I hung in there with my husband for a long time. I did it for our kids. It was sucking the life out of me. One day I told my mom I planned to hang in there for another 8 years, until our youngest was 18. This woman, who has been married 50 years, looked surprised and said to me "Get out, NOW. By that time you will be so used up and miserable you will never recover." I was shocked. She was right. I separated from my husband and you know what? It has been tough on the kids but not as tough as them living with a miserable mom who never smiled, never laughed. It took all the courage I could muster, and I still feel incredible guilt about the kids, but I finally had to look at ME and how it was all affecting ME. And decided I could not take one more year of living with a plastic bag over my head.