(and other DB's, please comment if I`m off here...)
Just reading from the outside, here, but maybe things should be a little harder for the MLC WAS? I know, Mila, you want to keep the door open so that he can find his way back in, but sometimes I wonder if it is too open. What does the MLCer see?
1. His place. Not warm, not inviting, a place where other relationship failed, a place to hide out until figuring out how to move back on track with life.
2. Your place. Warm, inviting.
3. But, your place also represents what, for whatever reason, he tried to run from. Warm and inviting is not enough, he has to reject his decision to run, and want to go back home. To reject it, he has to be totally fed up with his current life, and warm and inviting look like the place to go to get out of the tunnel. I don`t know if this is making sense, but I think you are doing too much for him, so your home is not enough of a beacon. It`s there anyways, not the light shining at the end of the tunnel. Let HIM pick up his check and realize how much of a bother it is, and how awkward it is to have to go to HIS house to get a check to NOT live in his house!! File separately -- because you DO live separately, and your D may even be claimable as a dependent, you can get a lot more money possibly (heck, just throw it back into the business to keep you afloat longer if that`s what helps and calms WH down in the end, lol), and let him have to go to the tax lawyers and figure out how to deal with the uncomfortable issues. Let him spend time doing the mundane tasks of shopping, cooking his own meals, and doing his laundry, so he will LEARN TO APPRECIATE better you and all you do, and see you and the home as the beacon he wants to go to. Mila, I know it`s sounds backwards, but IF he really enjoys doing these things he will not come home and that is the way it is. But chances are, based on everything I`ve read about you guys, he is not jumping to do these chores, and he will not stay away if you don`t do them, he will probably appreciate you more after a short while.
And if OW is going to come to the rescue to do his chores, well, you have no control over that anyways, so ignore her. Assume she is with her children, and even if she leaves, which is hard to believe she will for many reasons, anyways, she would do so because of her and her H and her sitch, NOTHING to do with you. Men like to chase. OW is not doing these things for him. You should not either, at least not so much. He SAID he wants to reconcile. The INTENT is there!!! Now he has to chase you (at least a little bit!) until you let him catch you!
((hugs)) and good luck, you ARE getting somewhere, it takes time, lets hope less time going forward, - SCh
