Marriage in free fall (very long)

[Trail Blazer]

Inquiring minds want to know: Are you overweight too?

 

If you had asked this question 3 years ago it would have been an emphatic 'no'. However turning 30 has changed things and combined with stopping playing sport for various reasons, it has contributed to me putting on about 20 lbs. I've joined a gym a few weeks ago actually as I've never been a heavy person and don't plan on letting any more weight creep up on me each and every year.

[Trail Blazer]

I apologize for my misinterpretations. I'm glad you cleared up my misconceptions.

 

I'm wondering why your wife cannot set up a private practice if she's a psychologist. If you have a spare bedroom, your wife can use that as her office. That seems like a far less stressful career option than becoming a police officer or continuing to be a lawyer.

 

If your wife expected you to provide for the family, she should have been honest about that when you got married.

 

My wife has a degree in psychology but has never worked in the field before. She has no experience and is not licensed to practice at all. Why she did the degree I don't really know. She said it interested her.

 

We do not have a spare room as we have 4 kids and only 4 bedroom. Things are pretty tight in more ways than one in this household. If we were going to have a spare room my wife would use it as a studio for photography.

[Trail Blazer]

So, a woman who is over 40, has heart damage, and is a qualified lawyer and psychologist wants to fudge around with fanciful notions of a shiny new career in the police force..someday..rather than get a job in law or in psychology to pay her bills now? Really? Tell her it's time to grow up and start contributing. Life's stressful. Being an adult is stressful. If she thinks she's healthy enough to be a cop, she's healthy enough to work pretty much anywhere right now.

 

Well yeah, this is pretty much where we are at the minute. I get how it reads to others. It doesn't really make any sense. As I said earlier though, while she's been bankrupt it's not exactly easy to get a job in the public sector as public financial records are available for 7 years I am led to believe. She's been bankrupt for 6 years so only a year to go.

 

I have tried to lean on her a little to see if she warms to the idea of going back to a gov agency again. She hates it and says it's a soul destroying environment full of psychos and narcissists trying to climb over each other to get promotions. She finds the work unispiring and the people (not all but many) unpleasant to work with.

 

Any time I do bring it up she always turns it around on to me and my faults. For example she will say stuff like "if you don't want me to join the police force, why don't you join it"? I did attempt to join 10 years ago but failed the aptitude test. By the time I could do it again I'd alreadtly decided policing probably wasn't for me. So I have stuck out at my trade trying my best in that.

 

Another thing she will say if I voice concerns about her joining the police (or anything else for that matter) is "the people sitting on the sidelines with their hands in the air saying they can't fix the problem (financial problem) have no business criticizing the methods with which those whom can fix the problem have adopted".

 

I'm tired of fighting and arguing. It just devolves into name calling and insults. I'm always left to feel like the only reason why we have arguments is because I don't understand the concepts we're discussing and because I don't understand the concepts I misinterpret what she says and go off on a tangent. I disagree but then it's rinse and repeat in that case. So it's easier to just say "whatever"and go do something else.

[BettyDraper]

My wife has a degree in psychology but has never worked in the field before. She has no experience and is not licensed to practice at all. Why she did the degree I don't really know. She said it interested her.

 

We do not have a spare room as we have 4 kids and only 4 bedroom. Things are pretty tight in more ways than one in this household. If we were going to have a spare room my wife would use it as a studio for photography.

 

Does your wife refer to herself as a psychologist if she's not licensed to practice? What degree does she hold?

 

Since your wife has an education, she needs to buckle down and use it to obtain employment. Photography and dreams of police work will not pay the bills.

 

Of course, these facts do not absolve you of the need to find and sustain gainful employment.

[Just a Guy]

Hi Trail Blazer, after reading through your thread I empathize with your situation. The fact is that 13 years ago when you got in touch with your wife on a forum like this, she was the fully mature adult with enough life experience notched up. You were a beardless teen anger just entering manhood and were yet to find your feet. Of course she was on the rebound and latched on to you in a desperate attempt to steady her rudderless life at that point. What she did with you was almost as bad as cradle snatching and as the adult in the relationship I will put the blame squarely on her shoulders. For God's sake man you are closer in age to your step daughter than you are to her mum, your wife. In everything I have read I find your wife's behaviour self entitled and considering that she already had baggage from her past, I think it was selfish of her to ensnare you into a one sided relationship. Because you got married so young, you were not able to explore your options for further education and having the freedom of choice for deciding on a suitable career. With the sword of Damocles of having to support your older wife with all her baggage( although of course she was working and able to support her self at the time) you had to man up and take up the most convenient career path available to you at the time.

