Living with WAW who will not leave

[Casey]

I guess I am still in moderation he!!.. I started this thread several days ago but it just now appeared. Over the past several days I finished re-reading DB and I have read dozens of threads; I think I know what I need to do.

My sitch has been going on for almost a year at this point. Everything I have tried has failed. As Dr Phil would say, "How's that been working for ya!" All my actions to rescue my marriage have been aimed at getting WAW to stay, and very little has been focused on improving myself and detaching from W. Today I calmly and without accusation told W that I can see that she is really unhappy and cannot possibly become happy as long as she remains married to me. I told her it would be best if we lived apart, and that she would then be able to find love with someone who truly made her happy. She told me that maybe I am right, asked me if I had found someone. I replied that it had become clear she no longer loved me, and she herself had said that she could no longer do anything with me until she felt love so the coldness between us was never going to go away. Also told her that I would have told her the same either way if I had or had not met someone else. Her response was that she hated to have been causing me pain (that is why she had three affairs...), and she didn't enjoy doing it; that we had many years between us with a lot to share. I left her with "it is behind us; I am moving on with my life and I am sure she is ready to move on with hers."

As I see it, the only thing I have not tried is encouraging W to leave; she already has OM at work and is just cake-eating; she gets roof over her head, bills paid, and free child care, and OM #3 takes care of excitement and intimacy. W has not had to deal with any sense of loss or loneliness; I realize it is not my job to punish her or make her suffer. I am really to the point where I do not care whether she stays or goes but I need to stand up for myself and as long as there is OM between us I have no desire for her to remain in the M. I made it clear that she would be the one to go; told her she could take what she wanted from apartment, but I am staying here. I feel like I have the worst of all worlds; W has repeatedly said she doesn't feel anything for me, repeatedly cheated on me, and worse she doesn't physically leave even though she emotionally checked out over a year ago. So when we do see one another it is not because she has grown lonely and had a dose of realism and decided to reconcile; instead it just increases her loathing.

I have started working on my GAL activities; went out to dinner last night on my own, before that I went to archery range and did an hour of practice. I talked to flight school about resuming lessons; just getting funds together for that. And I found an indoor pool where I have started swimming laps again. I have not done that since I was still in Air Force; around the same time W and I were dating. At the time I was getting myself ready for SF tryouts and I was running five miles a day and swimming a mile every other day. Almost ten years of marriage has added 50lbs of weight which I decided needs to go away.