Notice wife going into retreat — somehow fail to make progress (5,5)
I believe the answer is:
tread water
'fail to make progress' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.
'notice wife going into retreat somehow' is the wordplay.
'notice' becomes 'ad' (both can mean an advertisement).
'wife' becomes 'w' (abbreviation).
'going into' is an insertion indicator.
'somehow' is an anagram indicator.
'ad'+'w'='adw'
'retreat' anagrammed gives 'treater'.
'adw' put inside 'treater' is 'TREAD WATER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tread water that I've seen before include "Make little or no progress" , "Mainly make no progress" , "just survive" , "Stay afloat" , "fail to make progress!" .)