Thanks for all the replies. Before she told me she wanted to split up she said she loved me, cared for me deeply, but didn't feel we're compatible any longer. I disagree.

I appreciate what people are saying regarding moving on, but we're still talking and the changes she's looking for are ones which would make me better as a person overall. I'm not ready to move on and would love to hear ideas on some of the questions I ask below at the bottom of this message,

I also appreciate that people are saying I'm a good person. I like to think that I have a good heart and try to do the right thing, but I also grew up in a very emotionally abusive household with a single mom and while I've been in therapy for it for years and have either managed it or repressed it, it leaks out every so often.

We saw our counselor Friday and it went okay My wife and I have been communicating verbally, but she likes to take her time to process and react so we've also been communicating via shared diary entries. She's let me read through the past couple of years of her diary entries and they are eye opening.

Today I wrote a very thought out message about trust and relationships. I said she needs to figure out for herself whether she can trust me again, but I laid out elements of things I could do to regain her trust (accept responsibility, own it, apologize, honesty between partners, keeping promises, realizing things will never be the same, it will take time, keep words and actions consistent). I also put in a list of why it would be positive to be together (share loving and caring, learn and grow, support each other, share companionship and fun, loving and physical intimacy), and a large list of the actual approaches we should take together to be successful at this (issues to work on, how we could communicate, weekly discussions to see how we're doing, and a bunch of more practical stuff that she was upset about).

She read it, cried while reading it, finished it, and then put on a happy music playlist on spotify and watched funny videos on Youtube. She wrote down some stuff but said she'd share it with me tomorrow as she was feeling drained after today.

She left her computer on, open and sitting on our kitchen island when she went to bed. I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but I couldn't help but see what she wrote.

She literally said that I'm saying all the right things, I fully understand her pain, what caused it, and that I'm willing to fix it. But that she's done. She doesn't want to try any longer. And that she doesn't believe me when I say I'm going to actually do this. She called me ridiculous and said she begged me in the past to help with things but I ignored her and treated her like a lesser (I don't feel I did, but her perception is the important thing - not mine). She said that when she thinks about staying together she cries. When she thinks about living alone she's happy. She said that she looks at me and has zero belief that what I say I'll do will stick.

Her biggest overarching issues right now are the trust issue with regards to me still keeping up with being a good person (helping out with stuff, not making her scared to talk to me about conflict, letting her be her, etc.) a year from now, and the fact that she's tired and doesn't want any more conflict. She doesn't want to hurt any more.

One of the issues we have is finances, and we have a large sailboat that we spend a bunch of money on each year. Tonight, I emailed 2 boat brokers asking if they could tell me their value and their cost structures and I cc'd my wife on the emails. I also told her "There's not much I can do to gain your trust through words, but I just cc'd you on two emails to boat brokers in Annapolis to get their info about putting Pelican up for sale. I don’t need any of these things. Why it took me til now to know... means I’m an ***...I will give it all away today to have you. Just watch... you are all that matters and I’ll go down the list one by one and show you... and if I can’t get it done by Monday... then I’ll continue Tuesday. And Wednesday and I won’t stop until all of your needs are met."

So here's my question. One of her questions to the counselor is if there's a middle ground between not leaving and separating. We're working on our house in order to sell it, but we won't be doing that until the Spring. Our counselor didn't have any ideas. I mean, we can stay living together but if she's closed off to me and not open to any form of reconciliation I don't know what that would do other than make things worse. Does anyone have any ideas on some sort of middle ground? I've also thought about suggesting a marriage retreat or 2-3 days of intensive counseling to just get everything out.. I'd love to hear any ideas you have.

I'm sure many of you probably think I'm stupid, but we've been together for 27 years and married for 22 years. I am still hopelessly in love with her, and what she wants, as I said, are things that would make me better as a person so I'm absolutely willing to change them.