I Was Married to a Difficult Man

His father is/was a difficult man, and I suspect that DH's younger son is/will be a difficult man for the woman who is fortunate enough to be married to him (he's still single, but has been dating the same young lady for about a year). I once told my mother-in-law that she and I were married to the same man, just at different stages in their lives. She laughed and agreed.

I don't mean difficult in a particularly negative way. In fact, I always considered my marriage to DH to be an adventure, and one of the most interesting adventures I've ever had. I didn't marry (for the first time) until I was 45, and DH was 48. He had been married several times, but the longest marriage was to the mother of his sons, and that lasted for around fourteen years. If DH had been able to stop drinking while they were married, the marriage might have lasted, but who knows?

DH had very high expectations of himself, and therefore, he had very high expectations for everyone else in his life. When he didn't live up to his own expectations, he became very frustrated, and the same thing could happen when one of the people in his life didn't meet DH's standards for them. He was never deliberately unkind; in fact, he was one of the most tender-hearted people I've ever known. He was sometimes gruff, but I think that was probably to cover up his sensitive side. He was always willing to help anyone who needed him, and because of his past, he had a special place in his heart for those struggling with addictions.

I once told DH's sons that I had never met anyone who didn't like their father. I told them that there had been some times when their mother wasn't particularly fond of him, but that they had both worked through their issues and she even liked him again by the time he passed away (at my invitation, she came to be with us at the hospital while we waited; they boys needed their mom since they were losing their dad).