things got ugly again

[EFerrari]

6. I hung in for about 12 years.

In part because I felt that cutting him loose would be wrong since he couldn't manage well on his own and there was no one else. I worked really hard and finally helped him get a measure of stability so it's not likely he will go homeless again and now his friends have a more realistic take on how fragile he can be.

It was at great personal cost to me, though, my career, my immune system which crashed under the stress of those years and of course, my other relationships, my financial stability. Not to mention the three times he put me into the hospital before I figured out how to avoid the violence.

Nothing easy about this, that's for sure.