Can you just leave for the rest of the weekend? Do you have anything keeping you home, except the fear that your DH will flood the house and not realize it? I think your DH calling you a "bitch" in front of his kids is a "hill to die on" situation that demands a quick and tough response, thus my advice to leave for the weekend.

Since you are a long time lurker, you are familiar with disengagement - which is what you need to start doing if you are going to survive this situation.

Have you considered some sort of therapy? Either for the two of you, or for you alone so you can get some help figuring out why you think you deserve to be treated so poorly. Your DH sounds like a jerk and you deserve so much more!

Hang in there and come back and give us more details when you can. We care...

What's keeping you there?  Life with the skids sounds miserable, and your husband sounds like a jerk.  Is there a reason you want to continue the servitude and abuse?  Is there a reason you don't want to cut your losses at 8 years and improve your life going forward?

Just pack a bag and leave.  Let he and the progeny of his failed family shallow and polluted gene pool. starve and wallow in their shit hole.

Just get on with your life.  No husband should do what this POS has done to you.

Enjoy your new life adventure.

It's better to alone, then being alone in a relationship.

You made a mistake in your 20's (we all did) but don't let that difine you for the rest of your life.

Go see a lawyer,  start to find away out of this mess and start living your life you don't want to spend the next 30/40 years like this.

Oh and the reason you can't remember why you fell in love with him is because he sold you a lie, if he showed his real self then there would have been no way you would have stayed with him, let alone married him.

Time to read this again if you haven't read it before.  https://markmanson.net/love   It's time to read the whole thing but paragraph # 3.  

." Love is not always worth sacrificing yourself. One of the defining characteristics of loving someone is that you are able to think outside of yourself and your own needs to help care for another person and their needs as well.

But the question that doesn’t get asked often enough is exactly what are you sacrificing, and is it worth it?

In loving relationships, it’s normal for both people to occasionally sacrifice their own desires, their own needs, and their own time for one another. I would argue that this is normal and healthy and a big part of what makes a relationship so great.

But when it comes to sacrificing one’s self-respect, one’s dignity, one’s physical body, one’s ambitions and life purpose, just to be with someone, then that same love becomes problematic. A loving relationship is supposed to supplement our individual identity, not damage it or replace it. If we find ourselves in situations where we’re tolerating disrespectful or abusive behavior, then that’s essentially what we’re doing: we’re allowing our love to consume us and negate us, and if we’re not careful, it will leave us as a shell of the person we once were."    

Girl it is time to love yourself and get out.  If you have to start over again, start over again.  You don't have to give up that career and town if you want but you do have to give up that a$$hole and those evil stepkids.  They don't value you.  They don't respect you.  They don't love you.  

The alternative of being alone is better than being in your situation. Relationships are partnerships. Each person doing thier part. But the more importantly is being with someone who values you, listens to you and is willing to make changes and compromises for you. 

Sometimes we end up in bad relationships, but we are not meant to stay in them and instead we should learn from them. 

It sounds like you knew a long time ago this was not the guy for you, but because you invested so much into the relationship you continue to try and make it work. It will never work, the reason is because you are the only one giving and your DH is happy to keep taking. He doesn't love you. He loves you loving him.

You cannot survive emotionally in a relationship where as long as you do everything your DH wants you to do, he will be happy and in turn he will be nice to you.

Can you go back to a good therapist and work on yourself? If you do that, I promise that at some point, it will be really easy to scoop up your dog and get the hell out of Dodge. You will no longer have the slightest interest in being married to this abusive jerk and his rotten kids for any reason under the sun.

Don't waste anymore time with this loser! You may be in your 30s, but you have time to still enjoy these years! Without brat children and a jerk husband. 

I know it's scary starting over, but focus on the FREEDOM you will have. No longer "serving" other people, cleaning up after them, tip-toeing around them, no being able to "say something" in your own home. You will finally be FREE and it will feel so good. Also, I agree with the above to find a good therapist on your own, preferbly someone with step parent experience. 

Best of luck. 

In my humble opinion, once you have lost the love of each other so thoroughly that you've lost respect, the relationship is over . You're just waiting for someone to make the brave move to call it.  I can see the occasional hard day where you think "he's ACTING like an a$$", or why is she BEING such a "*itch" today.  But that's describing a behaviour, not your opinion of the person you're supposed to love.

But to call you that, to your face, in front of the children, not just once but twice - because you didn't fetch and carry fast enough or with too many complaints for his highness - I'd say the love and respect you two had when you married is long gone and buried.  Unless he is willing to go to counselling STAT to find out what is wrong and how to fix it - you're not doing anyone any good by staying around.  I never advise leaving or giving up - in this case I don't think you have any other option!  Staying, and modelling to those young men that this is how you treat a woman, and she's fine with it is beneath you.  And telling yourself that you've given them 10 or 15 good years, so you have no choice but to give them 40 MORE is crazy.  I divorced in my 30s with the knowledge that I likely have 60 more years on this earth.  The investment of 10 years was not an anchor worth giving up the next 60!

Find someone who values you - starting with yourself.  Envision starting over in a tiny apartment - spotlessly clean.  Open the fridge and everything is exactly how you left it.  Turn on the television and watch exactly what you want, where you want with no grief and hatred directed at you.  Who's the winner in that scenario!  Hugs to you, and prayers too.

You're in your 30's??  Oh that's so young.  Please don't waste the best years of your life on this dumbass.  You have SO much of your life ahead of you yet.

Take the dog and run.  He is abusive and you do not deserve it.

Just go. Take the dog and go.

Can you even go to a shelter? Him verbally abusing you and calling you a bitch in front of his kids is reason enough.

Abuse does not have to be physical in order to qualify to get into a womens refuge shelter (here in NZ anyway).

Stay safe. Just take what you need, and GO.

Good on you!

I had to read through everything because I was hoping for a happier ending to all that.

Thank goodness he "came clean (or dirty)" to you so now you have the perfect excuse/reason to get out of dodge. If you can, line up a bulldog killer lawyer. And interview with some others so he cannot utilize them.

Start making copies of financial documents and stashing them somewhere at work. Start getting your finances together, separate bank accounts and credit cards. 

Make copies and document EVERYTHING possible. Any assaults, any violence, name calling, etc.

Since you do not have a good support system, and with COVID lockdowns everywhere (Im in California), you need to start creating one. Can you volunteer somewhere?

Get a new place to land. I understand that April is your leave date.

DO NOT HAVE SEX with this cretin ever again. He is planning on replacing you and still wants your benefits. You know that you cannot trust him, so just assume that you will get an STI from him, and do not give in to his begging or promises of being better.

I'm so sorry you are going through this, but Im EXTREMELY glad that you are here and posting. 8 years of this. EGADS, I cannot imagine. I know that we go into this thinking that things will get better over time, but now you are at critical mass. 

TAKE CARE OF YOU. Stop doing anything for the skids. Take care of you and your pooch. 

(((HUGS)))

You are not stupid for loving someone. Hes a manipulative narcississist, and he probably love bombed you, and now hes showing his true colors.

Please keep posting!