Thought of leaving him triggers me. Advice?

Hi all. I have been with my suspected narc for several years. He has always made a massive song n dance about cheating and how despicable it is, and never trusted me, always made me feel guilty for no reason. I however trusted him implicitly to begin with, until events and behaviour started my internal alarm bells quietly ringing and led to me starting to not trust him.
Queue: paranoid me going through his emails. Lo and behold... last night I find that he is a member of 2 online dating sites. Not very active, looks like he just peruses, no evidence of any real engaging with anyone, but still made me feel sick, stupid, and inevitably concluding that what more evidence do I need? I need to leave this horrible man. Not the first time I have reached this conclusion, in fact for most of our relationship I have been in conflict and know deep inside I should leave. Queue: MASSIVE triggered flashback. I feel like nothing without him, I feel like a helpless whelp crying in the cold wind when I contemplate life without him. Then obviously, clever protective mind begins thinking of reasons to stay and how we can "work it out" and get over our problems, be blissfully happy! After all, I know he's got a heart of gold and loves me *really*.. right?! Right! ...instant comfort and relief from flashback. Bad feeling gone. Phew!

So, Richard's resources are second to none, nuggets of pure gold. I really dont know if I would ever have had a hope without having found his channel, and feeling the sweet relief of finally knowing 'what the hell is wrong with me??' and what to do about it. He really has nailed it.

I love his recent vids, his knowledge and understanding seems to be really evolving and refining - he has such an amazing understanding of how CPTSD is unique and has to be tackled in very different ways to your standard 'self-help'. (That'll be why none of that stuff ever worked!). I know that running from pain gets you nowhere but... just as the affirmations have to be approached 'around the houses' then maybe leaving abusive relationships has to be the same in some cases? I really feel like I cant leave this scumbag. There's an invisible forcefield or something! So does anyone have any advice or experience on this one? I'm thinking a gameplan of quietly working away at healing my cptsd to get strong enough to do it. *Sound of a thousand groans* Yes, I'm well aware this might not work if I'm getting retraumatised/triggered by being with him.. but I really cant see another option. I dont think I'm even going to let on I know about the dating sites- what's the point? I'll only be met with denial and excuses.
Anyone else done this and have any advice on how to slowly detach myself? I liken it to being in a massive spider's web, verrry gently extracating oneself so as not to alert it.

I have had to do this same process and the best thing I started to do was keep reminding myself that this person is not like me. They aren't thinking in the same way, they don't truly have my best interest. I had to keep reminding myself how unsatisfied I was and how much stress and chaos this person is causing me. The main thing that helped was once I really got a strong understanding of what personality disorders are. It will never get better as long as I stay with this guy. He is always competing with me, he's not supportive of me, he makes me feel like shit about myself. He doesn't have a firm grip on reality and isn't thinking about our future. I started to detach myself and start to see the reality that I was going to continue with unless I let him go and start to try to work on myself because I was working hard to avoid dealing with my own stuff.

Once you do get away is when it's the hardest because you will go through a good 3 to 4 month withdrawal period because you are so used to the adrenaline spike of this person keeping you on eggshells and uncertainty. Not to mention you will miss the good memories and the things you really liked which you absolutely must work on to keep reminding yourself of the bad things because the pull to go back will be very strong for awhile but just so you to expect that. It will take awhile for the heart and mind to catch up and remember that you had to leave this situation because you want to become healthier and happy again. I hope this helps a little. Yes start planning your escape in secret, and somehow start setting aside some money.

Depending on how entangled you are with finances and stuff it might be more challenging but you have to ask yourself, which is worse? Continuing in this awful situation or a much better future that won't be immediate and will take months to heal from but you will heal if you can start to work on yourself little by little once you are away. Sometimes you have to start over as painful as it is. Good luck to you!