A horrible situation for both of you, but you seem so sensitive and caring that I'm sure it will all work out in the end (cliche - horrible I know - but true) Its just not for some people, I've seen people drop out at all stages and its heartbreaking, but I genuinely think that if he's suffering so much (and depression is just terrible), then losing the stress of the PhD and dropping further behind with the pressure mounting up so fast, can only be a relief for him.
As for you, I'm sure that he won't want for your success to be allowed to 'slip by' - you've worked so very hard, gone through so much, I'm not saying flaunt Dr in front of him when it comes (which it will), but even though he'll be grieving for the loss of his PhD I'm sure he'll want you to celebrate the fact that you've got to the end and succeeded in this :-)
You sound like a very loving couple and together you'll get through this just fine and in a year or so it will be water under the bridge and all ok again.

Lol I watched it, still recovering and hoping my eardrums heal over again soon ;-) I LOVE eurovision lmao - its so bad its great! our guy was just dire, poor man, felt quite sorry for him really - even his backing singers were out of tune! I nearly fell off the sofa laughing when Graham said, while they were reviewing the numbers to call, 'you can't vote for Josh, you can light a candle for him though' - ha ha ha ha, that was just class. It was a terribly amount of wailing, Russia were hilarious, I'm not sure the best one won, and that girl, shudder, what an uber bimbo when they were interviewing her.....

Oh, and Jepsonclough - there's nothing wrong with plagarism ;-) if done often enough it can get you out of having to write the darned dissertation without having to make the decision yourself :p

You seem to have missed out writing about your findings.... thought that might be quite important personally... I'd also worry that the wonderful help with dissertation writing might be a bit useless when you say things like "in short, a proper dissertation layout leads the preceding ingredients, generally" - what does that mean exactly? I think I'll stick to proper guidance and far more helpful books relating to dissertation writing if that's ok (down)

Sneaks, I'm another one who's been out there and is significantly worse off doing this, although I never reached the giddy heights of cars, holidays etc, but its quite right that although obviously the financial aspect is a HUGE one, its not the be all and end all, provided you can get by. For heaven's sake don't take your qualifications off the CV - you've worked so damned hard for them, be proud of them. This is something I was discussing with my boss the other day (I work 10 hours as an RA) and she said the same, really make the most of the transferable skills you've learnt, and think about what you have to do to do this PhD that makes you so incredibly employable! If you focus on that rather than the actual nuts and bolts of the qualification you are head and shoulders above so many other applicants cos you have proved (when we get there) that you have the drive, the determination, the ability to work unsupervised, the skill to be a very valuable asset to any company. As far as the civil service is concerned, that is now Sneaks, who knows what will happen in a year, or two years.... none of us know - the only thing that is certain is that nothing ever stays the same and an opening may well develop just when you need it to so don't lose heart. You aren't wasting your time, you're building a personal portfolio that will knock spots off the vast majority of other workers out there :-)

Ha ha, so sorry Wally, I hate that you can't see who's written what when you're replying - didn't mean you! Oops :$ although it would boost any funding - and we're back to Belle D'Jour - where's Clever Clogs when you need him?

Lol Sneaks, its funny you say that, my friend also posts endless photos of herself on facebook and is kind of matching your description.... hmmmm..... lol lol - but she does really enjoy it!

Chocolate, a really rubbish film, something funny ideally, and a good goss tend to cheer me up. You can't change the situation but you can make a few hours something fun, throw in a glass of wine and you're well away (unless you've tried all that). Not sure wally's idea of a prostitute would do it, or even a pie lol but maybe a fun girl's night out with the chippendales or similar if they are doing the rounds? Something else that my friend does (and I've not tried it myself but would so love to) is pole dancing! Not the sleazy gstring variety (unless you are uber confident lol) but pole dancing for fitness classes are apparently great fun, really hard work, and you have to concentrate so hard on not landing on your head in an ungainly heap that it puts everything else out of your mind, and swinging around the pole (shouting wheeeeeee is strictly compulsorary - see note on g-string - don't combine the two) is exhilarating :-D Plus, if you manage to not fall off it leaves you feeling sexy, feminine and fitter, albeit a bit bruised :-)

Very interesting - I'm approaching the end of the second year at a terrifying rate, right now, with a board looming, the paper in another window (procrastinating... me???) and stress of it all I'd say no, I won't miss it for a flipping second - weekends, evenings.... those glorious things that I have a vague memory of!!! SUNBATHING! But, the other part of me thinks that yes, I probably will.... depending on what I get to do later I suppose. I also find the identity of 'student' bothering sometimes - I'm sick to death of people thinking that as I'm a student I therefore sit on my bum all day, get up midday sometimes, do half an hour's work and then get pi**ed, and that I'm doing this for an easy ride rather than getting a 'proper' job - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - I've done lots of 'proper' jobs thankyou very much, they paid money, they had time off, they also were a damn site easier than this is!
So... whilst embroiled in the pain of the PhD I'd say no, there is not a snowball in hell's chance of me missing this, but the sensible part can see that yes, its gonna be a wrench after years of studying to leave it behind :-)

