she believe the money she'll get from D will help her (I did a good job saving money, so she'll get a good bit, although a lot of it is in IRA and 401K).
Since you want to delay a real separation as long as you can and prevent the divorce you don't want her buying a house.
You can and must flat out refuse to allow her to use IRA and 401(k) money to buy a house. If she doesn't want to move twice then she should just stay living with you (and NOT dating others) until some eventual divorce is FINAL.
Once the divorce is final...a QDRO is processed and her share of any IRA/401(k) would then be transferred into her own IRA from which she can do whatever she chooses (and incur any penalties and tax burden herself) but until then, she can only cash them in early or utilize them with your consent and signature. Refuse to agree thereby not enabling her continued destruction of your family and foolish premature waste of money. There is absolutely no reason that you should ever consent to her robbing the families nest egg to buy her own home while she remains married to you. If she wants it that bad, make her carry the full burden and responsibility for initiating and pursuing a divorce to fulfill her selfish entitled desires. Play no part in her terroristic desires.
Also - since she hasn't filed yet I hope you're not still contributing to the 401(k) as once any divorce is filed, you usually won't be allowed to change anything. You might even take the opportunity to withdraw a little cash so you have a rainy day fund and/or move around and protect some funds for safety. For example, some couples have just a regular savings account for the kids college money. Entitled divorcing wives don't care much about their children and their children's futures so they don't mind splitting that money up in the divorce either and taking "their" half. If any such accounts exist, you might still have the time to unilaterally put the "college money" (or set up a college fund with other monies) into a UTMA, IRA or 529 account for the benefit of the children protecting the money before she gets the chance to abscond it in any divorce.
Hopefully it will never come to divorce but it doesn't take a lot of effort to protect yourself (and your family - including your wife) on the backside a little bit. Plus, the harder and more daunting the escape-from-your-marriage-ladder looks up front the longer she may delay undertaking or following through with it. Do realize that the road to recovery is bound to involve your wife initially feeling STUCK in your marriage, before she'll ever consider it recoverable. "Stuck" is ok. We can work with "stuck" and inch her along the rode to maybe and then "Ok, let's try" but "stuck" first, works even if she only gets to "stuck" kicking' and screaming and berating you. And don't you laugh when she yells at you how she'll stay stuck with you but remain miserable on the inside forever just because I warned you she'd say that. It's how she FEELS at that moment so laughing wouldn't be appropriate but just be content that you've made progress once you hear those words while letting her believe her hurtful words hit their mark. I know it's odd, but I hope your wife feels stuck with you real soon.
The internet is 90% complaining and entitlement and I hate it because I deserve better!
