Whelp - I'm a newbie here. I'm in the beginning stages of things - still trying to work things out with my wife (20 years married) but I think she's going through the motions so she can leave with a 'we tried everything!' and not be the bad-guy.

In her mind, she can seperate, destroy the family, and then we can 'start dating again' to see if there is anything there....

No lawyers involved (on either side yet as far as a I know), no seperation agreement. Officially she is wanting to work on the marriage until June and see where things are at then.

2 daughters, 15, 17, who have independantly told me in the past that if we ever got divorced they would want to be with me. (And the younger one, last month asked me 'don't take this wrong dad, but why are you still married to mom?'. My wife also was diagnosed with bipolar 12 years ago, and she seems to go through something similar every couple years - but this time she seems to be actually taking action.

All that to say, I'm trying to keep things going, and will fight to try to keep things together, but if they fail, they fail.

She's basically been a stay at home mom - working 12 hours / week and getting a disability pension because of the bipolar.

I'm Canadian, and in my province there are guidelines for support payment, so the range is cut and dry, and I think in a seperation agreement she would agree to the 'low' end of the range.

Right now I'm working on coming up with a list of things that will taken care of, timelines, etc.

The hardest part out of this will be housing. Obviously we'll have to sell the house, and after settling debts my share of the equity should be 150 - 200k. But, looking at housing prices here, I won't be able to afford to rent a 3 bedroom place. Probably 2 bedroom, with me needing to sleep in the living room. And my wife will of course be all comfy in a condo.

Oh well, that's enough rambling for now. TTFN