This was a grossly unfair burden for someone who should have known better to have placed on your shoulders. Your wife then had to give up working when her health forced her to do so and the entire burden of the family was placed on your shoulders. With her frustration rising on account of her own problems she started blaming you for not stepping up to the plate. She took up a business of photography without assessing the input costs of the project for it to be successful and then exited it leading to loss of money and having to file for bankruptsy. All through her various shenanigans you supported her including agreeing to put her children in a high end private school which she would have known would be a difficult proposition to maintain. I think right through your so called marriage your wife has used you and abused you as the fall guy. You on the other hand have mostly delivered well under very trying circumstances. All I can say is that your marriage is a very one sided affair and maybe her first husband left her because he realized her penchant for unreasonableness. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he cheated on her. Only you would know. However, in your case as you rightly captioned your thread your marriage is in free fall. It is up to you now whether you want to stick it out with her or strike out on your own. I know that having children with her has complicated matters. If you stick around you can expect years of heart break with her because she is not going to ease up on her behavior. You have a difficult choice ahead of you. Choose widely. Warm wishes.

[Trail Blazer]

Does your wife refer to herself as a psychologist if she's not licensed to practice? What degree does she hold?

 

Since your wife has an education, she needs to buckle down and use it to obtain employment. Photography and dreams of police work will not pay the bills.

 

Of course, these facts do not absolve you of the need to find and sustain gainful employment.

 

No, she never refers to herself as a psychologist at all. She does have a bachelor of science degree in Psychology (I think that's the better one?). I guess all she'd have to do would be apply for a license? I would say she would need some kind of relevant industry training/experience before she would be granted a license to actually practice. In any case it's not an option and isn't going to happen.

 

She has applied for jobs everywhere like Walmart, Costco and the like but always gets knocked back due to being overqualified. Her son who works at Walmart said they hire young people or older people with retail experience who aren't over qualified and looking for a job as a gap filler till they find something better. Makes sense I suppose.

 

The only other work she has been doing is on call work for a labor hire company supplying workers to some of the local wineries here in the Willamette Valley. It's good money but hard and boring, repetitive work. She gets on average about 1 shift per week. So it does help make ends meet. It's nothing like full time employment though and won't help us in the long run at all.

[AMarriedMan]

Your wife's weight is not the most serious problem in your marriage so I don't know why you keep talking about it.

 

OP's wife's weight is a mere afterthought compared to the mess his life has become. What makes people want to assume the crushing weight of all these responsibilities at such as young age? OP's story is a cautionary tale about how a young person, a man in particular as men have the luxury of having no biological clock, should value their young adulthood and all the freedom and opportunities it is full of. Marriage and family are for established people in their late twenties at earliest. This is also a story about a young man sorely lacking a mentor and guidance at a crucial time in his youth.

 

 

Most women gain weight after having children and also as we age.

Though your wife could do more to look better, it's unrealistic to expect her to look the way she did when she was 20 years old.

 

 

Which is why it is unwise for a man in his twenties to marry a woman slightly over the hill, however attractive at the time. In a few short years, she will be clearly over the hill while he will only be approaching his lifetime peak of attractiveness.

 

 

I wouldn't want to have sex with my husband if he kept harping on my weight,

 

 

I agree that this is not the best aphrodisiac.

 

 

he wasn't there for me when I was ill and he didn't earn enough to adequately provide for our family if we had children.

 

 

I think OP's wife may, to a large degree, blame herself for this one. I think OP mentioned that his wife had told him in the beginning that she'd take care of the financial side of things, a promise she later turned out unable to fulfill. They got together when he was very young and when she'd soon be approaching the end of her fertility. OP is not a lazy and unambitious man. He is in a trade working long hours to support his family. If he had only got involved in serious relationships with women much later in his life, he could easily have taken those opportunities to work on oil rigs for big bucks and maybe used the money to get more training and education to improve his career prospects without breaking the bank or sacrificing his health.

 

 

Poor choices, resentment and health issues have brought you to this point.

 

 

Granted, OP was legally an adult when he and his to-be-wife first got together but he was very young and inexperienced while his future wife was already a mother of two and in her thirties. At that stage, it was IMO more her responsibility to look at the prospective relationship realistically.

