Over the Shock and GALing 6

[Thinker]

I am not a fan of what I think I understand to be Smiley's suggestion that you live in the house with her but be dark. I tried that with my husband when I was an unhappy spouse. I pretended I never saw him. In fact, I averted my eyes and cut him out of my view at all times. And it only made things worse. We were at that stalemate of neither of us would leave the house and kids. It was deep limbo and it was ugly.

I have also tried living like that. Things just start spiraling downward.

In fact, we have been living sort of like that now - polite, but no real interaction - and my W is using it as her justification for doing what she is doing - "We are not really married anyway, see"

The only hope is that she fears divorce at least as much as you do. If she is not financially dependent on you, then she may not be concerned about keeping up her lifestyle. But if she needs the security of marriage for roof and food and other things, then what child support will offer her won't be enough. And she may as well face the reality and make an informed decision.

She is completely financially dependent on me. Her job is fun, get's her back into her field (and allows her to meet all sorts of interesting people ), but is only a few hours per week and after taxes barely pay's enough to cover a babysitter.

Good luck. I hope you find a sitter for tonight. And I hope you have a good C.

We should be able to find a sitter. Not being able to find one would really be only an excuse. In a last resort we have plenty of friends who would be willing to sit in our house for an hour.

Our C, however, is not so great. I like him as a listener, but so far he has done nothing to actively try to pull my W into the process.