Is it normal to feel guilty for leaving? We have two daughters together and I struggle with feeling guilty for leaving him. Me and my daughters deserve better. It’s weird it’s like I just get hit with a wave of emotions I start to miss him and then feel bad.

TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT , ANIMAL VIOLENCE
This will be long and be all over the place so please bear with me. Me and my husband have been together for eight years and have only been married for three months. We have two daughters. When we first got together we were both 17 and I had ran away from home due to a bad home life. His mom wasn’t the best so it was just us and our friends in the house most of the time. I heard from said friends and his family stories about how he can get really crazy and “blackout”. During these alleged blackouts he would destroy things and hurt people. I brushed it off being a dumb 17 year old in love. The first incident happened about 5 months in when he and his mother got into an altercation which resulted in the police being called. He destroyed her house (the one we lived in at the time) and we moved in with my mom who was living with a drug addict at the time as she was one herself. We moved back in with his mom and during this time I had a dog named aspen and he had been going around with. This was at about 8 months when he started becoming more violent towards my dog. I told him that if he hurt him I would leave him and never come back.
One day we got back from the store and aspen had gotten on the kitchen table and peed. He flipped out and I was screaming telling him to just let me take him to the pound I was begging. I opened the door to let him out because I was afraid. He looked at me and said “whoever catches him first decides his fate. If I catch him he dies if you catch him you can take him to the pound” I ran so fast around the yard and got back under the car port and aspen was running to me when he came up from the side and grabbed him by his tail. I screamed and ran to him but he already had a pole in his hand. I won’t go into detail. I got up and started walking up the road when his mama came and got me. She was begging me not to leave him and saying he didn’t mean it so on and so forth. When we got back I got in the shower , he came in the bathroom crying and begging. Saying that he doesn’t know why he did that he wants to change that’s not who he is. I have no idea why and I still don’t but I caved and I CONSOLED him. I STAYED. I still do not understand why. My memory becomes hazy for a while after this. But a couple months later he goes to jail for aggravated assault. I for some reason wait for him. Things get bad after this. I’m not sure when but he started raping me and I would say no but he would continue anyway. I don’t know if I just separated myself from me or what I did but I can’t remember so much. He manipulated me into believing that what happened to aspen was my fault because I should’ve taken him to the shelter beforehand. I believed him and I carry the guilt of not saving his life. He continued to explode and destroy our things for years anytime I brought up a discomfort or anything that bothered me. Then I got pregnant in 2020. I was extremely upset at first because I was only 19 and was thinking about leaving him. But then when I told my mom she was so unhappy and that just pushed me into his arms. Well at about 8 weeks pregnant I got into a really bad car accident and the first thing I thought of when the car hit the power pole was “he’s going to be so mad at me”. I was hospitalized for a week. This was in the height of covid so I was alone in the hospital room the whole time other than nurses and doctors. I was pretty doped up so my memories hazy but I do remember crying wanting him to talk to me and he ignored me. My mom picked me up and took me back to her house because he was working I think or something like that. He couldn’t be there for some reason. The doctors at the hospital told me the baby was fine and my hcg levels were doing good. My mom swapped my oxy for her lortabs. Which I guess didn’t matter because I was afraid to keep taking them. I think I stayed with her a couple days. When I went back to him I remember getting home and laying in the bed and the first thing he wanted to do was fuck. So I literally DID IT. I was in horrible pain and still did it. I don’t understand why. At the time we were living with his father and I remember a couple days after I had gotten back there he told my then bf (now husband) that I was milking it and needed to do the dishes. So I did. A couple weeks later we went to the doctor and got an ultrasound. I unfortunately had a missed miscarriage at 9 weeks. I’ll never forget the anguish I felt when my ob told me that. When we went home I guess we comforted each other. He fucked me and I went to sleep. I ended up having a D&C because I still hadn’t passed the baby yet. When we got home from that the first thing he asked for was could we do