Movinon,
I commend you for leaving the abusive situation you were in. Yes, your children are sooooooo much better for it. I agree.
My mother finally did divorce my step father, 13 years later, after their children were grown pretty much. I was married by that time when I heard about it, but before that, I was to hear about bags and bags of junk put out to the curb by my Mother, that my step-father had collected and hidden over the years.
I mean, my step-father would trim the dead skin from his feet and save it in jars and breadbags for YEARS! He had both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and also Obsessive COmpulsive Personality DIsorder and Paranoid Schizophrenia, Borderline and other things. He was an obsessive cigarette smoker (can recall years of riding in the car with headaches because he refused to open the windows for air while he smoked) He destroyed his body with cigarettes, then later his brain literally physically deteriorated from the diseases he ended up with...in short, by the time he died, he went crazy. He was found slumped over dead in his apartment with the door locked and sitting at his table, gun propped up and aimed toward the door.
We cleaned out 8 garages full of junk from him, 5 of which contained automobiles...cadillacs, oldmobiles, etc...he couldn't even sell his CARS during his life! inside each car was more junk...old underwear, multiple items from the Home SHopping Club on Tv, duplicates of many brand new things, papers with scrawled writing on it, dirty diapers of his girlfriend's children that he never threw out! My step-dad was very very mentally ill.
~Laura
