Trying to plan again…

I (39F) tried to initiate divorce with my husband (40M) a few months ago, but he wore me down and convinced me to work on our relationship.

Since then, I feel that his emotional abuse has been more frequent, but subtle. Lately, he pokes at me or lectures me every weekend about one thing or another, some of the things he says are just completely inaccurate or out of left field. It’s now clear to me he isn’t capable of change and just wants to control.

I’ve realized a couple things from my attempt to leave:

• he will not leave the house
• his tactic is to talk at me nonstop for hours on end and it eventually wears me down, I begin to doubt myself. I feel like I’m being held hostage when he’s talking nonstop and it’s this cycle that leaves me feeling disoriented and stuck.

So when I attempt to leave again, I think I need to leave the house. Which stinks - his parents live 10 minutes away and have spare bedrooms. My parents have passed and I have no where close by to go. But I fear that if we both stay in this house, he will wear me down again. If I try to leave again, I cannot fold next time. We have an 8 and 10 year old and I do not want to be away from them.

I have a couple questions, not sure where to ask but figured I’d see if anyone here has experience with either situation:

• If he’s talking at me nonstop/trying to provoke me after the kids go to sleep and I leave the house for the night just to get away from him and come back in the morning…can this be used against me?

• If I decide to leave and take the kids with me, be it an extended stay hotel or shelter…can this be used against me?

I’d ask an attorney, but he pressured me into disengaging my attorney and showing him proof, as well as getting my unused retainer back. At this point, I can’t put down a retainer again so I’m assuming the attorney won’t answer any questions for me until I put down a retainer again.