what do i do??

[numb in tx]

i am new at this but i have been reading your posts and i hope someone can help me .me and my husband of 8 years with 1 step daughter and 2 small children have been seperated for 3 months. i had a bad day at work and come home and was drinking and my hubby came home and i took it out on him and told him to leave and i didn't remember any of it but he come back the next day and was acting like we were still together and then he said i told him to leave. we fought alot but i told him i wanted to talk and not fight. he said he went to the lawyer and put half down and has to put the other half and that was like 2 months ago he doesn't have a place to live he just stays with friends here and there hes a truck driver and he is on the road all week almost but he doesn't hardly get the kids and i asked him to hold out or don't rush into the diuvorce cause you never know what can happen and he didn't say anything. i have wrote him a letter and explained what all i have changed in my life for me and that if we go slow we can work this out. he hasn't said a word about the divorce and we get along so good. he told me he wasn't ready to come home right now but i don't know if he is thinking about it or not. i thought the pain would ease over time but its gotten worse. i think or i know i love him more now than before. see i lost my mother in september and i went into a little dark corner and i didn't do what i should have been doing and i realized it after he left us. i am trying to make him see that i have changed and we can work this out if we both try. he even called me last tuesday and asked me to do him a favor and go run an errond for him and why when he was off he could have done it but he let me. i asked him if one day last weekend he wanted to come over and bbq i could tell he really didn't but he said i will let you know. he was supposed to call saturday and let me know if he would get the kids for a little while but i haven't heard from him. i think he didn't want to tell me no. he also took the bottle of tequila that i missed when i poured all alcohol out in front of him and he asked if he could have it and i said yes i gave him the margarita recipe and the teqila and the lime-aide and he said him and a bunch of them were going out but he said it real low like he didn't want me to hear him. did i do wrong ? did i give him all that for nothing? i want him to come home soo bad and i don't know what he wants. i don't really think he knows what he wants right now. anyone have any advice on how long do i wait for him to come around. since i stopped slinging mud we get along so good i don't want to blow it.. thanks, numb in tx

[Liz]

If you are really committed to your husband and your marriage, then you will need to be patient. He is probably confused by all the changes in your behaviour over the past year. You could call him and say you and the children missed seeing him at the weekend. He probably doesn't get much free time if he's a truck driver.

While you're waiting for him to get in touch, you can continue to work on sorting your own life out. It sounds as if you have been struggling with depression and grief. Do you drink a lot? Do you need help with that? Are you depressed and do you need to go and talk to a doctor?

It will be a difficult balance between encouraging him to come home and work things out and not pushing him too hard. You know him best, so you're the best judge of how to time things. If he does come home, then you will need to find some way of building your relationship up fresh and strong and working through some of the issues ou've ahd in the past. You might like to have a look at the Marital First Aid Kit (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/marfirstaid/) and the Relationship Basics (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/relbasictopic/) area to get some ideas.

Hope you hear from him soon.

[numb in tx]

thank you for your feed back on my situation, it is greatly appreciated. i have quit drinking and i have told my husband this and he said he would never ask me to quit and i told him i know but it was something i had to do because our marriage is more important and that i can't believe i let alcohol destroy it. see my husband has a drinking problem and he knows it but he said he is not ready to quit and that he enjoys drinking. i feel like i am up against a brick wall at times.i have wrote him a letter and gave it to him and in the letter i wrote when he wanted to talk about it to let me know and that has been about a month ago. should i ask to talk to him about it or just wait til he comes to me ? i am scared he won't though.we had a lot of problems in our marriage but i felt we were doing so good and i realize now what my faults were and i am working on and have succeeded in changing a lot of them and i am very proud of myself too. sometimes he acts like everything will be fine then he turns around and acts like he don't even want to hear from me. its like his friends and his partying life is before me and the kids. when he asked me to do him a favor of getting his title on his truck i jumped on it cause i felt maybe that was a step forward cause he could have asked his buddies to do it for him. someone told me that since he is staying with whoever and where ever they may be tired of him so he fell back on me. i work 8 hours a day at the school and i try to help take care of my dad and all of our yards and my kids and house and i am mentally worn down but i am not going to give up hope on us because i know a deep down feeling i have that this can be worked out but how do i make him see that?he uses that we fought all the time but we didn't all the time. he is forgetting all the wonderful times we had. he said he isn't ready to move back in but he didn't say he wasn't or he was coming back. any more feedback will help out more than you realize. thanks, numb in tx.....

[Liz]

Although it's hard, I'm not sure there is much you can do to get your husband to come back until he's ready. It will be better if he comes back willingly and determined to work at your marriage.

Its good that you have begun to sort things out in your life. He will notice that when he gets in touch. In the meantime, take care of yourself and get what rest you can, so that you are strong when he does get in touch. If you need medical help or help from your friends then ask for it. Your children need you to be in good shape for them.

There's a lot of waiting around and giving your husband space to think things through. Some of the people on the other postings are going through the same sort of thing. I sometimes think one of the hardest things to deal with is a situation you have no control over yourself. Best to concentrate on the things you can do something about like work and family.

All the best,

Liz