MLC, WAS, or both

[burned]

I feel like once I read something from Steve85 that said he did intentionally make a point known to his W that her request for D would not be so simple.

Steve knows what he's doing, so it's worth considering. I don't know that you have the same relationship with your W as he has with his, though. So it could backfire.

I'm so convinced that this MLC will pass and she will wake up and think "WTF did I do, I tried to run away from my problems".

AnotherStander says that many if not most of them DO get to that point as some point. Just be careful with the MLC approach, I don't think that's what you're dealing with. Stick with the WW wisdom.

I think part of my struggle is most folks here are having temp checks and back and forth so you can see the spouse's path of retreat.

I had that same concern. Keep an eye out for what could be a temp check disguised as something simple. And anyway, when I mentioned that a few weeks ago, the response (also from AnotherStander) was: don't worry about it, some of them just show no interest for a while (a year or more), until they suddenly do.