feels really good. Being a survivor feels amazing.
Living with abuse is like living in a war zone of the soul -- and it doesn't have to be constant physical battering, I really think that the emotional and verbal abuse is way more soul crushing. At this moment, you're basically like a soldier who's just stepped off the battlefield and returned to the home front. You may be dealing with some very real PTSD. Your entire world may seem to be spinning. You may feel incredibly drained or depressed. This is all normal. I know all I wanted to do in the immediate aftermath was crawl under the covers and nap for a couple of centuries. But you are doing the right thing in reaching out for human contact and support and you will get through this. Be gentle with yourself and respect the fact that you've been through a really big trauma. Imagine that a friend was going through the exact same situation -- treat yourself with as much compassion as you'd treat her.
You sound like you've done a ton of research, and you may already know this, but be aware that a lot of abusive guys will start trying to do anything they possibly can to derail the divorce. Depending on the kind of abuser he is and if he's more of a narcissist or a borderline type, he could start doing things like acting incredibly nice, swearing to change and get therapy, acting really mean, guilt-tripping, threatening suicide, getting more violent, etc. I call it the slot machine tactic, where they run through every possible course of action until they find one that works on you. Forewarned is forearmed, y'know? The best way to defeat it is to have as little contact with him as possible. And be strong in your decision to stay gone. He broke his promises to you. You don't owe him anything.
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