Lives of quiet desperation

A little over a year ago when not-romeo and I were having a bit of a bad patch my Dad told me that many people live lives of quiet desperation and I remember thinking that he was trying to say that I should be happy with that, little did I realise that he was trying to tell me that he could see that was the situation I was in and he was trying to get me to realise it. So now I have realised it and you could argue that I have removed the cause of that paralysis of quiet desperation but if that is the case, why do I continually second guess myself. Possible reasons: The children - on a good day the smallest child can manipulate the default guilt mode of any mommy to wrap them around the smallest finger, so you can imagine how dangerous these little guys are when armed with "you threw my daddy out" ( I didn't for the record, he left, I just did not let him come back, a small but significant point in my meager defense against the children). Am I just being selfish putting my happiness over their need to have daddy live with them or is the removal of the caustic atmosphere of recent months reason enough and I can only hope they will realise this in time? The family curse - my lovely aforementioned dad inflicted all of his children with an acute sense of "lets look at this from the perspective of the other person", so I cannot look at the damage not-romeo inflicted on the relationship without seeing my flaws at the same time, causing me to second guess my decisions and to always, always feel compassion and sadness for the losses he has experienced, like loosing his home and his children, ok he sees them all the time but I know he feels the loss. I question whether or not I am within my rights to put my needs for happiness ahead of his. Revisionist history - I have been trying to fill the time that the children are with their daddy by doing "projects" outside of the run of the mill housekeeping and this has resulted in me finding some old cards he wrote to me and little keepsakes that I had saved from the early days of our relationship and it hurts. Even up until very recently I have cards for anniversaries or Christmas that say he loves me and appreciates me and they show all the sweet, tender and loving sides that I know are in him but that have been so overshadowed by insecurity, fear of failure and stress during the last few years and that have caused him to inflict his anger and disappointment on me, but still I think part of me will always love that part of him and will always be lonely for it, just another form of quiet desperation