Parents: help me parenting while separated (2)

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The meeting happened yesterday night.
STBXW came to my place. Our kids were already in bed, but S7 came and took the mother to the living room. He wanted to show her the pictures I put on the wall replacing all his drawing she took with her when she left. These pictures are portraits of me and the kids with huge smiles in our faces. W is not in any of these pictures. It’s funny that S7 had the same behavior as when I went to STBXW for the first place.
We started talking.
STBXW was upset and hurt.
She said she has been feeling some aversion and disrespect towards her. She considers offensive having arrived at the party and not being greeted by me. The same goes for my abrupt exit.
She also mentioned that another day, when I went to her building to get the kids, she was saying something about S9 and suddenly she finds herself talking to the walls because I simply left with the kids without saying goodbye.
She regrets having been together with me for 16 years and being treated this way.
She said she is very tired. She has been applying for jobs and going for interviews. After picking the kids every day from school at 3 o´clock she no longer has time for herself.
During all this time she cried. She looked very fragile and exhausted.
We then moved on to talk about our kids.
Again crying, she said it was hard for her to shed light on an non-existing relationship.
She believed, like I did, that a marriage is forever and that the path she chose will be the best for all of us.
We could keep our parental relationship because that one has always worked fine.
S9 still exhibits signs of rejection towards her. He is aggressive, rude and demanding to her.
S9 repeats some times that “you mom abandoned dad”. She said this is not true and that S9 needs to understand that our relationship did not work out and both of us contributed to that.
As to S7, she has tried to reinforce my role as the male parent.
She sometimes feels like revealing to the kids and to her family how she has felt during the marriage, because for them everything was going just fine.
She then linked that to S9 having a colleague who watches their parents fighting and arguing. At least this colleague of his knows who is right and wrong. Our kids do not because we have never argued.
S7 and S9 will have to solve their conflicts within themselves.
She no longer knows what to do because her strategies are running out.
Being in this foreign country she has no support from her family.
She does not leave this country, which she hates, since August (when she came to escape my birthday).
--- This part is really interesting. When we were together every month we would go away for a weekend abroad. Now that she is “free” she is a prisoner of the kids and of herself. She admitted that it was her fault that she would not go out; she is afraid of driving and having an accident with the car. ---
After discussing the kids we talked about the papers we have to sign to get divorced.
We analyzed the kids’ custody papers.
I proposed joint custody but with the kids having her as the main custodian since she does not work and I do. She agrees fully, but she could not understand why I had limited this agreement to the time we live abroad. She wanted to make this a permanent deal.
I explained that we would not know what would happen to us when we would go back in June, if we would even be living in the same town, so it made no sense to keep this modality operational for an unknown future.
After delving around this issue everything became clear. She basically does not trust me and is afraid that I will try to take away the kids from her the moment we return to our home country. Hence the reason why she opposed to limit it temporarily.
Five minutes later she said she did not understand why was there a clause regulating with whom the kids would spend the parents’ anniversary (the clause says the parent’s birthday has priority over the ordinary arrangements). She said it was our moral obligation to allow the kids to spend such days with the birthday parent and that there was no need to insert such clause.
I told her I agreed and that I had just used a draft from internet. I also told she was contradicting herself since she had just said she did not trust me. Such clauses were used when the tension ran high amongst the parents, making it necessary to micro-regulate every single aspect of the kids’ life.
She was crying again. In order to calm her down I had to tell her – she actually demanded hearing it from my mouth – she was the only mother of my kids and the only one I wanted for them.
It was already very late so we agreed to continue the conversation this Sunday. There was time for her to reveal some other details of her new life. She told me she only had one pair of sheets in her bed and she had to wash, dry and iron them to use them again. She did not want so spend some money on new sheets.
She obviously is living some kind of internal conflict between not working and being supported by me and at the same time being separated.
I assured her that I had never told her not to do such a thing and that since our separation I had never controlled the way she used our joint bank accounts.
I accompanied her to the gate. She had her face down. I told her: “Look at me. You’re the mother of my sons.”
Then, I hugged her and said to her ear: “You’re such a fool. I wish you all the happiness in the world and that you find happiness.”
She hugged me back and, surprisingly, in a very tight squeeze. She cried and said: “You were very important to me. I also wish you well.” We stayed like that for more than one minute or so and them she left.
She seemed to me very insecure, very tired, a shadow of the strong, secure woman I once knew.

I took some conclusions. My poor attempt of going dark, or grey since we have kids and no contacts policy is not possible, was a disaster. I only managed to act in an impolite way, not greeting her when arriving and not excusing myself when leaving.
I was rude at the party. I did not greet her and left, but this was more an irrational reaction to her surprise presence there than a conscious decision. She still makes everything about her, apparently, not considering for a moment how I must feel.
I have to think about how to approach her in the future.
Another point is that I don’t see any signs that she might be considering a reconciliation.