i have this too! my abusive, pathologically lying, cheating, sociopath ex is married. they don’t have kids yet. but he married her like that in a snap. i think about it all the time. that it was me. and/or that she is in a really messed up situation that she may not entirely see yet. she is younger than me and…

His actions were not your fault, full stop. I don’t know him, so I can’t say for absolutely certain, but generally those are patterns of behavior that don’t change easily. If he changed it’s because he worked long and hard on his behavior, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.