Update and still needing some advice on how to deal with sitch. I cannot read the DR book as delivery date is 15 October.

Update is that I am continuing with trying to detach but W making it very difficult. The way she is behaving just does not stack up to what a lot of others are posting in their Sitchs. Wife is carrying on like we are married without intimacy. I suggested me sleeping on sofa but she says no - we are both grown up enough to sleep in same bed. She goes shopping but ends up sitting in a cafe staring into space.

Since I have been going to the gym she keeps talking about how much weight she is putting on.

I am getting worried about her state of mind, but similarly am worried about how to properly detach when W acts like we are best friends. I have not talked about our R for over a week now. Then she was still adamant that she needed to seperate and move out to find herself, that she does not know what the future will hold but at the moment there is no chance we will ever be together as a couple.

I am getting to the point where I don't know whether to set a date by which she needs to move out - that way would be better for me to move on, whether her being at home and struggling to find a place is a gift that I should make the most of etc.

She met with a mutual GF las week for coffee. GF contacted me and said there is definately no other man. That she looked exhausted, stressed and was shaking. W let it all out to GF and ended with I want a strong man not a boy. Mutual GF seemed to think there was love buried deep away under the anger/resentement.

GF said that there may be a chance in that she has stated what she wants and that there may be hope - i.e. by being the strong man W may get a different perception of me.

I don't fully buy into the not being strong etc but can see this in my behaviour particularly in the last 2-3 years where I felt I have lost part of myself also.

But I am working on this.i.e. being the strong man. She basically wants someone to takeover the household, be strong for her and put her first.

Please please any advice on how to deal with my sitch. I feel like there is a glimmer of hope somewhere in all this and don't want to lose it.

For example should I insist on seperate sleeping arrangements, should I accept when she offers to watch a film, when she does my washing/ironing even though I have told her not too do I just take it off her.