It seems I have weathered the long onslaught and come out pretty alright.

Big positives that I want to list:

-camp host job last summer: won the community parade float, DH made deep friends, got invited back for this upcoming season

-in person visits with my three youngest sons (23,26,27) where they all have acknowledged the teenage years and we were able to have an adult moment of closure. 

-BM died.

-DH bought me a small house on the 13th green of a treasure of a retirement golf course resort. I have a riverside walking path, too!

-I have been developing a little side business, slowly and successfully.

-Performed in a community group. Quite well. 

Now, mind you, none of the negatives nor shitty behaved people have transformed, but today is a space to enjoy the peace and respite from the heartache of stephell. DH felt badgered enough to take a 4 hour drive to where his family (origin fam as well as failed first marriage fam) resides. He will be away for the weekend. He knows that it is not going to be a positive or healing kind of event. His 90 year old mother is banging the dead BM drum, ignoring the criminal and drug-addled history that waste of space left behind. He has quit asking me to attend his family whippings, thankfully. 

The one genetically his grandchild must be between two and three by now, and I bet dollars to donuts that kid is already ruined for a good life trajectory. I still mildly grieve the lost of a dream of family, but mostly I know I have saved myself a world of heartache and manipulative drama.

I do privately gloat; indeed I do. With hard work, diligence, reflection, and consistency, I have clawed back my self esteem from the gaping maw of rejection that DH's family is. I know with certainty that he will come home and the side by side comprison between that shit throwing circus and my sweet santuary will be adequate "I told you so". Those jerks have only become more genuinely themselves with time. They are ugly, slovenly fools inside and out.

I am trying to crowd out the injustice of stephell and the lingering echoes of bad memories with things that complement the person I really am. My DH has been such a nexus of my attention, and conversely, his family. I sold myself short. Ive been disengaged for a good seven years, but I've not been recuperated. I find that I like my company when I am engaged in life in front of me, and just leave his demons in his head.

My thoughts meander. 

I am well. My value is not in my husband's familiy's estimation of me.