Edited August 22, 2017 by AMarriedMan

[Eternal Sunshine]

This is a perfect example of why a good work ethic and steady employment is something that's extremely important in a partner. I don't plan to get stuck with someone that decides that work is "too stressful" and I am left paying all the bills.

 

I have people that are very close to me who had heart attacks in their 60s, number of major surgeries and other illnesses (diabetes, cancer) and have returned to their previous full time employment in under 6 months. C'mon now a woman in her 40s with multiple degrees can't work? At all? Because it's too stressful? But even though she has a damaged heart and has difficulty doing cardio, she now wants a new career in a police force? :eek:

 

I can't believe what I am reading. OP, time to wake up and smell the coffee. She needs to get a job.

[Trail Blazer]

Hi Trail Blazer, after reading through your thread I empathize with your situation. The fact is that 13 years ago when you got in touch with your wife on a forum like this, she was the fully mature adult with enough life experience notched up. You were a beardless teen anger just entering manhood and were yet to find your feet. Of course she was on the rebound and latched on to you in a desperate attempt to steady her rudderless life at that point. What she did with you was almost as bad as cradle snatching and as the adult in the relationship I will put the blame squarely on her shoulders. For God's sake man you are closer in age to your step daughter than you are to her mum, your wife. In everything I have read I find your wife's behaviour self entitled and considering that she already had baggage from her past, I think it was selfish of her to ensnare you into a one sided relationship. Because you got married so young, you were not able to explore your options for further education and having the freedom of choice for deciding on a suitable career. With the sword of Damocles of having to support your older wife with all her baggage( although of course she was working and able to support her self at the time) you had to man up and take up the most convenient career path available to you at the time.

This was a grossly unfair burden for someone who should have known better to have placed on your shoulders. Your wife then had to give up working when her health forced her to do so and the entire burden of the family was placed on your shoulders. With her frustration rising on account of her own problems she started blaming you for not stepping up to the plate. She took up a business of photography without assessing the input costs of the project for it to be successful and then exited it leading to loss of money and having to file for bankruptsy. All through her various shenanigans you supported her including agreeing to put her children in a high end private school which she would have known would be a difficult proposition to maintain. I think right through your so called marriage your wife has used you and abused you as the fall guy. You on the other hand have mostly delivered well under very trying circumstances. All I can say is that your marriage is a very one sided affair and maybe her first husband left her because he realized her penchant for unreasonableness. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he cheated on her. Only you would know. However, in your case as you rightly captioned your thread your marriage is in free fall. It is up to you now whether you want to stick it out with her or strike out on your own. I know that having children with her has complicated matters. If you stick around you can expect years of heart break with her because she is not going to ease up on her behavior. You have a difficult choice ahead of you. Choose widely. Warm wishes.

I have emboldened a couple of points in an otherwise fantastic summary of how I feel, but unable to accurately analyze given my obvious bias being in the situation.

 

Firstly, and it's only a minor difference, but it was just after she quit due to the heart attack as the timeline of when the bankruptcy came. It was once she became bankrupt, therefore finding it difficult to get work at a later stage due to it being public record and having to declare it in her particular line of work, when she decided to do photography. I guess you could say she wanted to be a stay at home mom, except she saw it as still bringing some money to the table.

 

My wife quit when our daughter was 14 months old, 6 months after returning from maternity leave. From her perspective at that point her kids were pulled out of private school and on a different path. She was very depressed a out this, as we also lost the house, had to rent AND her dad also fluffed his divorce settlement which meant that not only could he help us temporarily with money to try and stem the flow, he ended up moving in with us.

 

I was still trying to get a job on a rig or in the mines, but the financial crisis ruined a lot of industries for some time to come. My wife proposes that had I not "failed" in securing a bigh paying off shore or mining job, the extra money would have saved our house, saved her kids from leaving one of the best schools in the state and ensuring our own 2 went there, and most importantly, paid for some help around the house like a cleaner coming more frequently.

 

It is probably true what she's said, that is that I started to fall first, losing my way not finding good work through the financial crisis, thus ignoring the stress around me by coming introverted and leaving her to deal with everything. She blames me for falling in a rut before her, thus not backing her up around thr house. She thinks that even if I didn't find a high paying job, I might have prevented her heart attack and inturn the tipping point for why she had to quit.

