Feeling .... Distant

I can feel a very definite distance building between my knight and I. We barely talk unless it's about the house or kids.  We have some serious issues going on with his 12 yr old daughter, and I'm sure that's a big part of the distance. He tends to withdraw and hide inside himself when things go badly wrong- and the situation with is 12 yr old daughter has gone badly wrong.  I'm doing all I can to get him to talk to me about how he's feeling without being a pain. The best I get from him is "I'm fine." I know he isn't.  He's falling into a depression because he feels helpless. My knight does not deal well with feeling helpless. But, the bottom line is that there is absolutely nothing either of us can do to remedy things. We have done all we could for the last 7 years, and now, the situation is out of our control. The final outcome is out of our hands. It doesn't matter what we do or say, the situation will continue as dictated by someone we have no influence over. It sucks for all of us.

Pulling away from me isn't going to change anything, except make it harder for us both to cope with the situation. But, pulling away is exactly what he's doing - in every way possible. When he pulls away, I tend to relax the flr a bit and give him the room he seems to need. This time, I have Not done that. His expectations have stayed the same. I had hoped the continuation of our routines and such would help keep him grounded while we deal with this mess. But, he's pulling away anyway. He's meeting most of the expectations, and he's completing his daily task list, but emotionally he's far away from us. He's going though the motions.....but not really paying attention to what he's doing.

I find myself wondering if I should up the ante a little bit. Do something unexpected and outside our routine to help him refocus on the things he can control. I'm thinking about buying a leather flail or crop and using it on him one night this week just to get a reaction out of him. But, I'm not sure if it will help or hurt.

Our wedding anniversary is next week. I'd like to do something that brings us closer, instead of allowing the current  "normal" to continue.

I know he's upset and feeling helpless over the situation with his daughter, so am I. But I don't want to allow the distance to spread. Distance is a bad.. bad thing for us. For any couple, really, but some people can live with the distance and be content with each other anyway. We can't. Distance leads to a complete impatience with each other.

I'm not really looking for advice here, although suggestions are appreciated. I'm mostly just documenting this so that I can look back at it later and see how I dealt with it for future reference.

It would be fun to have him make a flail for us. We have a lot of scrap leather lying around. I could have him cut a certain number of strips, and then braid and tie them together to make a flail. It would give him a project to work on. He would probably think it was for our LARP group. Then when the flail is done I could could use it on him. Of course, it would be easier and faster to just go buy one when I'm out this evening, but I think he needs a short building and design project. Something that won't take too much time, and that lends a bit of mystery to things..

Of course, it won't solve the problem at all, but it just might help him feel a little bit better, and bring us a little closer.