Sorry folks, but I wouldn't take my runaway wife back. She's been gone a year, and is sitting on her butt, not working, living with her mother, brother and sister 4 hours away (none of them work, either, although her mother is 83 and retired, and has earned time off).

My kids have seen their mother twice for a few days each (she won't visit). They will see her one more time for a weekend before college starts again. My son has been commuting to college and living with me. A year ago, my daughter left for her first year in college two weeks after her mother ran away, and six weeks after she broke down and told the two of us that she was feeling guilty that she hadn't been with her teenage brother when he died, because then she could have prevented it (she couldn't have, but that's how the mind works).

This year, I discussed potential treatment options with my son's exasperated therapist, who said, "His mother left 6 weeks ago, and hasn't even called?"

I've dealt with four car accidents (two on the same day), a 75 mph speeding ticket on a 50 mph winding road, trying to determine if my son has a drinking problem (turns out he doesn't, but I had to monitor him closely to determine that), my daughter being transported to the hospital for alcoholic poisoning, which I had to follow up with three calls to the Dean and a rush visit to the college to ensure she was OK, because it turned out that was her third alcohol-related offense (I determined she was adjusting OK, and not drinking any more than anyone else at her school, one of the nation's elite schools). The day after she was in the hospital, I received a threat from my wife's lawyer that they would go to court if we didn't have an acceptable offer in hand in two days (I was too busy, and my lawyer shut them down, telling them it would be six months before a trial could be scheduled). In addition, my son, who has a learning disability and memory problems, was just deregistered from all his classes for not getting some forms in on time, and I had to fix that last week, along with getting my daughter set up with a specialist for some minor surgery before school starts.

My wife ordered me to have no contact with her outside of her lawyer, and is disconnected from our kids, so she is unaware of these problems. I can't involve her - she's too disconnected. Besides, she would be apoplectic if she learned about any drinking, because she is so opposed to it. My son felt that he turned on him and blamed drinking for him flunking out of his previous college (which was true, but I didn't tell him she told me that). He really flunked out because he has a learning disability and he was in a hard program at a hard college (he now has a B+ average in a different program at a local college.

Although I can take credit for many of the things that went wrong in our marriage, even if my wife would come back, why would I take back someone who:

- Exploded at me constantly for every detail as I went through the agony of running our son's funeral. She even blew up at me when I asked her mother if she had had a good night's sleep.

- Refused to help with flood repairs.

- Never said anything kind about my relationship with our deceased son, and spent three years telling me that he was my least favorite child while digging hard to come up with examples to prove her point, such as a time (once) when I didn't say hello to him.

- Handed me the divorce filing with no prior discussion, spent 15 minutes telling our kids she was leaving for good, and driving away three hours later.

- Pretty much cut off our kids, both of whom have experienced multiple trauma.

- Kept insisting that our son was murdered, even though there wasn't even the slightest indication of any foul play after a thorough police and fire department investigation and the medical examiner's inquest.

***

You know, the workload is a lot, especially since I've been doing my wife's job, too (she worked for me half-time), and I'm doing all of the parenting.

I'm losing half of my money, and may even have to pay her alimony (probably not, but its a possibility).

I get rid of her negativity. And there is no one to punish me for the death of one of my kids, when I was 80 miles away when it happened and was in no way responsible for the accident.

Parenting alone is tough, but it would probably be worse with her here.

***

Yes, this is hard on the kids. But if she was here, my son told me that she would have blamed him for the car accidents, and assumed he was drinking (I got to the scene each time, and he wasn't), gotten angry at our daughter for her drinking, and that she and I would be fighting over these problems (he told me that he feels that his mother thinks he is an incompetent person, unfortunately).

Divorce stinks, but I think in this case, marriage is worse.