 

It's true that I cracked first, lost my way, went into self preservation mode and things started falling apart. I didn't listen to.my wife when she was begging for help, i did not empathize with her when she needed someone to back her up. I struggled with her angry hysteric behaviour but she says if i had more emotional intelligence I would have figured that it wasn't personal and seen it was a cry for help and not her abusing me. Whether thats fair and reasonable, I don't know. But the way i handled it wasnt good.

 

When my wife was in hospital and i had to go to work, get my 1 year old daughter to day care, 5 year old son to school, 2 teenage kids to school - i found it extremely hard. I had no leave because i had exhausted it over that year using it to look after our baby when she got common colds and the like, i had to find a way. My step son had only just started seeing a sleep specialist for an issue which was later diagnosed as narcolepsy. He has meds now which make it ok, but back then he'd never wake up. He kpet falling asleep all the time so I was late every day managing all that. I copped it bad from my boss at the time, when I explained the situation he'd juet say "we've all got a story but yours doesn't reduce the targets i have to meet."

 

I visited my wife was in hospital daily, mostly with the kids, but when I visted her on the fourth day without the kids we had a discussion about things which my stress started pouring out and the nurses overheard. One nurse said that my wife has to recover so bringing stress, the very thing that put her here in the first place, was not a good idea. My wife discharged herself early because she said i stressed her out so much that she would be less stressed coming home anr fixijg the problems than lying in bed worrying about them.

 

My wife has resentment issues over that. She resents my "inability to step up in her time of need, or any other time" (I'm paraphrasing here) and once again leaving a big mess for her to clean up. She said the nurse told her after i left that my behavior was disgusting and she could see why my wife ended up in the cardiac unit. Would a nurse even tell a patient that? I don't know, probably... but anyhoo. That's that.

 

The other emboldened part is yes, you're correct that her ex cheated on her. Many times. He managed a strippers parlor in the early 90s and she found out through a stripper there she got to know when she invariably had to pick her ex up. He'd started doing all sorts of drugs. It was the beginning of the end to their relationship. It was he who left her after all that, which wasn't until 97 when her son was 8 months old. It turns out he'd been cheating the whole time and left her for another stripper who ended up dumping him a month later. The guy is a total jerk, that much i can say. His own kids won't talk to him after years of being stuffed around.

 

But anyway, i don't think i can leave and despite what my wife has said and how she has reacted, I don't see her booting me out. Leaving my family is something that sits terribly with me as my own dad left my mom when I was 3 after he had been cheating on her. He moved the California after he got another woman pregnant just before he left my mom. My mom tried to get child support from him but he didn't pay. The woman he got pregnant chansed him for money and he fled. I've only ever seen my dad a handful of times since. I've never met my half brother from that other lady.

[Trail Blazer]

OP's wife's weight is a mere afterthought compared to the mess his life has become. What makes people want to assume the crushing weight of all these responsibilities at such as young age? OP's story is a cautionary tale about how a young person, a man in particular as men have the luxury of having no biological clock, should value their young adulthood and all the freedom and opportunities it is full of. Marriage and family are for established people in their late twenties at earliest. This is also a story about a young man sorely lacking a mentor and guidance at a crucial time in his youth.

 

 

 

Which is why it is unwise for a man in his twenties to marry a woman slightly over the hill, however attractive at the time. In a few short years, she will be clearly over the hill while he will only be approaching his lifetime peak of attractiveness.

 

 

 

I agree that this is not the best aphrodisiac.

 

 

 

I think OP's wife may, to a large degree, blame herself for this one. I think OP mentioned that his wife had told him in the beginning that she'd take care of the financial side of things, a promise she later turned out unable to fulfill. They got together when he was very young and when she'd soon be approaching the end of her fertility. OP is not a lazy and unambitious man. He is in a trade working long hours to support his family. If he had only got involved in serious relationships with women much later in his life, he could easily have taken those opportunities to work on oil rigs for big bucks and maybe used the money to get more training and education to improve his career prospects without breaking the bank or sacrificing his health.

 

 

 

Granted, OP was legally an adult when he and his to-be-wife first got together but he was very young and inexperienced while his future wife was already a mother of two and in her thirties. At that stage, it was IMO more her responsibility to look at the prospective relationship realistically.

 

Pretty much of all this. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, which is why I'd tell any young man to really consider whether he's ready to settle down. It took me a year to realize that the honeymoon was over. At that point we'd bought a house together and my (not at the time) wife was pregnant. I spent years trying to make it work, sticking at it. I'm a fighter so kept saying to myself "stick at it and things will work out eventually".

