Welcome, this is a great place to work through your thought process before you decide to divorce or not. Although I didn't have cheating involved, I had a lot of the same issues as you - he was unpredictable and I often found myself trying to not make him mad. Sometimes I knew he was getting mad (even if I didn't know what upset him) and I would say, let's don't argue, I will do whatever it takes to make this go away ect. and he would just refuse to cooperate until he had his fill of being angry. Sometimes he wouldn't talk to me for days or weeks at a time, and if I said anything to him during this time he would just look meanly at me and then look away. The result was I was willing to do almost anything to appease him just to get back to being happy.
At the same time, we had wonderful moments together. Weekend get aways, going out to dinner or the movies, discussing books or the latest news, or taking a walk. There were times that we had a really good marriage.
I was an independent, happy go lucky woman, be bopping along in my own little world (now I think fantasy world) when my husband left and everything crashed around me and completely devastated my self-esteem. I am still working on getting it back.
I would still try to work it out (I don't think he would) but some things would have to be resolved before he could come back. We still have good moments of going out to dinner or chatting on the phone for long periods and bad times where he refused to talk to me at all.
I don't know how what to say to you except to make sure a divorce is what you want before you go, if so, prepare before you leave, and read as many of the chats (even previous) as you can. You will find some women who had to leave for safety, some who wanted to leave their marriage, and some who are still fighting for their marriages. Maybe some of the things they have went through can help guide you. Keep us posted on how things go.
Hi. That sounds a lot like what I was dealing with. Some very wonderful, special moments or times, and then without warning, he'd snap, belittle, criticize, yell. Or get really dark and negative (I called this his toxic state). Also periods where he just dismissed or ignored me. I too walked on eggshells, trying not to trigger any of this bad stuff. But the key word you say is "unpredictable."
It took me many years to learn a very hard lesson that this behavior in him was not something I could control with my behavior. There was no bright sunny action I could take or way I could be in order to prevent these drastic changes of weather, so to speak. This is because these behaviors stemmed from deep inside him, not from me. My issue of course was over-care and trying to tiptoe around him - it played into his negativity and made it worse--fueling a lack of respect in him for me. But ultimately, he is in charge of these behavior choices and you can't prevent them.
You say you are feeling emotionally exhausted - I get that!! I found this dynamic exhausting too. It might be worth investigating some things...might he be depressed or bipolar? Is this bad enough to be emotional or verbal mistreatment? I don't want to diagnose anything or label anything for sure...but the dynamic you mention is so familiar to me and is also so frustrating because the good times are so good I always thought why can't they stay; why can't I fix this?