I answer to your questions, since it's a collaborative process we've been discussing options/mechanisms for the past 4 months. However, no one has filed anything with the courts, so if we come to agreement within the next month (a big IF). Then we would file, and it would be finalized six months later. I'd say that this was the likely timeline before W lost her job 2 weeks ago. It is going to take her a looong time to get another job in this market.
Wife has been desiring the collaborative process in the hopes of negotiating something better then the courts would provide. I had agreed to this process, in the hopes of maintaining as amicable a relationship as possible, rather than going down the "scortched earth" litigation route.
We're meeting with lawyers this coming week, and I'm coming to the conclusion that no matter what I do/what happens, I need to make it super "real" and blunt, in terms of the package W can expect.
It is hard for me to see her coming around to loving / desiring anything to do with me - it will come across as a financial manipulation / coercion, and la la land or not, she'll just want to escape the cage.
Her contention is/was that "I don't know her", and that she "can't be herself" around me. Of course that's a function of her not sharing or communicating her self and needs. So my thought was to come across as open minded about the things that she's doing, so that we can get to know each other again then as phase 2 ask her to just work on us. The guy she is seeing told her she should stay with me, and at one point said that there's hope for both marriages to reconcile -- I think that's because he has decided not to leave his family, and because he likes having sex play on the side.
Again, the one barrier that I keep bumping up against is that it is almost impossible for me to see how she will miraculously decide to give it a go with me, when she's convinced that she has zero attraction or connection with me... and that it was missing from the start.