 

Things never did get better. In fact it all got slowly worse. Another child and marriage brought everything crashing down. But it's only been in the last year that it's felt truly like there's no hope. As two people we may have survived and even thrived if other things weren't so stressful. But that's life and two good people don't necessarily equal one good partnership. We are unable to work as a team, unable to help bring the best out of each other. We do the opposite in fact.

 

I look back with regret, yet I have to look forward with optimism if I'm to be any hope of helping my own two children avoid being sucked into the vortex of crap. I see old buddies, or even just guys my own age with half a house paid off, who are only now just settling down, having kids et al. And they're no better than me in terms of education/training. They just made better life choices, and that's the key to success more than any amount of education or college degrees.

[Trail Blazer]

This is a perfect example of why a good work ethic and steady employment is something that's extremely important in a partner. I don't plan to get stuck with someone that decides that work is "too stressful" and I am left paying all the bills.

 

I have people that are very close to me who had heart attacks in their 60s, number of major surgeries and other illnesses (diabetes, cancer) and have returned to their previous full time employment in under 6 months. C'mon now a woman in her 40s with multiple degrees can't work? At all? Because it's too stressful? But even though she has a damaged heart and has difficulty doing cardio, she now wants a new career in a police force? :eek:

 

I can't believe what I am reading. OP, time to wake up and smell the coffee. She needs to get a job.

 

Work ethic is not her problem. As I have explained previously, she became bankrupt and that made returning to work untenable due the type of work she would be applying for. So instead she thought being a stay at home mom and starting a business from home would kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Having pre school aged children isn't easy with a couple of teenage kids as well. I guess she thought she was making the best and only viable decision at the time. The issue I have is that I'm being blamed for not earning enough to invest in her business. She blames me for not stepping up, and cites many successful stay at home mom run businesses that have worked because their husbands have the money to invest in the business and make it work.

 

Why now the police force? It seems strange, I get that, and the longer it goes on the more ridiculous it seems. I have explained how my wife got pregnant about a year ago (yes that was a mistake and an accident) and ended up having a miscarriage at 14 weeks. Well she was almost ready to apply at that point as she was fairly fit and as healthy as she's been in a while. Unfortunately she got an infection which required an endometrial ablation. My wife continued on her training whilst being anemic due to losing too much blood and then developed adrenal fatigue. This turned into unsulin resistance. It is why now she's having gastric sleeve/bypass surgery to sort everything out once and for all and stop the potential onset of type 2 diabetes.

 

We've come this far with everything, why stop now? I guess the only concern once the surgery is over and she's accepted into the police application process, she will pass everything easily except the ECG. We're just hoping that because her resting heart rate and lung function capacity is still very good, this won't play such a huge part. If she doesn't get in after all that, then it's back to the drawing board. Where to at that point? I think it will be move back to Portland for a corporate job or maybe even a gov job here in Salem. But there's lots of water to go under the bridge before looking that far ahead.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Trail Blazer

[AMarriedMan]

Pretty much of all this. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, which is why I'd tell any young man to really consider whether he's ready to settle down. It took me a year to realize that the honeymoon was over. At that point we'd bought a house together and my (not at the time) wife was pregnant. I spent years trying to make it work, sticking at it. I'm a fighter so kept saying to myself "stick at it and things will work out eventually".

 

Things never did get better. In fact it all got slowly worse. Another child and marriage brought everything crashing down. But it's only been in the last year that it's felt truly like there's no hope. As two people we may have survived and even thrived if other things weren't so stressful. But that's life and two good people don't necessarily equal one good partnership. We are unable to work as a team, unable to help bring the best out of each other. We do the opposite in fact.

 

I look back with regret, yet I have to look forward with optimism if I'm to be any hope of helping my own two children avoid being sucked into the vortex of crap.

 

 

The upside is that your children are already halfway through their childhood.

 

I see old buddies, or even just guys my own age with half a house paid off, who are only now just settling down, having kids et al. And they're no better than me in terms of education/training. They just made better life choices, and that's the key to success more than any amount of education or college degrees.

 

Home equity is typically a small part of socioeconomic success. What's more relevant is the stream of steady income generated by your work or ownership of capital. While a typical home has a market value of a few hundred thousand dollars, the cumulative earnings of the average American are several million dollars. You are in your early thirties which means that you have at least three decades of working life left. Your 401k is just as important as home ownership and much more risk-free in that a house can turn out to have serious issues rendering its market value zero.

