If only we could have coffee and chat! Same issue here. My husband was verbally abusive and very selfish and caused a lot of issues in our marriage. A true recognition of the pain and issues he caused was not offered until I was heading out the door. By that time he was willing to do anything to keep the marriage together and admitted pretty much all wrong doing but I could not give him a chance. I was just too resentful for even being in my situation to begin with. I felt that I would really have to turn myself inside out and find a way to make it work and forgive him and I just didn’t see an end to the anger and resentment. I was so upset that it would have to be so much work and for all he put our relationship through. This isn’t even touching on the trust issues I would have to find a way to repair. I really felt like I would have to become a new person and this at a time I was realizing I had lost a lot of myself in this relationship. On one hand I wanted to be all forgiving but on the other I just didn’t see how it was possible despite the huge cost. This put all the weight on my shoulders. Believe me he did not miss a chance to point out that while he did the damage in the relationship I was the one who left and in the end wasn’t willing to try. That I was the one who really gave our relationship the final blow and broke our family apart by not being able to as you say, clean up the mess left inside of me. On a bad day I really buy into this when I miss my family and can’t deal with the responsibility of me decision. On a good day I see that it is much more complex and that marriages really end with tons of little blows, I just dealt the final one. That is something I will have to take responsibility for, for the rest of my life. The guilt can me immense.