Just when I thought I was getting proficient at not allowing my wife to play me for a fool, I end up doing it to myself better than she ever has. I feel like such a moron for not anticipating this outcome.<p>A few weeks ago, I found out that I am being sent overseas to an armpit country that I have no intersest in seeing. I'm reporting there in about six months. I hatched this crazy plan to try and win my wife back in that time. She doens't want to leave this area, but for some reason she now has this...drive...to go back to school and better herself (something I could never seem to instill in her). Well, it seems that the only way she can afford this is to move back home with her parents and use them and their state jobs to go to school for free. I didn't want this to happen so I offered to keep this place and pay all the bills and help her get the Army to pay for most of her school. The money we'd save by being together again would be enough for both us to live on. Well, I had it all planned out. She'd move back sometime around mid-December, we'd see what happened between us, and either way she'd have this place to herself for a year while I was gone. If we got back together, great for me. If not, I would have tried everything and going to school for free and my paying the bills while I was gone would be her compensation for the time she put into it. Anyway...<p>I'll be damned if last night she didn't tell me that she had no intention of moving back into this apartment because she likes where she lives now and doesn't "feel so isolated from everything." Well, can someone please tell me what the Hell I gain from her still living apart from me, still being able to see each other once a week...if that...because she lives apart, and no money being saved because she still lives apart? How can I reasonably expect to have a fair chance of accomplishing my goal if she's hamstringing me already? Now that I know her intentions, I feel like an [censored] for having made that offer. She'd get a year's worth of education, free housing, utilities, and one hell of an entertainment center for as little as 26 hours of her time out of the next 18 months!! I'm about ready to tell her that my generosity and willingness to accomodate her are not without limits. I'm getting the short end of the stick here, I think. I could be wrong, though.<p>On the down side, if I withdraw the offer then she is gone in a few months and I most likely will never see her again. I will always have the lingering, nagging doubt that maybe this crazy scheme of mine could have worked. All I ever hoped for was to win her back, and barring that, have the knowledge that I tried every single thing withing my power. If I don't do this, I will not have tried everything. What a royal mess I've gotten myself into now.<p>My wife is hesitant to accept the offer because she is afraid that one day, if things don't work out, I'll hold this over her head. I can honestly say that if she gives *US* a chance and we don't work, then I will not hold it against her. But...if she bull****s and just kills time until I leave, then I damn sure will hold it against her and blame myself just as much for being stupid. But she will bring it on herself by not having been honest with me in the beginning.<p>So, what do you all think? Was I stupid and naive? A drowning man grasping at a sponge like a life-preserver? Or...did I maybe take a chance that could pay off even with her selfish limitations?