I miss...

Oh how I dealt this this one with my step sons!  It's a fine line you walk.  On one hand, you need to acknowledge and confirm what they are already seeing.  On the other hand, trashing their father has its own reprecussions (sp?).  What I used to do is tell the boys that just because you love someone, it doesn't mean they are perfect.  And you can be mad at someone you love when they do rotten things.  As they got older, I also tried to get them to understand that loving and accepting someone as they were didn't mean letting them treat you as a doormat either.

Look at it this way, they're going to have to deal with difficult people in their lives -- this is just really good practice at an early age.

I never stopped missing the comraderie.  Even now that he's dead and I've moved on to another relationship, I still miss the things that were special and unique between us.  What made you love someone doesn't dissappear just because their jerkness outweighs their niceness.