It's not so terrible! Everything you're feeling, everything you're doing--right down to the losing of attraction--is all perfectly natural, and has been done, and will be done...unto the world's end.
I don't think that your wife dislikes you. I think that she's saying she dislikes you to shut you up.
What I see in your conversation with your wife...in the basement (?)...is a truly-felt, moving sincerity, and a whole bushel barrel of eloquence.
But what I also sense is a will to dominate through your words. I have the impression that, even on a conscious level, your eloquence is a kind of attack on her supposedly feebler intellect. You can't cross-question her as though in a courtroom and expect her to share the tender secrets of her soul.
I think that some of what you say about your wife's mode of expressing herself--or not expressing herself, as the case may be--is just due to frustration with her; but I also think that you do consider yourself to be her superior, and she knows it. But she is far from acknowledging your claim.
She is now the holder of power in the marriage, and she has no need to exert herself beyond speaking a few words--"Don't like you"--or whatever else does the trick. She seems sad, and she also seems reachable still, though not by words. It would not be surprising if she likes being powerful.
I would guess that she will not really be vulnerable until the two of you are separated.
I would not underestimate her, either in the quality of her intelligence, or in her emotional depth. And I would not kid yourself that she is not worth fighting for because she is "unintellectual."
Only--the fighting you need to be doing right now is in conquering your own impatience and (perhaps?) sense of desperation and futility. You believe that your wife has tremendous follow-through, and will do what she sets out to do. That may be true. But she seems to have surprised you before, and may do so again.
If you have been a supportive father, as you seem to be, then single motherhood may surprise her very much. I just wouldn't converse on the subject!
