Well I never thought I'd see this day. Since I was 10 years old my parents have never agreed on anything. The last thing they DID agree on was to get a divorce.
How friggin ironic is it that my mother just echoed my father's opinion. She said I need to file.
She got a bit crappy about my husband. Brought up the past, as if I don't recall it. She talked about the early years in the apartment when he drank so much and gave me $100/wk to buy groceries/gas/household products.
I said "You know, Mom, just because Jeff didn't take me back doesn't make him a bad person...". True. Perhaps it doesn't make him a coward either. True again, I think. If he was a coward he'd have quit a long time ago. Maybe he's just a man that was forced out of love. He lost a lot. And maybe it is just too much for him. But like you said, it doesn't make him a bad person, or a coward. Maybe a human, like you.
I think blynd may have it right. What have you really got to lose by just putting it out there? What's the worst thing that can happen? In any case, he's still got some responsibility for the kids, and I expect he wants to meet it. Amy, I think it might be a fine line between proving you can stand on your own, and pride. I'm not saying you've gone there, just to think about it. I'm going to edit this in a minute, and bring in something I think you wrote earlier today, where I think you projected expectation on Jeff....be right back.....
OK, here it is: I don't think he will believe I really love him and want to come back home until he sees me standing on my own and STILL loving HIM.
Since I can't stand on my own, he'd never believe that wasn't the main factor for me wanting to come back.
I understand what you are saying here, but at the same time, maybe it isn't that as much as you think. You don't strike me as one who is needy and 'dependent'. Maybe you can combine what COG and Blynd said, and go back looking like you can do it (and if you have to, you know you will, 'cause you are, after all, AmyC). But try to nudge him off center a bit. It seems to me that there a plenty of signs that he wants it to work, maybe he just needs to get nudged into saying it.
Heck, I don't know. I just hate to see you, and your kids, hurting.....