Lol lol lol, I'm sooooo getting neon yellow shorts!!! Fantastic idea :-) And lol at the biscuits, I don't have any in the house much to the annoyance of the kids to avoid that situation, but I did make flapjacks and mini banana cakes with my daughter at the weekend and am trying to hard to avoid them - however, they are, according the recipe book, great sources of all sorts of wonderful things so the sugar, syrup, butter etc just don't count - they are cancelled out by the banana :-)

Go Sneaks!!!! That does sound incredibly low! I can't believe for a second that 30 mins of riding uphill and then having to ride down the hill as well (so with you on the wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) could amount to just over 100 calories, that's rubbish! I've read all sorts of stuff on this equipment thing - some say they over-estimate the calories, others that they under-estimate them - but 30 mins of cycling is going to be way more than that! I went out for a brisk walk yesterday (run day today - shudder) and in 24 mins walking 2.5k at 6kph on average worked off over 200 calories according to my phone thingy that maps the route and the incline and stuff so you're well over that with cycling over 8k!

Sigh, better get back to writing - have a deadline in 2 weeks and I'm half way through the intro... - later this afternoon I do a 35 minute run - 5 reps of run 5 mins walk 1 min plus 5 min warm up walk - so dreading it - 5 mins is such a horribly long time to run for - only been doing this 7 weeks and it kills lol - but the Race for Life is looming and I'm absolutely determined to run the 5k, plus it seems to help with the old PhD blues a bit and after having sat here for hours on end typing it certainly blows away the cobwebs :-) I just wish it didn't hurt so much lmao!

Nooooo don't say that algaequeen! I was hoping that this was the last time it went down again - sob - I'm trying to pluck up the courage to do away with my 'fat' clothes but maybe I'll stick them in a bin bag somewhere lol. Heavens, just reading your list exhausted me! Hmmmmmmm will ponder on it lol - oooh totm? that dreaded visit from our favourite mother nature? That put 5lb on me a couple of weeks back and took 2 weeks to get off again - yoyo dieting has nothing on hormones lol..... *grasping at straws here if the boobs are fine :p* Stress, that's another and we have that in spade loads :-)

Lol Sneaks, I have a new bike and keep promising myself I'll get on it but tbh it frightens me - last time I went for a ride a few years ago :$ I ended up with cystitis - probably totally unrelated but it kind of sticks in your mind and the darned seat kills my nether regions just to look at it let alone sit on it! I considering taking a pillow, putting that on the seat and riding with that :-) lol, that'd certainly draw attention! I was looking online for solutions and they suggested wearing cycle shorts lmao - yeh, right - with my backside I'd be causing accidents left right and centre if I wore cycle shorts - sudden lack of sunlight from an eclipse or worse still just gawking in complete horror tends to do that ;-) But... they sell them with a gel pack that you wear inside it!!!! and no knickers - omg can you imagine if that fell out with a queue of traffic behind you - instant death from shame lol lol lol lol

Oh, and if my hubby said that about me not exercising intensely enough I think any chance of the big pg would be out of the window as he'd be a few ounces lighter in the gentleman dept ;-)

Ooh, I was wondering what was happening here - I've had so many problems with my internet and couldn't get on here - v sad :-(

Anyway - ooooh, boobs not sore???...... not too tired????...... ;-)

I'm still sticking to my diet, I do WW online and actually quite enjoy it - lost 2.5 stone since January and am busy doing the Couch 2 5k to get trained up for the race for life :-) So I run 3 times a week (actually call that stumble along whimpering pityfully lmao) and I do yoga two or three times a week, also I work out to my dvds and mess around on the Wii. What I've found though is that since I've been exercising like a mad thing I've not lost any weight - I'm not putting on, just not losing. I found it all very upsetting as I have around another 10lb to lose to get to goal, but a wonderful friend online sent me some links to articles that explained how weight loss works and how when you exercise you don't tend to lose as much as quickly, but everything tones up, goes back roughly where it should be and eventually you end up a slim, toned, sex goddess (the article didn't mention the last bit but that MUST be what happens!) Are you doing lots of cardio? You really need to be doing that to get rid of the padding, if you're building muscle at the same time that will speed up the whole process.

I'd best log off the computer now, been sat on my backside writing all day (I soooo hate writing up) and am going to go have a brisk walk before doing my sit ups (50 today eek)

I also work from home, we have a dept office for PhD students but its shared and can be noisy, although tbh these days we all seem to work from home anyway! I have all my stuff here, I can just come down, grab a cuppa, put on the computer and get on rather than driving 30 mins to uni, get parked, walk to campus etc etc. We tend to meet with out sup once a month or so and have constant email correspondence so it works well. He's not on campus every day either so there's not much point being there - the lecturers never go near the PhD students' office anyway lol. I don't have to worry about leaving the dogs, the school run is 5 minutes rather than 40 mins, it all works very well :-)
What I would say, as the others have pointed out, watch out for problems relating to isolation, it can be very lonely and quite demoralising at times, but if you can work something out where you are at home most of the time and pop in once a week/fortnight then you should get the best of both worlds :-)