anyone leave a spouse who did not cheat or physically abuse them? why?

[CagedBirdSinging]

This is such a great thread, and one I will keep returning to. Thanks everyone who posted, and thanks victorious lady for starting this conversation - I'm in a similar place to you, getting ready to leave after 5 years. There has been no physical abuse or cheating, but the emotional and psychological abuse has been ongoing for the last few years.

Th cyclical nature of the abuse makes it so much harder to gain clarity. During good times it is hard to remember the bad. BUT being worh a pd warps our sense of what is 'good' or what constitutes 'normal'. If you'd told me ten years ago that THIS would be my idea of a good weekend (a weekend where pdH is mildly pleasant, speaks to me a little and doesn't get into any sulks) I would have been horrified!! We end up subconsciously lowering the bar for what passes as ok..  when really if we look clearly, the pd behaviour is very far from ok/normal. Things end up becoming normalised, the longer we stay.

I read a really good article lately about bpd. It was saying that people with bpd only lash out at people who they are close to, not at shallow acquaintances. Might I hazard a guess that the people who think your h is wonderful don't know him very well?
My h is so lovely to our neighbours who he barely sees, and to internet friends he never speaks to. That's so easy!

[Medowynd]

My ex wasn't physically abusive, but he was emotionally, mentally and financially abusive.  In fact is his failure to pay for propane in a Colorado mountain winter, is what led to me leave with my toddler, after he had just given $700 to a loser.  I stayed way too long and took years to heal from his insidious manipulations, insinuating that I was mentally ill.  I can say, the day that I packed up my daughter and left with what would fit in my car was one to the best decisions I ever made.

The ex went on to marry three more times, always charming people with his charismatic personality.  Now he is an old man in his 80s, in failing health and living with narc wife #5 that was arrested for abusing him.  Now, I just feel sorry for man that wasted his life,  and has no relationship with his daughter or grandchildren.

[Prototypian]

I have never been physically abused or cheated on.   My abuse has been the psychological and anger-furled and manipulative and controlling as well as the hoarding and lack.of compassion.   Our marriage suffers from a complete lack of any intimacy, connection or touching and I'm ignored.   There has not been any cheating from a romantic perspective but you could call the 24-7 political machine that she is an affair.

[pushit]

My exPDw never cheated or physically abused me.  It got pretty close at the end, but not quite.

Our relationship was a strange mix of her being a dream catch in the beginning, then we fought some, then more, then we fought all the time.  Always something new, and we never resolved the last fight.  Over time I caught onto how many lies she was telling about me behind my back, and telling to me at the same time.  We were seeing a marriage counselor and be working on our difficulties, and then find out from family that apparently I'm an abusive alcoholic.  Things that totally didn't match up.  I chased the stories for awhile.  Early on some of her family members would confide in me that they heard a different story, we would compare notes, etc.  Over time some friends and family members stopped talking to me so I chased the lies harder.  Eventually I was exhausted by it all.  I never knew who was being told what, whether they believed me or her, so I quit caring and stopped hanging out with her family (who was our only world at that point).  The reality was she was causing all kinds of problems for us and I was scrambling behind the scenes to keep our family together.

Around this time I found this site and figured out she was likely BPD.  I was determined to hang on and make the best of it for the kids, but once you see it you can't un-see it.  I started detaching, she turned her vitriol against the kids and escalated her behavior towards me.  Screaming nonstop at the kids, picking a fight with me and then barricading herself in the room with the kids as if I'm abusive, taking my name off bank accounts, making large withdrawals so we bounce checks and it starts a fight, so much more, etc.

There was no way to continue in that relationship unless I became a completely diminished human being.  Never speak, never have an opinion.  I finally found my spine again and realized I'd feel like a complete failure as a father if I continued to act out this family dynamic as a model for the kids.  So I jumped off the high dive and here I am.  Zero regrets, life is so much better for the kids and I on the other side.

So, no physical abuse, but that was certainly no way to live.

[LiftingFog]

My husband did not cheat or physically abuse me.  But he did manipulate, gaslight, blameshift, and rewrote history to the point that my mental health spiraled and I could NOT stop crying.  Overall, this process took only 18 mths, the total length or our marriage, before I filed for divorce. 

Prior to our marriage, we never argued and were in bliss.  After we married and he moved in, within 2 weeks the controlling behavior started.

It took me awhile to realize that I was in an abusive relationship because I didn't have bruises, black eyes, or broken bones.  Instead, I had a broken spirit, destroyed self confidence, and I was one step away from checking in to a hospital just to be able to rest my mind.

Abuse is abuse, and the acceptable level is none.

[BeautifulCrazy]

My first husband was viciously physical abusive. There was no hiding it from anyone and when I left, nobody questioned, there was nothing but support.

My uPDh (I left recently) was both more difficult to live with, and more difficult to leave.

There are kinds of emotional torture that I experienced with my husband that I found more demeaning, more hurtful, more frightening and more difficult to get over than physical abuse. There were many times I wished he would have just literally punched me in the face instead.

I left my first husband because I had two small children to raise, and I worried he might kill me before they were grown.
I left my PD husband because he was killing all of us on the inside.

[Lauren17]

Admittedly, sometimes I get caught up thinking that what I'm going through isn't that bad especially when hearing and seeing stories of people who have dealt with physically violent or unfaithful spouses. I mean...I've even heard it from my spouse! I get to thinking that all my husband has done is occasionally get cought in lies, act immaturely/irrationally or yell at me so maybe that doesn't justify a reason to leave?...maybe that's normal and I should just stick it out?  I guess I'm looking for some encouragement and to feel like I'm not unreasonable. Anyone have similar situations?

I am right here with you. I thought I'd made my decision to leave and now I'm wavering. He's not *that* bad. I'm thinking and feeling all the same things you've outlined above.
Everyone else's comments here are so helpful. Thank you!
The thing I've found helpful with perspective is going back and rereading my journal entries.