I don't really get the contrast you think you are drawing between my host/houseguest example and your W/you. You said you saw what I meant. Gave a big "BUT." And then you proceeded to describe your sitch so it matched up pretty darn exactly.
Look, I know you like the contact, the strings, the excuses to have her involved. But, I really don't think it is going to hurt to give your W more space on the apartment thing than she is demanding. She is simply trying to be nice. ALL WASs want to stop feeling like the bad guy/gal. They ALL want to feel good about what they are doing. They ALL want to feel like they aren't being horrible to the LBS. You have given her enough space so that she can be nice. That doesn't mean you need to close the space by taking her up on all her offers.
Look, if things work out for you, they are NOT going to work out over night. I can practically guarantee that things will get worse before they get better. At the very least, you will have some very rough patches alone in your apartment.
It is NOT going to be fun to sit around and have these thoughts: "Oh, this is great. W loves me so much she even picked out THIS apartment for me to move into to get the h*ll out of her life." If you start dating yourself at some point (far down the road I would hope), this will not be a good line: "Thanks, I'm glad you like my apartment. My wife picked it out." You signed the lease, so you stuck yourself with these.
But, you don't need to keep getting W all over your space. Think about decorating the girls room as a wonderful new Daddy-girls only adventure. It is a room. It is an adventure. It will be about you and them. You can do it. This is much better than setting this up – "Gee, there is the lamp mommy picked out for your room, too bad she doesn't love us enough to be here with us."
