You caught your wife in the middle of one. Frank it took me two years to admit to having those feelings about myself! That I felt so dependent, needy, that I couldn't do 'it' on my own.....your wife is on the brink...there will probably be more days when she breaks down but if you handle it just right you can come out of this and be so blessed.
There's a middle ground. It is so easy to miss. I used to think to be "free" and "on my own" I had to break up my family (namely get rid of H). I did not think there was any other way. But I now know, after learning the hard way, that I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO DO IT ON MY OWN. The VP of a company out here called "Cybernetics" took me under her wing and gave me VISION. She literally took me off of the ground floor of her company and gave me a position working for her. There, she taught me so much about the way things work in the world...and NO ONE does it on their own. Every time I doubted myself that lady told me "you can do this". Pretty soon, I came to believe her because I just had so much respect for her and what she'd made a big success of that had started in an apartment with her two partners! She groomed me for a year and a half and then do you know what she did? She fired me. She said if I stayed any longer I'd be smothered. I was devastated! She wrote me a glowing letter of reference (they say she'd NEVER done that before). I soon found myself working for an attorney and rubbing elbows with State Delegates and the like. Last Thanksgiving I went to her and thanked her for firing me because if she hadn't kicked me out of the nest, I'd have never learned to fly. Now, you don't have to kick your wife out of the nest, you can lift her up and let her look over the edge though. Help her meet people, talk to people. Carving out an identity for myself filled a huge void in my life. Give her wings. Your wife can have that, too. All she needs to come to understand is that all "help" is not evidence that she 'can't do it alone', but a declaration of faith that she CAN do it. Lift her up. She needs to broaden her perspective. She needs to talk to people who have had help. MOST have had to have help. There are no "self-made men or women" in this world. Somewhere, each of us, at some point caught a break, had a helping hand extended to us, etc... She just needs to SEE that. She's thinking too narrowly. It's not all about the 'all-mighty" dollar, but to her right now, it may seem that way. I used to think that way too. If I just had the money, I could leave and do this "on my own". Truth is, without PEOPLE who believe in us, especially when we don't believe in ourselves, we can't do it, money or no money.
