Sincerely, good for you both. My situation was much different but I don’t want to leave tear stains on the forum so I won’t go into that. :-)
I will say that it would have been much easier to leave my job if not for the fact of sacrificing benefits like the pension. In fact, I believe the job would have been much better if they’d known that people like me could leave. As it was, they knew that, after some number of years on the job, their employees were mostly ‘trapped’ employees. They played a statistical game of employee retention.
I won’t pretend to understand the risks that you took by staying. But everyone must look at their own situation and decide accordingly. Perhaps your former employer has learned a lesson, the hard way.
I hope you still find opportunities, when you look for them. Unless of course you are enjoying retirement.
Retirement scares me, a little. I can’t imagine what the future holds for us. But we’ll get there, one day.