You've come a LONG way, BABY!

My daughter sent me an old letter she found that her dad had written to her when she was in college and a letter that was her reply to him. When you look up "deadbeat dad" in the dictionary it has his picture. When you look up all the words spelled like this:
@#$**^%##, his picture is by those, too.
Anyway, he gave her a million excuses why he couldn't help her with college expenses (even though he was ordered by the court to do so) and also gave her his 'poor pitiful me' speech. She came back at him with BOTH barrels and told him what she thought.
The amazing thing about all of it is that reading things like that about him and how he treated my kids used to cause me to go into a total HISSY RAGE. But this time I just felt so sorry for her for having an ass like him for a dad. He doesn't raise my blood pressure anymore, or get me started on a "ranting, raving, he's such an you know what" tirade.
She had grown up to be an amazing woman. My sons have grown up to be good men, in spite of their biological dad. Of course, they also have an amazing STEP DAD now in my husband. I wish they had him when they were younger. Heck, I wish I HAD HIM when they were younger. But anyway, we all made it. I stumbled along the way, and we all crawled at times, but WE MADE IT.
The letters also made me remember what a difference "life with him" and "life without him" were. Before the divorce I worried so much about how we'd live without his income. After the divorce, that was hard but we managed somehow. But what I didn't expect was how much more relaxed our home would be. I remember not long after the divorce, my kids were laughing to some song on the radio one day and my middle son commented, "Gee, Mom. This is the first time we've laughed in such a long time!" and it was.
If you are an unhappily married woman with a husband who mistreats you and/or your kids, get out. Believe me, years later your only regret will be that you didn't get out of it SOONER and that you wasted so much time being unhappy.
Thanks, daughter, for pointing out to me how far we've come.
We've COME A LONG WAY, BABY!