To the Core-Why do you stay?

Not to pry, but you said you're hurting and the details may be of use.

The 24 year old can stay, he says... but he could also come with you.
It also implies you can't. But I don't get eh impression you left.
If you left, is the implication you could not return?

It sounds like an attempt to socially isolate you from your son/family. Classic controller behavior. Not saying it is, but it's typical.
Would the 12 year old join you if he/she were invited? 
You need not exclude your husband, but you could banish him if he says hurtful things.
Your kids watching you set and keep boundaries may be very healthy for their role modelling of functional romantic relationships.

Boy, are my legs tired jumping to all those conclusions.

Odd point: Why does he want you to take the youngest daughter? What if he had to keep all three? Too much parenting for him? Poor baby.

@deadzone had a great post on taking care of self

I don't think you should leave. Why? You move into your brothers place- in some states it could be considered abandonment.  My brother's ex tried to do it to him, he was advised to stay. 

Sorry about your brother, my brother passed away several years before yours. It's a wound that never heals and he was way too young.

For a while I thought my H was leaving. He didn't. I cleaned up the marrige and we became close again. I was putting all the effort in at first. It seemed futile, then little by little  he started reciprocating. Just like the relationship books say they will.

I didn't even want to do nice things for him at first, but then it became natural and it's really not in my personality to just fight all the time. So it did me some good to reach out and be loving. I also followed the  divorce busting book by Michele Weiner Davis. It helped me a lot and the sex-starved wife by the same author helped . What really clicked for me was doing your best in the relationship even if you plan on leaving until the day you plan to leave. I just didn't want to leave and if anyone was going to leave it would be need to be him. Like you, I did love him and it really turned around for us.

I used several different books to help and the therapist. All of it together helped build a house of respect again. Not that this path would be good for you, but it could help someone else

So, I just popped in to see how things are going since I've been away for awhile. When last I checked in, my wife and I were trying counseling. It got to the point where counseling was not on a regular basis and we both admitted that we feel like we are further apart that when we started a few years ago. We've both agreed that we cannot continue on this path and neither of us wants to stay in this marriage as it currently sits if we can't find a way to be closer together. We both agree that we still love each other. She admitted as recently as today that she still wants an intimate relationship, including physical intimacy with me, but doesn't feel emotionally connected at this point. As such, physical affection is not on her radar (which still kind of puzzles me, but I guess if I understood women better, I wouldn't be in this situation).

I've stayed to this point because of my kids, because I love my wife, and because it would be very expensive to leave. However, in staying, I have realized that while I've spent three and a half extra years with my kids and watched them grow every day, I am also sacrificing a normal, healthy love life and an emotional connection with a partner to share my life with, which weighs heavily on me. I'm a physical touch person and not having any physical affection in my marriage has been tough. It's literally been 3 1/2 years since I've had any kind of sex, which seems crazy to me to even have to type.

In addition, my business has continued to grow to the point where I've spun off another business. The longer I stay in a broken marriage, the more expensive it gets for me and the more risk I take that I may owe my wife lifetime support. That is beginning to weigh heavily on me also as I don't want it impact future business decisions and I am starting to see my financial freedom slipping away if I don't leave soon.

That being written, I've grown as a person in those 3 1/2 years and realize that the current sexless/emotionless marriage is not a sustainable long-term solution. While we co-parent very well, I will leave within the next year if we cannot rectify this situation and if my needs for affection are not met. I realize she has emotional needs and I am working really had to try to meet those, but it can be challenging based on all the damage we've both done to our relationship over the past 10 years. I am struggling to connect with her emotionally and, under her narrative, "I am not an emotional person". This is a bit frustrating for me as I have two female friends that I talk to fairly regularly, both of which have told me I am totally an emotionally available person. However, I certainly can't tell her that as I think it would cause more problems that it was worth.

