The last sentence you have there hits the nail RIGHT on the head: He thinks divorce is going to be less work, free him of responsibility, and allow him to not deal with things and be stress free. He's wrong, but he just doesn't know it.
And see... I agree with you on the waffling business, which is why I'm being so particular with him on this issue and the semantics. Practically, there probably isn't a lot of difference in us working on the marrage vs working on a friendly relationship. Philosophically, however, it's a big deal to me! Why on earth would I want to work on being friends with you so you can leave me and my kids and me be OK with it?! That's what I tried to hit him hard with on Tues night and he asked for a week to consider. I specifically said: What's best for our kids is to have a happily married mom and dad. I'm not asking for our old M back - in fact, I don't want it back. I'm saying we can have a new M, one that is better and healthy for both of us. That just caused him to go into defense mode of how "he's been devastated and can't recover...." (taking no personal responsibility for why his life is not exactly what he wants, blaming me.) I told him he could not stay here if he did not want to be married to me any longer; that if he knew he just wanted out, he should go. Obviously, he didn't jump to leave or he wouldn't still be here but made the statement if he had to choose that night, he'd leave. Personally, I think he was just trying to get me to back off, but I didn't. I did agree to table the discussion for a week.
SO...I stood my ground on that issue. I just have to back that decision up next week and not allow cake-eating, is what I feel I need to do. I just want to make sure I'm not getting caught up in semantics and pushing him away when he's willing to do the work - just because I'm not hearing exactly what I want to hear.
Conversely, I think it's important to not let him exit quietly and "friendly" just because I let him either - as you said above.
