I'm glad I never looked for happy ending years ago. I let go, actually I didn't take hold - I wouldn't let D be more than a friend, I knew he was in real trouble, I knew he didn't want to deal with it. What I thought of him as a person was about who he was then, WHO he was not what was happening - I liked him, he was a gentle, caring, funny clever guy. But it was so sad to see him decide he's rather drink himself to death, it seemed like such a loss. It did hurt to watch, he didn't like me or anyone being hurt so left, I didn't try to find him, didn't try to see how he was - I had seen enough to know I didn't like watching.
For years I got on with life, finished uni, got a house, a car, travelled, got a horse and two dogs, got a dream job, LIVED. I had fond memories of D but zero expectations, after a few years I guessed he'd probably be dead on insitutionalised, I felt lucky to have known him though. I stayed single because mostly other men were like a christmas present I unwrapped then didn't like!
A decade later I got an email from D. In the years between he had gone the majority of the way on his own, he rang me sober, employed, a driver with a flat. He was far from dead or institutionalised and I was overjoyed.
Had I known that would happen, had I gone to look, had I never let go I don't think it would have happened at all. We talk about it sometimes and how it wouldn't have worked all those years ago. I couldn't have lived those years hoping and wishing just for one thing because I had a life to live and my own growing up to do.
Anyway - here's the happy ending we got married and I have no regrets. Despite last year when D took double the dose of beta blockers after the doc told him his heart was too slow - then went drinking, despite the fact it was far from over. What I can't so easily describe is how much I needed those years between, to find my own feet and for him to find his. Without it being that way I don't think he would have been sober for the last 6 months.
I don't regret letting him go - even if that had been the last I'd seen it would have been the right thing for US at THAT time. I don't regret marrying him a decade later either as a complete package, NOT based on wishing and hoping.