Ccumm36D, you ask how this can happen after 20 years, all of a sudden... Well, this prospect is something that makes me very scared. I can feel that she has her hooks in me, that she has a very unhealthy hotline right to my heart, eliciting sympathy and pity even though she treats me like sh*t herself.
I am also pretty confident, especially the way she's ######6 up her life completely (it's not a pretty sight >> last month she got caught having sex in a nightclub toilet with the guy who raped her when she was 13 - also incidentally in a nightclub toilet - counterphobia at it's worst and most destructive), that she WILL remember where the love and care was found, just once in her life. This is not a saviour complex: I really was her first decent guy, and she's back to scum of the earth now.
Soooo, who will she run to when her money runs out? Who will she turn to when her man beats her up and kicks her out? I know damn well who she'll turn to

. And I fear that day...
A big part of the solution is of course simple: I have to let go.. I have to be strong enough so that she does not have her hooks in me. She won't change... But it's damn hard, and I'm afraid...
As a previous poster said, the only thing that is making it easier for me (while making it a damn sight harder on me at the same time) is the extreme nature of her actions and betrayals.
Oh well, better call my therapist again...