Reading through these forums, this is a question that has been talked about a lot. However, I'm literally 3 hours after my wife told me she wants a divorce.

Roll back 2 1/2 years. My wife told me she wanted a divorce then while we were meeting with our counselor. I was able to get her to commit to continue trying. I went through weekly counseling sessions and we had joint sessions every 2-4 weeks. Three months ago, things were absolutely great. I've radically changed how I am and the owned and addressed all the issues I knew about. I continue to work on problems, many due to an emotionally abusive childhood making me controlling and also prone to saying hurtful things when our fights escalated.

We went away for a several week trip in July. Just before this, she brought up a major issue she had regarding finances. I reacted poorly and it escalated. We were going to cancel the trip but then talked about everything and I thought it was resolved. We had a wonderful time, got along fabulously and seemed pretty happy.

We got back last week and I asked her "How are we doing?" She said that she wasn't sure. Apparently she went to the counselor last week and was asked "If your husband changed everything about himself to what you want, would you feel close to him then and want to be with him?" She thought about it and, since she told me 3 hours ago that she wants to split up, the answer was no.

I'm hopelessly in love with her. I've changed not just for her, but to become a better person. There are still attributes to my personality that apparently exist. The biggest one is that she's scared of me. Scared of my reaction when she brings something up that could create conflict. She doesn't want to live in fear. I understand this.

As hard as it is, about an hour ago I told her "I accept that you feel this is over. I understand there are still things that are between us. I regret the hurtful things I've done and want to atone for them," I've put together a list of hurtful things I've done and outstanding issues that I know of, along with a list of positive qualities I bring to our relationship and things I still need to work on - like mutual respect, communication, humility etc. I shared this with her.

Basically, we're talking for an hour and then taking a break. Her big thing is that she doesn't think I can change and it's not right for me to continue to change. I need to be who I am. However, from my perspective I love her to the moon and back and know I am a better person because I'm with her. I do not want this relationship to break, and we've put 2.5 years worth of work into it and got to a good place which has regressed and dredged the original issues back up.

I know a lot of people are going to say, to sum it up, know when to quit. You tried already and it didn't work. There is no second reset switch. Move on.

But I'm not ready to give up.

What can I read? What should I say? We're seeing the counselor again tomorrow and Monday. I do not want to plead and cry and guilt her into sticking this out. I want to respect her decision, but proffer my own middle ground and try to find a way to fix things. What are your thoughts?