Thank you so much, lesliej, for your post. It made me cry, but I did hope so much. He kept saying, on the way out the door, that I was negative and mean, and I really did think that I had lost hope before he left -- I lost hope that I would have a secure future, I lost hope that he would ever become a responsible adult and that I would just be his wife/mother until I die, pushing myself to keep us all housed, fed, clothed and entertained, but I see now that I DID hope; just because I was disappointed in the progress and the actual regression in his behavior, I did HOPE, but it was groundless hope.
At various times in our relationship, when I would panic about the financial doom I was facing, and I would get stern, he would say "I'm not the one--I'm not the one who did those things to you" (meaning the guy before him, who manipulated me, used me and my money, cheated on me, and hit me)...but AH is/WAS the one, and that's why I was freaking out on him, because my intuition was telling me this was the same old song and dance, just a different venue.