Thank you all for the encouragement. I feel good about the progress made so far. I will remain cautious until she agrees to stop all communication with OM.

HP, W is 37. She will be 38 on the 11th. I will be 35 on the 9th.

I would say that right away is the time for a family. She wanted to be financially stable before starting a family. She never expected it to take so long, and we never properly defined "financially stable". I do see the positive aspects of her current attitude, and I was taken aback by the breakdown last night. Tonight she is at SIL's house, baby sitting while SIL takes golf lesson. She is sleeping there because tomorrow she works right across the street.

I asked for a 50% increase in wages today. I think the manager was taken aback at first, and told me that no other lister has made that much. I told him that I wanted more responsibility that the listers. I pointed out that I could revise all of the errors in the listings. I look at all of the listings anyway (good stuff, you never know... ) and I point out the errors to GM, and he may or may not get around to fixing them prior to auction end. Some of the mistakes are major, like misplelled brand names in title, or saying "I have no idea what the parts are for" when I told the lister each of the three times they cloned the ad what the item was used for, and called. He agreed that would be a perfect thing to get off of his shoulders. He will talk to BB and get back to me. I will remind him tomorrow. (gotta get it before the pay cycle ends) I also had a discussion with him about the bonus system. I had a concern that the system didn't really encourage most of the listers to excel, and those that do suffer from a "ceiling" If i only listed half of my merch from last week, I would still have made the big bonus, and I would have been wise to do so, because the rest would get me the same bonus next week. Essentially their system encourages me to only make $5000 in sales a week, and after than I would be way better off sitting on the stuff until the next week. With old computer gear, everday in inventory knocks off value.

I am taking care not to rock the boat, or circumvent GM's role in any way. I would happily take over his least favorite aspects of work, in addition to otther ideas I have. I am hopeful that the fast track up the ladder is open today. I have shown them that I will bring in the cash. (GM told me that my sales level this week was the company record)

Thanks again for all of the positive thoughts. I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful people rooting for our M.

Cally, here are som quick answers: I knew all along that W was anxious to start a family. I didn't know until recently that she wanted everything planned and accounted for. She wanted the retirement and college planned for ahead of time, in addition to the ability to be a stay at home mom. These are not unreasonable concerns, and I shared many of them with her. I believed that we were financially able to start the family last year, but she was still holding out (EA?)

As far as our ML, it was less than once a week on average. She definitely wnated more, but we didn't try to schedule. That would have been a great idea, because I would have been eager to go more often in the morning, wheras she would always wait until late night to initiate.

I need to get this raise to really throw a wrench in W's D plans. With the raise, and my job future more secure, I will be able to prove to her that I am capable of supporting a family. I just need to get health insurance out of them ) She has already told me that I have amazed her. If I can keep that up, and show her how ready I am for a family, I think she will have to rethink her desire for a D. (JJ, time for that cradle)