About a friend....

I have a friend who is going through something terribly similar to my situation.  Funny thing is, he is on the opposite side, as in, the role of my STBX, for all intents and purposes, would be played by him.  He got angry, he busted down the door (all too familiar)....she kicked him out and now he's coping with the possibility of divorce, at her request of course. (That's where we differ--I SHOULD have asked for divorce, but I didn't.. . .however, i digress...) Regardless, he is making me take a second look at my situation as I talk to him and try to reason and justify some things. And it's not easy for me to admit that I was wrong about anything. But I'm sitting her pointing out everything that his wife is doing/has done. . . and ... it's me to some extent. Maybe not all the craziness, but for instance.... he said "she told me that i'm such an asshole, something is missing and she can't want me or love me anymore"......And i had to remember myself saying the VERY SAME THING!  I had tried to explain on more than one occasion to my STBX this very concept.  We started out, I thought, so very much in love. But I think love is relative and that is an entirely separate entry altogether.  Even if you assume it was love. . . you live your life with this person, day in and day out.  You laugh, you talk, you argue, you have sex. . . That's a three to one ratio there: laugh, talk, sex..... (3) and argue (1).  Well the considerably unfair statistic here is that you can do a million good things and completely erase it with one terrible thing.  I don't know if men are wired that way or not. But women are. call it unfair, call it a double standard, whatever you feel like you need to label it. But it's the truth. Well, a million may be an exaggeration, but you get what I mean.  And STBX could be "good" for days, even weeks on end......Then a blow up about the step son...or money....or the dog....or any little thing and he would lose it, yell, scream, throw, etc... and that hurt, or disrespect, or whatever black mark it may be, would chip away at my soul. . . . A heartfelt apology could repair the chip, but nothing could ever make it whole again. The damage was done. Well after a decade of chipping away at my soul, I didn't love him anymore.  My divorce was a relief in a sense.  And he was the bad guy, which made it all the easier for me to accept the happiness (difficult as it was to muddle through initially).  No, I wasn't perfect and I'm sure I did my share of chipping. He does not love me anymore either.  So are we even?  It's never even. The song says "when a heart breaks no it don't break even...."  At this point, it is not about pointing fingers. What's done is done.  My soul is chipped, my heart is ever so slightly jaded and my emotions lead me to consistently wait for the other shoe to drop. . . . My friend has a huge task on his hands. Do you stay, for the children, in a relationship that you know neither of you will be happy in, and stick it out? Or do you walk away, start a separate life with your children, and at the very least be able to let them see you happy?  Well, it depends on how much soul you have left.... at what point do you realize that neither of you barely have any soul left to save.... he's the only person who knows that.