Personal Realization

As I continue to move on and further break thoughts, emotions, and reactions from Josh and the last eight years, I have come to some self realizations I am a little sad to admit.  However, I think it explains my part in allowing myself to be unhappy for so long and why I allowed the emotional and verbal abuse I did. 
Let's go back to High School. Height: short, popularity: average, social group: religious/nerds build: average to overweight. 
To be blunt, I was depressed a lot and I didn't like myself.  Like every other teenage girl, I compared myself to my peers, and most especially my older, popular, skinny, cheerleader sister. In my own eyes, I was just never good enough.  Outside sources also led me to weigh heavy on my self esteem, until it was something that became deeply rooted: I just wasn't enough, which led to a lot of self hate and disdain.
Skip ahead a couple of years to the point where I meet Josh.
Josh was unique and unlike other boys I had been with as he made me feel beautiful, valuable and alive in a way I had never experienced before.  Josh's words and actions made me feel whole for the first time in my life.  I thought that was what love was, so I latched on, scared to lose the feeling of completeness he gave me. So, in reaction to this new feeling, I built my life and identity around my relationship with Josh.  Since it was the thing that made me feel whole, it is what I used to identify with.  I was Josh's wife.  I took to the role and did everything I could to be the best wife to Josh I could be. 
Skip ahead another seven or eight years and you find us at the crux of our relationship.  Josh had become a totally different person.  The temper, anger, drinking, and smoking in excess were not good for him, me or the children, but yet I begged.  I stayed, I continued to falsely hope.
why?
That is a question I have asked myself a lot.  Why did I stay for three years of lies and torment when at a certain point I knew our destiny.  Why did I keep taking myself back into staying and fighting for something that was obviously, no longer there?
For starters, although it was obvious Josh no longer loved me, in the thick of things, it doesn't really seem all that obvious and there was the genuine love I had for Josh and the relationship we had at one point.  There was also the fact that I did want to honor my marriage covenants and fight on together as I had been taught to do, but the big reason, that I am finally able to admit to is this:
I was scared and terrified.
I was scared of financials and being a single mom, but those weren't the real underlying fear.
The fear was this:
I was nerver enough for myself in High School, then I finally found somed someoeone and loved someone for so long, to then find out, I was never enough for them as well, so how, how was I supposed to give up on the only identity and love I have ever had for myself?  My relationship with Josh was more than just a relationship.  It had become my life and my identity.  How and who was I supposed to be without it? It scared me to death to think I would be reduced to a heap of rejected, broken pieces of Cherish that were never enough in the first place. 
depressing right? Keep in mind at this point I was not in a happy place and had taken a lot which reduced me to the victimized, self loathing state I accepted, but there it is. I hated myself and was scared to be alone.
The infidelity as well as other choices made by Josh forced me into a possession that made me react and you know what? I lost everything but my kids.  I lost a husband, I lost an income, I lost a life of promises and hopes I thought I was going to have. I lost a wedding ring, I lost my identity, and I lost a complete family. I was left with wreckage and it was swim or die.
You know what I did?
I have slowly put the pieces together. Sanded, painted, modified, worked, sweated, and cried over the wreckage and I have build myself a ship.  From nothing, I have found the me within and have loved, encouraged and worked on.  I still have days I hate myself or how I look or how I mother or how I react etc, etc. but overall, I know my worth. I know who and what I am and I regret not having known it sooner than the age of 28 as I lost so much time investing my energy into an identity that was based on lies.  Individual worth is a real thing and I cannot stress enough to each of you, the value  you have.  I was scared, untrusting and weak and while I believe all things happen for a reason, I feel I endured more pain and abuse than was needed due to the abuse I was already dealing to myself. 
Don't forget your worth.  A crumpled, dirty, marked up $20 bill is still worth $20.