If putting DD in a 5-day daycare will help your W's commute, then by all means do it! She told you she's tired from the commute and her job - there's a solution for you. Or changing jobs, as you mentioned. Is it possible for you all to move? That might be a third option. Where is DD the other three days of the week?

WRT conversation I have two suggestions. First, consider harvesting 5-10 news topics during the day that you think your W might be interested in. Read the articles and forward them to her, then discuss that night. This really works for us because my W is a SAHM and doesn't always have a chance to watch or browse the news, so part of our agreement is for me to kill conversational topics and drag them back to the cave.

Second - and this was suggested to me by Jennifer Harley-Chalmers, Dr. H's daughter - look for the 'Ungame'. It's a card game of conversational topics. They have a lot of different variants - family, couples, etc. I like it because it's about expressing yourself or relating memories, not debating or arguing. You can get it through your favorite online bookseller.

UA time is critical. We notice when we haven't gotten our 15+ hours - we start to feel distant and isolated from each other. More UA will usually result in more and better SF, but it will take a while to get caught up.

One thing that worked for us - again, suggested by Jennifer - was to schedule our SF for days and times when my W's energy is highest. For example, I have a lot of flexibility in my work schedule, so I can take Tuesday mornings off when all the kids are in school. Some folks don't like the idea of scheduling SF, and that's fine, but given our history it works for us.