I am not with him anymore. He got a job about 3 hours away 2 weeks ago and moved out. I told him I was not going with him. I was worried about his reaction, but he just left. He even said he has no desire to raise 3 kids so I can have them. So I have been by myself since then. I am glad, because I believe he is setting the precedent for me to have custody. My biggest concern in all of this was the kids - I really wanted them to stay with me. I have known for a long time that I really needed to get out and was planning to, I just needed to find the right time. And this has (luckily) been the perfect way and worked out much better than I had hoped.

As far as my friend. I have felt like I have to choose between her and him, which seems so unfair, but I think I understand. But I still do not know if she will want me back in her life regardless of whether I am with him or not. So I decided not to make any decisions based on her. But what I can say is that even though it took as long as it did for me to finally not be living with him, I have slowly gotten better. Emotionally I am miles away from where I was at this point last year. So I know I am making progress, just slowly. And I think my emotions will take a long time to completely heal.