where to begin?

I told him I wanted a divorce in September.

I decided for the first time that I didn't want to be married....I'm not even really sure when.  I remember a friend talking me into staying married in March of 2010.  I was turning 40.  I thought maybe it was a midlife thing for me.  But it didn't get better.  To be honest, I'm not sure that it could be better when only one of us knows that this is the last chance to work things out and the other one thinks that the marriage is sufficiently ok.  

But it hasn't been ok for a really long time.  Since the beginning really.  How do you salvage something that was broken so early on?  I won't try to place blame and say it's all his fault.  Because it's not.  In the past few months I've realized that I never meant to marry my father.  But I did.  Not that he tried to control me.  Not so much.  But I could never stand up for myself.  I never felt that my opinions mattered.  That what I thought or wanted was important.  So I let it be whatever he wanted it to be.  Vacations.  How we spent our down time.  Who we were friends with.  I lost myself.  Early on.  Even before I said "I do".  I wanted it to work so much that I did whatever it took to make him happy.

And that has been how it's always been.  If he's in a mood, I can fix it.  Even when I'm in a mood, I try to snap out of it to keep the peace.  I've felt at times that I was always working on keeping it together.  Except when he was at work.  Or out of town.  Then it was easy.  I could be who I wanted. Do what I wanted.  Think what I wanted.

So now I'm in this place.  Of feeling totally unknown by the man I've been with for 20 years, married for over 19 years.  With 6 kids.  How do I extricate myself from this life?  And who am I taking with me?  It's weird to see how lines have already been drawn.  I'm preparing for a fight and hoping that one doesn't come.  Then again, maybe all this pent up anger needs to go somewhere.