tl;dr I'm ready to leave my husband but wondering if I'm the problem and changing my patterns is the real way to go. He refuses therapy so I'm asking the Internet instead.

My Husband (45) of 18 months and I (33) have always had a very difficult relationship. We met early 2019 and were long distance until about June 2022. He was the sole caretaker of his terminally ill mother in South Asia, I was living in Europe getting a European passport.

I felt horrible about what was happening to him - he lost his brother and father recently and now was dealing with his mother having terminal cancer. Despite initial red flags (we fought a lot and very ugly - name calling, shouting fights that left me shaking/bawling etc), I stayed in the relationship pushing down my needs and thoughts because it was not the right time to desert him.

We are from conservative South Asian families so the marriage was (for me) a way for us to live together so I could support him and his mother. It was also to help get me into his country with a visa etc.

Last year, I managed to get a job that sends me to his country regularly. so we spent the whole last year taking care of his mom who I loved deeply as well. She died in our arms last winter. so of course no time for our relationship then. Since then, the old patterns continue - fighting has reduced to once or twice a month (used to be almost weekly).

From the start of this year, I've felt less and less connected to him. but every time I raise this, there's an ugly fight that ends in name calling, contemptuous statements from both sides. I have been saying I want out of this relationship for a long time and when it escalates like this, I say it and mean it. but I've never followed through until now because I didn't want to leave him alone when his mother was sick. in my mind, I was going to give our relationship another year. I thought now there will be time and space to focus on our relationship.

But I don't see much effort from his side - he doesn't want to speak about our problems and when we do, he insists that there isn't a problem, it's just my negative perspective. I can see that I have a negative perspective about our relationship but it's based on a host of concerning factors - he smokes up daily, doesn't take much care of his health, he's not responsible or considerate of other people's time, I don't feel understood when I'm with him, I don't feel empathy from him about my troubles with my own family, I'm terrified of triggering fights and they stay unresolved, we have a dead bedroom. So yeah I fuck up by often talking about wanting out of this relationship. But I also often have cause and genuinely want out of it.

I moved in June to his country with that job to give this a proper shot. but I don't feel anything but trapped and anxious and I don't see how that can change when we're not getting therapy and not really talking about this. I'm burnt out. Thoughts?