Separated for a year, wife keeps dating but refuses to file for divorce

If you want a divorce, have her served with papers and take her to court. If you don't, then go to marriage counseling and try to sort it out, or accept the fact that you are suddenly in an open marriage, like it or not.

I definitely don't want a divorce, if I did I would file myself. I love her more now then when we first married 7 years ago. I have asked her to go to marriage counseling and she refuses.
I wouldn't call it an open marriage. People in open marriages still have sex, we haven't even hugged in over a year.

So you are the new babysitter while she goes out on dates?

At what time did you lose your life?

Geez - give her a deadline and if needed, move out and set up your own home if she does not commit to either divorce or reconciliation.

You are in limbo right now.

So in my OP I stated we live apart.

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules as to that. It's not like there's a manual.

I learned one rule about open marriages - don't do it!

What is the upside to you in being your wife's staff while you moves on with her life.

She won't go for counselling. She is dating. She's done with you.

Have you gone for counselling on your own? you need to sort out why you accept being treated like this.

True that there is no open marriage manual.

There is one basic though. All of the people in the open marriage want to be together. You don't even have that.

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Have you looked into obtaining custody of the children and maintaining the marital home on your own? seems like you're more into family life than your about to be ex wife. Keep the home and kids. Let her go.

This.

We sold the house, I live in an apartment and she lives in one of her parents rental houses.
If she's going to be my ex why hasn't she filed? That was the original question I've been asking. I have a very talented therapist that helps me with the other stuff, and he says if I want to be with her to keep doing what I'm doing. Be there as much as I can and help as much as I can.
Also I'm a pilot and on the road a lot, I can't ask for them to be in my house as their residence.

She hasn't filed because she's lazy and because you are making her life far too easy by not insisting. Plus she may be enjoying certain benefits, such as filing taxes jointly or being on your health insurance.

You will not get anywhere unless this stalemate is broken. Since she will not do it, you're elected.

I think we all agree here.

You should file for a divorce. She is done with you, and she is using you. A divorce will give you legal protection, and it will also allow you to get on with your life and find someone who will treat you better. You have already been through the painful part of a divorce, hopefully the rest will mostly be paperwork. I have yet to meet anyone who has gone through with a divorce and then regretted it.

As an aside, most people don't consider looking at porn as doing anything wrong (even in a marriage). She is blaming you for something that wasn't your fault. She is the one who cheated and from what you wrote, she bailed on the marriage.

You deserve better. Get a divorce and move on.

The first step for getting a divorce is sitting down with a divorce attorney. Many of them will give you a consultation for free... but in my experience it is better to pay for an hour of their time. If it is free, what you get is a sales pitch, if you pay the lawyer will be there to answer your questions and to come up with a plan.

The major parts of my divorce were; division of property, discussion over custody of the children, and child support/alimony. The divorce is official when there is a written agreement that discusses these things.

In our case, division of property was fairly straight forward. The most difficult part was agreeing on a "parenting plan" that outlined where our children would be living, spending vacations and some agreements on how we would raise them.

We started out with the idea that we could have a "amicable" divorce with a mediator. That broke down fairly quickly. So we each got lawyers.

The judge appoints a negotiator whose job it is to make sure the judge doesn't have to do any work. The negotiator made it clear that she would report to the judge which side was being unreasonable... a pretty clever tactic to make sure that we would both be reasonable (no one wants the judge to be annoyed with them).

After we went back and forth on version of the parenting agreement, and some dickering over cash payments, we came up with an agreement. It went before the judge who took 5 minutes to approve it.

And we were done.

After that, it is over. You start over as a single person. You take care of your kids. You build new friendships and relationships. And, you move on.

As I have said, I have yet to meet a person who has regretted getting a divorce.

It starts with talking to a lawyer.