Well, look, you DO have a relationship with her, and you will have one for a very long time. You are parents of the same people. Unless you or she totally walks away from your kids as well as their spouse, they will be able to see how you are doing, and be able determine if it could work for them.
One of the problems we encounter when we are in the midst of this painful situation is that we loose our perspective of time. At the moment, it seems like time is crawling, maybe even going backwards. As you learn to detach and make yourself a better person, time moves more quickly, and you and she will see the progress. And as silly as it seems, time does make the heart grow fonder if you let it and don't try to force it.
There is also an element of comfort in the known, as opposed to the unknown. There was a time in your marriage where it was very comfortable and happy, and she does remember that (somewhere under all that haze...). As time goes by and the fog clears, she will remember it better, and by then you will hopefully have shed much of the painful and annoying behaviors as you make yourself better. And your kids will have been telling her about how nice and fun you are!
The biggest thing to remember is that it is not about "going back", but re-starting again with renewed goals, perspectives and respect. The basis of all that needs to be built beginning now. It can certainly be built upon things past, but many of the things past are best left there. Move ahead from now, make yourself better from now, and bring along the stuff from the past that works and shed that which doesn't. She WILL NOT give up on the decision to quit that stuff in the past that didn't work. Don't forget that. That stuff needs to be gone. She very likely will give up the decision to quit the marriage if she convinces herself that it can fulfill her sense of purpose and bring her closer to her goals.
See, she is working this "doing more of what works and less of what doesn't" already. She just doesn't realize it or frame it the way you need to. What she is doing now is working better for her than the stuff that wasn't that she left. Our jobs are to make the stuff that she's doing now appear to be not working, as compared to how the marriage will be working when she returns and recommits to it.
This stuff works, and as you may be able to see, our WAS's are making a form of it work for themselves, just in a twisted way, and without realizing it. If you can turn this thing around in your mind, you can see what is working for them, and maybe get some clues from that. (This all just occured to me, so bear with the free-form thought here...)
You are asking the right questions, and you are thinking in the right direction. Keep it up.
