Indulge the retrospective...I need to remember this shit.

December 2012----I left my husband...again. I have never been good at completely closing ANY door.... The husband is a raging alcoholic and completely in denial. As far as he's concerned, there is nothing wrong with him and his actions never had any impact on our family. Any problems that I see, are merely my own distorted perceptions. This has been going on for years. He manipulates everyone he comes in contact with...including our children. They have never seen a *normal* parental unit; with affection, common courtesy or shared responsibility. I met him in a homeless men's shelter 14 years ago. Yes, I married a homeless man. People can call me many things, but none of them could truthfully include "Gold-Digger". Why? He was older; wiser and a man. He made me laugh. He was charming. The chemistry between us WAS a major aspect of our relationship. I also thought he was good and decent---a feature that wholly differed from the "boys" I always seemed to find myself falling for in the past.
I was pregnant, immediately. The day my son was born, he quit his job. It was quite clear-- very quickly, that I did not have a life partner. The marriage was in trouble within a year, yet, I conceived my daughter (thankfully) and we hung in there for our little *family*. Misery, deception and depression was on the horizon... My job was a great one. Outward appearance of our life was a good one. Yet, we had 2 small children; a deteriorating  relationship I resented and I was falling in love with another man, who didn't love me back. Life was not turning out the way I had hoped, but, per my modus operandi, I hung in there---resolute I could fix us! Silly, foolish deluded and WRONG! He found out about my affair during the 2nd year, yet lived in denial for many more. Deny, deny, deny... and man did I lie and lie a lot....My friend with bennys situation was morphing into something more serious to me...It became the number one issue of every fight. "We where just friends"; "I get along better with males", "of course I'm not screwing him"...blah, blah, for what became YEARS. It was an arduous, phony farce. The sad reality was, though, I cared deeply for my "friend". But, it took me a ridiculously long time to FINALLY get the FACT that I had one place in his life and it was in the dark. I took that place for a very long ass time--through other girlfriends, through a marriage(or 2?), through most probably the best years of my life and only recently decided I could no longer be that woman and I need to really add...unrequited anything is a true bitch. I can't write about it now, but I will never forget "the day". The epiphany. I felt kicked in the gut. I cried for a week. Made the mistake of telling him it hurt me. He thought I "understood". He will never know the extent of how I felt about our *situation*, because as he said to another years before, "How I feel about him is not his problem". I allowed him to do a number on me and that number would be 2....wounded, bitter and 12 years older...did I mention pissed? Now maybe with this said...my words and perceptions will make some sense...fuck, maybe not.