My husband (32 male, we’ll call him Mark) and I (28 female) are currently separated and in the very early stages of divorce. When we separated almost two years ago, I moved halfway across the country and he stayed in our hometown. We have 3 children (4, 5, & 10) together and I have them full time, aside from a short period of time where Mark had our oldest back home. Now, before anyone gets their panties in bunch… I fully acknowledge that I chose to move so far away BUT there are times when I really just need a break or the support of Mark as their father. Also, I really don’t understand someone not wanting to be close to their children. For context; when I moved, it was back to a city we had lived in before. We were young dumb jerks (still newish parents) that first time around. His first experiences living in this city weren’t happy ones for him. He told me at one point that he never wanted to move back. My experiences here were very freaking hard the first time around but I ended up loving it here. My biggest reasons for ever moving back home were mostly around family and that wasn’t all we had hoped it would be. Go figure. More context; when I told Mark I wanted to move away, he said he would come out here if that meant we’d be working on our marriage and towards being together again. If not, he’d be moving elsewhere (in the opposite direction).

I’ve asked him a few times if he’d be willing to move back out here. Not for me but for his kids. I mean, yes for me so I can get 7 hrs of sleep more than once a week, or have a weekend to lounge around in my undies after a crapshow week of work.. without hearing cartoons and blood curdling screams at 7am …. He has excuses for days.

NOW, Let’s set all of our feelings and assumptions aside for a moment and talk NUMBERS!!

Mark works for a company that operates out of more than half of the states across the country, including the one I currently live in with our children. He owns a house back home, so his monthly home bills including utilities is around $2600/month. He has a car note and insurance around $250/month, cell phone, groceries, child support $1200/month, and whatever other stuff. So, HYPOTHETICALLY speaking he could transfer his job and move to the same state his kids are in. He could rent out his house for probably $2500/month not including utilities, which would cover his rent here for a 2bd apartment And then some. So that’s means room for him to have his children and making money instead of losing it , and LITTLE TO NO CHILD SUPPORT!!! And I’d only be asking for weekends.

The icing on the cake is this; When we talked about the divorce, one of the things I asked of him was that he commit to summers with his children. His response was “I’ll do my best to make it work.”

WHAT!?

How in the world do you make that make sense!? What am I missing?

Edit to Add: This situation needs so much more context than I thought it would. There’s really no way to make this a long story short type of deal but I can say this. Mark and I have lived together since I was 18 years old. We’ve been through a lot together and we’ve both made many sacrifices for each other and our children. I was a SAHM for several years and even when we should have both been actively involved in our children’s daily lives and each others… He was not there. In any of the ways that mattered. When I first reached out to his mom for advice and support, she told me that it was my castle and I needed to make it so. He DID NOT FIGHT AT ALL TO KEEP HIS CHILDREN WITH HIM. Mark has made several comments, especially this last year about how different things would be with the kids if he were around and how he’s been looking for another job so he can have more income and flexibility to see his children. Example: Mark wanted to come out here and spend a weekend with the kids, so I told him he could stay at my apartment with our children and I’d leave for the weekend so they could hang out. And did just that. My parents invited him and the kids over for dinner the last night he was in town, and he said to my sister “I don’t understand why she’s so stressed out, getting them up and ready in the morning is easy.” (I had the house cleaned, all laundry done, grocery shopping done. He stayed in the apt, never left except the trip to my mom’s, & they ate either fast food or cereal).

My solution solves all of those problems.

So, once again… make it make sense.