Why did you stay so long?

I get asked this question often, usually by people that have only known me a short time. The answer is simple yet complicated. I stayed for my kids, it's that simple. But is it? I didn't seek divorce because I was afraid. I was afraid that I couldn't do it. I had been a stay at home mom for 18 years, 18 fucking years. That's a long time to put everyone in your life before you. It's a long time where you could have been doing something else, but those kids of mine, they were my number one. I have no regrets staying home and doing everything. Everything from carpool to dinner, to all the cleaning and laundry. Day in and day out I put my needs and wants on the back burner. I made sure everyone had lunches made, dinner every night, clean clothes to wear. It all landed on me and I loved it. I loved it so much I looked the other way, I made excuses. I didn't notice his drinking problem until me moved to Modesto but again, I made excuses for him. Then shortly after that move he lost his job and moved us to Montana, against my wishes. Every fiber in me didn't want to move there, I begged him to call his parents, to move us back to San Diego. He wouldn't do it, his mom found out we moved months, yes MONTHS, later because the girl changed her school on Facebook. He started drinking as soon as he would wake up and didn't stop until he passed out, snoring, on the couch. I look back and I don't know how I just sat back and watched this happen, I guess I thought once he found a job it'd be better. I was so wrong, so very wrong. He got a job and guess what, he'd come home with empty beer bottles in his cooler. I'd confront him and he'd play it off like it was nothing. He got a different/better job a month later, I thought for sure he stopped drinking so much. We would still drink a lot but I never thought he was drinking at work. He was, he also started smoking, trying to hide it from me. Let's fast forward to him getting fired from that better job. He told me he didn't know why but come to find out years later it was because of drinking. He was putting alcohol in gas station fountain cups. How did I not see it? I believed him and encouraged him to take action, he never did. Now I know why, they had reason to fire his drunk ass, I was just blinded by hope. Hope that things would improve for us, hope that I could stop stressing every day over money and how I was going to feed and clothe my kids. Yes, I say I because at this point there was no we. There was only a shell of a body that was passed out 75% of the time. This is when the abuse started. This is when he started calling me names, treating me like a child. He started demanding I leave get togethers before I was ready and yelling at me in front of everyone. This is when he threw a cutting board at me. This is when he'd bang on the burb window demanding I get the fuck inside. I can't count how many times he called me a whore in front of one or more of our children. This is when I knew our marriage was over for certain.......it was just a matter of time and me getting the courage to leave. I convinced him, finally, to move us back to Phoenix. Again I got my hopes up that he could and would find a job. A job that would require him to stop drinking. So I decided I was going to try, once again to make this marriage work.....