I am pleased that you have found a support in someone who knows what it is like to love and live with a person with an addiction.
If that support brings you relief and some happiness then long may it continue.
The comments that you have received from the others you mention are from those who have not walked in your shoes or had the misfortune to have the unwelcome intrusion of this addiction in their life. They are comments born out of ignorance, lack of knowledge and experience and not worth taking much notice of.
You will have asked all of these questions like many of us, of ourselves, thousands of times before coming to the decisions that you have. You will have judged yourself enough and I suspect you are still judging yourself now.
If he was rolling around the streets completely off his head on drugs or alcohol behaving in a socially unacceptable way, if he had an addiction such as that everyone would be able to clearly see it and I should think they would all be saying what’s she doing with him, walk away etc etc. This addiction and its characteristics are so well hidden and invisible it seems to be viewed by some as not so damaging !! because they cannot see it.
The very fact that you are being asked ‘ have you tried enough ‘ etc or whatever BS it was that you were asked shows the lack of knowledge.
You have done enough, you have done more than enough, you have probably done too much. He is the owner of the addiction, you are not. It was within his capacity to change it wasn’t within yours. For whatever reason he was not ready to change – he didn’t do enough !
Its not easy to walk away, I’ve done it myself, its hard and these feelings don’t go away over night or by themselves. Keep focusing on you, your children and on going forwards.
I’m not going to say don’t look back as I know you will, I catch myself frequently doing just that but now more so to remind myself of a place that I will never revisit or to draw on all that I’ve learned to apply it elsewhere.
The pain gets less with time, but it also takes work to carry on putting one foot in front of the other. Just as a CG has to work and be commited to their own recovery then so do we, it doesn’t happen on its own.
You are doing well and you have nothing to question yourself about. It takes a strong person to walk away and accept that you also have the right to make a better life.
Life is a series of choices, he made his and you’ve made yours
I wish you peace as you grow in your recovery
Jenny