I'm so sorry NotTheMama, thanks for sharing with us.
I've been with my STBXAH for 25ish years now. He's a drunk and a cheat yes, but he also understood my sense of humor like no one else on earth, and that was worth a quarter of a century.
I am who I am now partially because of those 25 years. It's hard to imagine being someone else, and I like myself well enough, so that makes it hard to imagine any other different scenario. I guess that means I don't regret the years.
Having said that, I will admit that I'm not proud of how long it took me to finally face what I was becoming in my marriage. I always knew he drank, but it shouldn't have taken me 25 years to realize how sick his drinking was making me.
So although I don't regret the years I stayed married, I do think I should have walked sooner (like maybe 25 years sooner).