Three months ago, my wife told me she wants to separate. But she's not apartment-shopping, she's house-hunting.<P>I'm trying to understand it, but it's totally impractical, or course, and most important, it looks more like divorce than separation to me. Yet she says she doesn't want a divorce, we are going to counseling, and our marriage still has a strong basis of respect and even affection. <P>Her actions confuse me. Buying another house says divorce to me, but counseling says separation; she says she hopes a separation will help her love for me come back, but the way she's doing it will make our lives even more hectic and crazy than they are now, and will (I fear) get in the way of that.<P>So, am I nuts?

You're not nuts- she might be!<BR>My XW did this- we were going to counceling, she wasn't talking divorce, I thought we were working on things.<BR>It sounds like a step in the wrong direction. Maybe you can get the councelor to bring this up and dive deeper.<BR>It sounds like your wife has an agenda she isn't sharing with you.

That may be, but I feel I have to let her explore her options- I need her to choose to stay, not be trapped into staying. It helps that so far, after a month of searching, she still hasn't found anything she wants, and is now looking in neighborhoods she wouldn't have looked in at first. <P>So, my plan is to let her look, and keep her talking at the counselor, and hope the value of the marriage rises in her eyes while the realities of leaving look worse. It's a kind of plan A, I guess: I don't believe she was unfaithful, but I'm trying to show her I'm the open, loving, caring soulmate she says she needs.<P>It seems nuts, helping her to leave me while I tell her I want her to stay, but hanging on to her ankles like a beartrap won't work.<P>I'd appreciate hearing from anyone whose been in this position- she says go, I say stay, but I don't hang on. I don't personally know anyone who has separated and got back together, so I could use some models to follow.