Not sure what to do

I’ve been in a relationship for two years with someone I really love. However, I am also in a marriage that has been difficult to leave due to children, which doesn’t make me feel great about myself.

The extra relationship has been beautiful. Everything I ever dreamed. Until about 6 months in, he added an old friend (who I am not friends with anymore and haven’t been for a long time) on his Snap. I was wary of this and told him about our history and I was uncomfortable, but trusted him. Flash forward two months, I was on a sports trip with my child and just happened to look on our Snap and there he was at a bar with her after promising he was going away with his cousin for the weekend. He swears she was there. For his cousin, but the lies he told regarding this were extraordinary (I miss you so much, I’m so bored, I could never dance without you). It broke trust and I did not leave my marriage as I planned because of this. We worked over the summer to rebuild and went on a beautiful vacation to the beach.

However, after this trip, he began really pressuring me to leave. And I would have if I had felt I had built trust. But he was so insistent and also put a time limit on me being able to “discuss” my feelings on what had happened. He became less and less happy, often crying and telling me he was on the floor and his teen children were having I lock him up off the floor. My desire to leave was strong, I love him, but he became increasingly angry and negative. This worsened after the holidays and he was angry all the time. Anywhere I went, such as my children’s military graduation and college graduation, he completely ruined the day by guilting me and arguing with me. My son was planning to get married in May of this year, and he told me if I went to the wedding without him, it was over. Which, due to the situation, I could not do, but he told me my children would get over it and he should be able to be there.

My birthday was in March and he didn’t get me a card or gift, he absolutely ruined the day by being cold and telling me if I had come home, it wouldn’t be that way.

By May, he was very angry most the time. I had weird vibes about him and a friend of mine (who did not know about me) and I had messaged him about it. I told him it would break my heart to find out I was right. He called me a cunt, bitch, psycho, and absolutely tore me to shreds saying I was insulting him etc. A week later I found out that when I sent that, he was on his way to meet her. He said she has been drinking and he went to protect her and invited her to his home to stay the night to feel safe. He did not know her personally. He claims he had no idea sex would happen, even though when he met her, she didn’t have on pants or panties. He claimed she came on to him and it just happened and he was crushed, but he held her all night in bed and assured her of her beauty and safety all night.

A few days after this, he had asked her for a personal relationship and she blocked him. He said he did it because he was freaking out and doing damage control to see “where she was” regarding keeping it quiet. But, I had noticed things were off badly by this point and asked him if something had happened. He cussed me out, screamed at me, degraded me, and three days later I found out they had sex. I had to ask her. She told me he initiated it and that she was drunk. He says she did. But anyway, when he realized I was asking her, he went completely off and lost his mind, putting me down, cussing me, degrading me. And then he started the “help me, I love you, I need help.” He cried and cried and I had to take care of him that night instead of the other way around.

Quickly following, in the next week, he started hitting me for the first time. Badly. Anytime I brought up questions about what happened, he would absolutely beat me badly. He beat me unconscious, strangled me, and on one occasion my face was tingling and I thought I would die. I’ve had a lot of head injuries from the abuse. He hasn’t hit me for about a week, but only bc I threatened to tell someone. But he tells me I provoked him and made him that way by asking about the cheating.

Now, he has decided he is going to have to leave me to protect his heart. I’ve made him someone he’s not by grieving wanting to be with me. I should believe him instead of that “whore” who he told was the most beautiful woman he ever had in his bed. But I’m not allowed to talk about it bc that insults him and it is off the table. He feels too bad about it to talk about it. But he is going to break it off bc I won’t move out and move in with him. He’s given me a date I have to have a lease by or he will have to move on. He cries and cries and I truly do not think he’s talking to anyone else. I’ve checked his phone some.

I just don’t know what to do and I don’t trust myself anymore. I love him and want a life with him, but I don’t know if he is truly just hurting to be with me or if I’m being manipulated and gaslit. Wouldn’t he have another supply if this was a game or if he didn’t truly want me? I don’t know what to do.