Let's read between the lines and get the truth here: she only wants him back because the kind of men that her parents would approve of won't take her seriously due to her being a single mother. So now she realizes her tatted up DnD-playing ex-husband is the best she will ever get, and her parents probably figured that out too.

This is an NPC: life just happens to her. She has never had her own mind - and still doesn't. She relies on outside approval - her parents (but it could very well be her friends or faceless followers in whatever social network with which she's obsessed). She cannot make her own decisions; only after permission is granted that she feels free to act. And she still cannot take ownership for her past, present or future - it's the hormones, it's the parents, it's the stress, it's the therapist, it's because she's a Virgo. This is quite a sad story, but not an unprecedent one.

I can't imagine marrying a divorced woman... especially one who had divorced me. I don't have the stats for divorced couples that reconcile, but I imagine they're not very good.

In any case, if the guy decides that this can be salvaged, he should lay down some very strict and explicit boundaries that she could not even think about questioning. Quitting her job working for her father would be the first item on that list.

External locus of control.

It's very important to be able to identify and avoid people with that. The chances of them ever taking personal responsibility in their lives is very very low. And trying to rescue one even with adequate precautions is just asking for them to drown you with them.

She should give full custody over to him. It's clear he would be the better parent, and she can better afford CS payments.

Then she can try to get him back. But he would be well advised to say no.

Wow, I was surprised for a change, there. She claimed to take most of blame and responsibility, even thinking that she would be the most sane of all women posted here.

Then I read these words

I never listen to my parents usually unless I believe in it myself.

Then it all came together.

I was fooled for a bit here, not gonna lie, thinking that she might be misled by her parents. But then I read this line and it clicked. I am reading a story about a college educated woman with a child, "model" and self proclaimed my life my rules. You're not going to influence her decision if she wasn't thinking about itself, push for it, yes, manipulate it, no.

Fuck everything else: GET THE SON OUT!

This train wreck is already priming herself to mentally and emotionally abuse her son. This kid is going to face something worse than everything found in those DnD books: his mother.

I actually understand the parent's viewpoint (although I certainly don't condone it). They undoubtedly struggled and sacrificed to build an empire, and raised a daughter who was going to benefit from all that hard work. Not only is she capable of profitably running a department in the family business (although she probably gets more credit than she deserves because she's family), but she was pretty enough to earn significant money as a model. She could have had anyone, yet she chose a man her parents would not have approved of. We have to be consistent if we're going to say that a woman should not marry against her father's wishes: she chose a husband who is "beneath her station" socially and economically.

That's not a slam on the guy: he chose a different path, and it's not like he's some deadbeat bad-boy: he is a perfectly good husband and provider. However, he is not the kind of guy that a successful businessman would chose to be the father of his grandchildren. My father-in-law wasn't intially all that thrilled that his daughter chose me, either, but I had higher status than he did. In this case, the husband is the one who came from, "the wrong side of the tracks." My wife moved up through marriage - this woman moved down.

I have no problem thinking that the girl's parents are snobs, but I also think that they had her best interests at heart. They probably know how hard it is to build wealth when you start out poor. It's natural that they would want to spare her that struggle.

The problem is that she married for luuuurve (which is obviously about as constant as a strobe light in her case), and set herself on a path for which there is no easy exit. A collision involving the two parts of her life was inevitable.

The parents could have said to her, "You made your choice, so now you get to live with the consequences." Perfectly legitimate: and although they would have not have had all the financial benefits, the struggle itself could have bound them together.

On the other hand, they could have offered to bring the son-in-law into the family business, too. Give him a place in management so she could raise the child(ren). Also a legitimate option.

But instead they did the one thing guaranteed to make everything worse: they sabotaged her marriage. To that I say, "You made your choice, so now you get to live with the consequences.""