Holiday confusion

[resrchbug]

Hi everyone. I survived two 10 hour drives and five days in a hotel with my husband. I am left with some severe confusion. He seemed very nice. Only a few snarky comments. But he had a bad chest cold and I spent the time taking care of him. I went grey rock most of the time but the nicer he acted the harder it is for me to even realize when he wasn't nice.
I mean I dove so deep into the grey rock that I was almost completely back into the 35 year abyss where I lost myself. I didn't even realize when he was being snarky. I was just pasted on smiles and numbness. My son called him out a few times and it caught me by surprise when he did. I found myself thinking, well, that wasn't terrible, why did it upset our son, after all, he's sick and he's justifiably grumpy.
I feel like I'm in some alternate reality. Is it me? How can I be so cruel when he is being nice?
Now we are back home and I keep looking around in a daze. The house is not healthy to live in and when I spend more than 2 days in it I get sick. But he seems to think that everything is normal and great. After all, I seem to be back to taking care of him and I'll just go right back to pointlessly cleaning and get a job on top of it and take care of him just like I did for 35 years.
Crazy thing is - I even considered it. If he stayed nice maybe I could live with the filth and . . . How do I recover myself?

[GettingOOTF]

You recover yourself by telling yourself you deserve more over and over until you believe it.

When we are abused for so long our standards for what is "normal" are completely off. We are used to the behaviors and part of our brain keeps us there as it feels safe because it feels familiar.

I'm ashamed of how I lived when I was married. The apartment was always filthy and cluttered. I thought it was normal. He said and did terrible things to me, some of which he probably should be in jail for. I thought it wasn't that bad. I'd settle for crumbs because deep down at my core I felt that I deserved the life I was living and couldn't possible survive on my own.

You are in an immensely stressful and abusive situation. It's impossible to see if for what it is when you are in it. We heal when we remove ourself from whatever is hurting us.

When I read your post what really jumped out was how he was suddenly sick and you were taking care of him. Of course he was "nice". He was central to everything and getting all his needs met.

Your son, who I'm going to assume grew up around your husband's abuse, called him out. This is likely because he now has distance and is able to see it for what it is - abuse.

You are doing well, you are being strong. It's so so so hard to leave these marriages. We have conflicting feelings, we feel guilt and obligation, we feel afraid. It's totally understandable to second guess our decisions.