My Dad left my Mom when I was three. Actually, she asked him to leave - it's not that he took off on her. They were separated for many years before they finally legally divorced. I don't think they thought they might get back together again - they just didn't get around to it.
Neither of my parents had a college education. My Dad enlisted in the Air Force right out of high school. My Mom took a six-week secretarial course somewhere or other, but that was the extent of her higher education. They did both graduate from high school, though, with decent grades.
I lived with my Mom and two older brothers. Mom started drinking heavily when I was about five, not to the point of being abusive, just neglectful. She pretty much was in the bag by about 2:00 p.m. every day, and then passed out on the living room couch until long past dinner time. One of my older brothers molested me repeatedly from the ages of 5 until about 9. I never used to believe in "repressed memory syndrome," figuring I remembered every time and it was only a few. Then Brokeback Mountain came along. I couldn't figure out why I related to Ennis so strongly until I finally had an epiphany on about my 20th viewing. All the horrible memories came flooding back. It wasn't a few times - it was probably every day. I never told my Mom, but my other brother knows because he caught him at it one day and beat him to within an inch of his life, telling him if he ever touched me again, he'd kill him.
I'd like to just add that my Mom was a great mother to the three of us until she started drinking. I remember her being a Den Mother for my brothers' Cub Scouts troops, making Christmas ornaments by hand, coloring eggs and making us elaborate baskets for Easter, always doing "arts and crafts" with us, doing her own watercolor painting which was really quite good, reading to us constantly... And even through all of her mistakes, and she made some bad ones, I don't think any one of us ever doubted her love for us.
My Dad wasn't around much in my early life - he met a new girlfriend about a year after my parents split up who is now my stepmother and has been for about 35 years. He came around at Christmas and on our birthdays, but other than that, we didn't see him. He more than made that up to me when he took me in at 13 after my Mom went into rehab (for the second time). He was very generous about taking me to see her every weekend and holiday, and for two weeks in the summer, even though she lived about an hour's drive away. Once she was sober again, she and I became extremely close. I could tell her anything, and did. She was my best friend until the day she died when I was 26.
There's a Green Day song called "Tales From Another Broken Home" that really resonates with me. Not nearly as much as Brokeback, but it's up there.
I don't wish my parents had stayed together - they did nothing but yell at each other in the end, my Mom said. I don't remember it, but my brothers do. I will say that to this day, yelling really upsets me, even though I don't consciously remember ever hearing any while growing up.