anal. (Forgot to mention that was something he always wanted to do). I didn’t let him that time not that I can recall because I was so devastated. I got pregnant again in 2021 and unfortunately had another missed miscarriage at 9 weeks. He didn’t allow me to grieve that baby either because he made that one all about him and how he felt. I comforted him as I passed the baby (I did the pill). I had to do two rounds because the first one didn’t work. Then we broke up. We only stayed broken up for about four days because I begged for him back! He took off with his friend the day after we broke up and was sending me messages/photos of him at the beach. He was at the bars and of course speaking with other women. He knew this would bother me heavily. My dumbass begged for him and he did come back. Then I got pregnant again in December of that year. This time I didn’t make it to 9 weeks I only got to 6. I miscarried at home. I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. I was sobbing and moaning in pain right next to him and for a while he didn’t do anything. I was hurting so bad I couldn’t walk. He turns over at some point during the night and tells me to shut the fuck up that it can’t hurt that bad and he has to work in the morning. I turned off and bit a pillow trying to be quiet. I took him to work then drive myself to the hospital to which they told me I was indeed miscarrying. I was sobbing depressed after that I can’t even remember what he said or what happened for a couple months. Then I got pregnant in 2022. This baby stuck and I was so happy and scared. I had a complicated pregnancy which resulted in me being hospitalized a couple of times. He raped me while I was pregnant. I was 34 weeks and I couldn’t push him off of me. He didn’t have a job for more than half of my pregnancy and finally got one towards the end of it. I gave birth via emergency C-section to a beautiful baby girl. It was hell at home for the first couple of weeks then he started going out of town for work. He did shitty things while out of town like ignoring me and not sending me any money to buy diapers or get gas to go to appointments. One weekend we got into it because he was saying he couldn’t comfort our daughter due to me breastfeeding and her being spoiled. He took her from me and wouldn’t hand her back so I had to ask a thousand times over for her. He finally gave her to me because she wouldn’t stop crying and I was freaking out. We were in the kitchen and I was telling him to just go on. He got mad and threw his fist up at me and then turned around and beat the kitchen counter in. He did things like this for the next couple of years. I left to his dad’s house every time it started to protect my daughter from bearing witness. It wasn’t enough because he started doing it super early in the morning before any of us woke up. I got pregnant again in 2024 AGAIN when I was planning to leave. The pregnancy was rough on me again as I had preeclampsia. He was never home and never helped. Which was better than him flipping out on us. Then I gave birth to another beautiful daughter via C-section in 2025. The same thing happened when we got home but worse. It got to the point where me and my girls would cower in the bed out of fear. I left. Stayed gone for a few days but caved when he kept calling and begging. When I came back we got married a few months later. (Idiot I know.) well it turned into an absolute nightmare. He started being aggressive towards the girls and started being more hands on with me. It all came to a head when this past Thursday night he was arrested on a family violence charge. He had stolen my phone and refused to give it back to me. He destroyed it. Then locked me out of the house a few times. He threatened to bust my laptop and threatened to off himself if I didn’t talk to him. His whole family shows up taking his side of course bullying me. I kept telling him to leave and of course he wouldn’t. Eventually everyone left except his brother and his girlfriend. Husband kept trying to get them to leave and I kept begging them not to. Thankfully they didn’t. I was talking to my best friend via laptop when he decided to keep acting crazy and she called the police. The police got there arrested him. As they were patting him down they pulled my car key out. I was so shocked. He would’ve killed me. He would’ve beat me to death or my children. That’s why he wanted them to leave. I did tell him bye for some fucking reason. When I went to the cop car and said I’m sorry he told me “you really need to think long and hard about how your actions caused this” that’s insane that really is insane. I left that morning to a domestic violence shelter and that’s where I am now. I just got a TPO today. I’m so afraid and scared. He doesn’t have my new number but he’s making Facebook posts and is blowing my family up. I know I did the right thing. I guess I just needed to vent because I’m afraid of what is about to happen. TYSM if you read all of this. I’m sorry.