I (29F) have been in a relationship with my boyfriend (35M) for almost 6 years. We have moved across the country several times, I waited for him during his deployment, and for the most part our relationship has been wonderful until nearly a year ago.
A year ago, he suffered an assault that left him with a concussion and possibly a TBI. I say possibly because he has refused to get any real medical help so we can't make an actual determination of his condition. He ignored his symptoms to the point where he was hving an extreme fever and a panic attack and i had to drive him to the hospital and cut his daughters birthday short. He also refused to talk to the police about the event, so we had to pretend like nothing happened. After the attack his behavior started to change. He began drinking heavily, missing work, having memory issues, and months later had to be admitted to a psychiatric facility after he had a panic attack and attacked an EMT while being transported to the hospital. While this is going on I am trying to shield his daughter (not my child, mother not in picture) from this chaos.
We move back to our hometown with a lower cost of living and a day shift job in hopes that his condition would improve as he was missing multiple nights of sleep at a time. The drinking continues, he ends up drinking rubbing alcohol and missed work for two weeks.
Eventually this ended and I thought I was out of the woods, but today I find out he was arrested for disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer. He is still in jail so I can't discuss it with him but I'm going crazy and getting my ducks in a row so that I can leave because I don't anticipate his behavior improving. The issue is I feel horrible, I've been with him for so long, we've been through so much together and his daughter is very attached to me, I feel like I'd be leaving two broken hearts in my wake if I left. At the same time, I know logically and in My heart that I can't afford to stay, I only have so much time to have a family of my own and I don't want to subject my children to this mess. I need people to help embolden me so I can feel justified in leaving and move on with my life. How can I mitigate the inevitable emotional damage this will do to his daughter while also giving my boyfriend closure?
TLDR boyfriend has serious issues that he refuses to address, causes intermittent binge drinking episodes that result in poor behavior and legal consequences. Need help convincing myself to just leave.