You are shooting in the dark. Its best to avoid lawyers and mediate, but she now has a lawyer so you have no choice, you need your own attorney immediately. Your wife no doubt has a vision of her future, and that vision is that nothing will change except you are replaced with some other man. 9 out of 10 lawyers, when a mom walks in to interview and she is adamant on getting rid of her husband, they will sell her on this vision. All her problems are you, and once you are gone all will be rainbows and roses.
As long as you dont make any mistakes, this vision of hers of course wont happen. But as her vision starts to crumble she will get more and more hystrionic, she will order her attorney to be even more aggressive and in many cases this is when the progression starts...escalating things at home...bad mouthing and lie about you to others...trying to alienate the kids...false abuse claims etc. You might think this is out of the realm of possibility, but the fact is some of this stuff happens in MOST cases like yours I have observed.
So from now, you cant make any mistakes. You NEED to at least consult several lawyers, and dont try to make any offers or sign anything without one. You need to assume that you will end up somewhere between the initial offers. Dont immediately make a "fair" offer, because then the final agreement will then be the other side of fair. Assume anything you concede in any offer or negotiation is lost. If you offer her weekdays "for now"...she will always have them. If you offer Christmas day in exchanged for Christmas Eve, she will get Christmas day but that doesnt mean you get Christmas Eve. Finally, just say no to nesting. It is a set-up for disaster with all of the downsides of separation but none of the benefits. Your only communication with her will be fights over logistics, money, chores and schedules.
Your wife obviously has some motivation, whether that is some depression she blames on you or some OM, or the notion of one. But she thinks divorce is a good thing. Lots of men and women will go easy in a divorce and hope that by offering things to their spouse, the spouse will be somehow grateful or appreciative and call off the divorce. This is completely backwards. All you are doing is making their divorce easy and their dream looks like reality, at least in their eyes. You need to make sure the divorce is fair for you, and this means she will need to sacrifice just like you. If you want her to choose you, you have to be better than the alternative.