In the meantime, I've had another meeting with the attorney I last saw 2 1/2 years ago just to update my projected figures on alimony, child support, a potential property settlement and what I can expect to have left over to live on should it come to that. I've also done some online apartment/condo research to know what my living costs are going to be if I have to leave our marital house, which I probably will. Bottom line, if I am going to make the decision to leave, I am going to have as much info at my disposal as I can, including the financial figures where possible.

Despite all this, I don't consider my marriage a failure. We have three beautiful, well adjusted kids that we never would have had it we didn't get married in the first place. I know that might sound a little cheesy, but my kids are my greatest joy and proudest accomplishment, so much more so than building the businesses I've been able to build. I know that if my marriage doesn't work out, I've done as much as I could do in my mind and it just wasn't meant to be. I'm sure my wife's narrative would be different, but there is only so much I am capable of. However, I've realized that I can no longer ignore/deny my need for physical intimacy and a connection with a woman who genuinely cares about my needs (as I will about hers). I'm not going to go out and have an affair on my wife at this point. I don't want that used against me with my kids so I'd rather we both agree that it isn't working and agree to move on. I think it would make the dissolution easier than having an affair to deal with also. How's everyone else doing?

#1 - take a full and frank inventory of your marriage."Tick"
#2 - have a go at counselling and honestly appraise the results. "Tick"
#3 - seek relevant legal and financial advice so you can make a fully informed choice about your longer term best interests. "Tick"
#4 - research the best way of helping the kids through a divorce should it prove to be going that way. "Tick"
#5 - shore up your support network (it sort of looks like you might be doing this, so probably that's a "Tick" too)

Looks like you've done a good job up to this point Brother flyingsolo

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postnuptial_agreement#:~:text=A%20postnuptial%20agreement%20is%20a,of%20the%20statute%20of%20frauds.

Her reaction may give you useful data.
It'd give you flexibility and remove financial reasons to keep you trapped if that's all she's doing.

Perhaps you have an honor or faith bond that would survive a legal dissolution.
Basically, if you're legally divorced but stay in the house to co-parent thereafter, maybe the legal divorce wouldn't matter much except financially. I, personally, was ready to look after my wife in sickness and in health until she died even if she divorced me for dating. I was ready to sustain our other commitments if divorce was the cost of my broken nigh-celibacy. My marriage was sealed the day I said "I do." in front of family, friends, and God; not the day I signed a paper in a Delaware courthouse and my marriage will not be dissolved if I sign another contract at a courthouse.

Devotion to all the vows you are already keeping could continue; but infidelity, as far as society is concerned, would no longer be in play. No ring, no foul. It's stupid that it works that way, but society is a little irrational. The paper matters to them a lot.

Just to clarify for anyone reading this thread, the Weiner-Davis(WD) books didn't hurt my marriage. They hurt me. Like I said above, they obviously must help a lot of people or WD wouldn't have kept writing them. Jerri is an example where the WD books played a helpful role and that's great, of course. My concern is coming from the perspective of a wife who married a man on the asexual spectrum. I have no idea what it's like to be with a man who loved the sex at the beginning of the relationship and then lost interest; I'm in the 'no sex from the start' camp. These are very different perspectives and I value hearing about all the range that we come across here on iliasm. Each of us have a story that might help someone else so it's always worth sharing each of our perspectives.

I can't remember which of the WD books does mention that the solutions offered don't apply to marriages where the problem is related to alcohol/drug addictions, an abusive partner OR sexual dysfunction. Maybe it was The Sex Starved Wife. Not sure what exact terminology she used but at least she was aware there are some things that all the 'fixing' in the world won't make a difference to. Unfortunately as we often say here, I didn't know what I didn't know and believed if I could apply all that the books suggested, my husband would somehow find me desirable. I did not understand when I read the book's introduction with that caveat, it was relevant to my marriage. When everything I tried didn't result in any change I felt even more of a failure and almost gave up on life itself. I had to figure out my own solutions in the end and settling for nothing but brutal honesty was central to that.