I wanted to be that guy that hung in there and we made it out as a couple, but that is impossible.
I can so relate to this. And that's almost the definition of codependency, isn't it?
You reached your limit. Ain't a thing wrong with that. For me, I hung in there longer than I probably should have because I wanted to
know in my heart of hearts that I had done everything possible to help AXH get sober. Someone else here used the metaphor of saving myself and my children from a burning building while leaving him sitting inside insisting that there is no fire.
You've saved your children from a hell mine lived through for way too long. Leaving something that is no longer healthy is not a failure, it's
sanity. Like my boss once told me (and apologies for the non-PC-ness of this): "Old Cherokee saying: When you riding horse, and horse dies, get off horse."