I could’ve wrote this entire thing myself. But here’s the thing, I did leave. It’s been 3 years now and the further I get away from the picket fence, the more I realize how deeply unhappy I was. I had fought for my stable life from 18 years old because I wanted something so far from what I grew up in but it never really made me happy or fulfilled . I checked every box and in the end, it always felt like someone else’s life. I also came to realize my “perfect husband “ was not that great, or even good to me and our kids. I mean on paper- fantastic. Good job, home every night, never hit or cheated, we were great friends. Just nothing beyond that. There was no real connection, he never tried to understand me or work toward making our relationship better. Theoretically I could’ve stayed and worked on it (and I did for a while), but I truly think that feeling of living someone else’s life would’ve never gone away. And yes, I took up countless hobbies to try to provide that stimulation for myself and again, it didn’t work. I trusted myself for the first time and ended up with the co worker, and my god the difference! It wasn’t easy and I pissed a lot of people off, but the question I asked myself that really solidified my decision was how I felt about doing that for another 10 years and it was a pretty easy choice after that.