[Trail Blazer]

The upside is that your children are already halfway through their childhood.

 

 

 

Home equity is typically a small part of socioeconomic success. What's more relevant is the stream of steady income generated by your work or ownership of capital. While a typical home has a market value of a few hundred thousand dollars, the cumulative earnings of the average American are several million dollars. You are in your early thirties which means that you have at least three decades of working life left. Your 401k is just as important as home ownership and much more risk-free in that a house can turn out to have serious issues rendering its market value zero.

 

My daughter turns 7 in a couple of weeks, so I do not feel as though they are halfway through their childhood. I suppose if you averaged their ages out you could say that they're half way through their chiodhood, but even then that would just gloss over the fact that my daughter is 11 years off going to college.

 

I get your point re house ownership versus other investments, but the point was that I have no capital to my name, no savings, no nothing. And I'm a long way off being able to buy another house, let alone think about any kind of wealth once I retire. But I'm not complaining though. That's just the way it is until I can figure out something else.

[anika99]

I'm sure your wife has some valid complaints but it seems like she blames literally EVERYTHING on you. She blames you for all of your bad choices and bad behaviour and she blame you for all of her bad choices and bad behaviour.

 

It all sounds like a big mess and I'm not sure there is any helpful advice anyone can offer. You have said counselling is not possible, saving money or cutting costs is not possible, leaving is not possible, etc. Everything everyone advises or says about your situation you counter. So I guess nothing can be done and nothing can be changed. Seems like you should have to suck it up and keep on keeping on, at least until the kids are grown and gone.

[GunslingerRoland]

I may have missed, but does your wife have ADHD or something similar? She seems to fit that profile, highly intelligent, has grand ideas but doesn't follow through.

 

It sounds like a lot of her problems are caused by working hard on something just to give up before it pays off.

 

You guys need to put down your foot on your step kids, they are in their 20's and not in school. They need to go live their own lives. I think that would reduce a lot of stress on your relationship.

[Trail Blazer]

I'm sure your wife has some valid complaints but it seems like she blames literally EVERYTHING on you. She blames you for all of your bad choices and bad behaviour and she blame you for all of her bad choices and bad behaviour.

 

It all sounds like a big mess and I'm not sure there is any helpful advice anyone can offer. You have said counselling is not possible, saving money or cutting costs is not possible, leaving is not possible, etc. Everything everyone advises or says about your situation you counter. So I guess nothing can be done and nothing can be changed. Seems like you should have to suck it up and keep on keeping on, at least until the kids are grown and gone.

 

You are right, there's not really anything that anyone can say that's helpful in any meaningful way. I know that I come across like I'm making excuses for her, for the situation and that can seem like I am unwilling to take the advice of others. I guess I have had long to ponder things, long and sometimes nasty discussions with my wife. We've gotten to the point where no good could come out of staying or leaving.

 

Last year just before Christmas when my stepsons gf was causing havoc, I was tearing my hair out and we'd had such nasty arguments about her and everything else that my wife said she wanted to me to move out when we had gotten back from spending Xmas/New Year at my mom's house in Idaho. When we got back she said she wanted me to stick around but only if we got counselling. Then when it came to getting counselling she said we couldn't afford it.

 

It was the first time she was ever open to having counselling. Normally she would just say that it would not help as the advice they would give would not lead to fixing the core problems as the damage was already done. For the last 8 months since then it has been more peaceful since my stepson's ex moved out, but we've still been like a rudderless boat trying to navigate upstream. There's little spite, we share common interests including obviously the kids. We do love ewch other, but there's no passion, no spark and no physical intimacy of any kind.

 

I'm well aware of having to suck it up. You are absolutely right. I guess sometimes I feel like I'm losing myself to this steaming pile of poop that is what my life has become. But I have to stay strong and positive for my kids. That's one thing both my wife and I are on the same page with. That is to salvage from the mess the best possible upbringing for our kids. We have to find a way to break the cycle of poor decisions and give them the guidance needed to leave the nest and be successful at life. I don't think that's achieveable through a broken home.

[Trail Blazer]

I may have missed, but does your wife have ADHD or something similar? She seems to fit that profile, highly intelligent, has grand ideas but doesn't follow through.

 

It sounds like a lot of her problems are caused by working hard on something just to give up before it pays off.

 

You guys need to put down your foot on your step kids, they are in their 20's and not in school. They need to go live their own lives. I think that would reduce a lot of stress on your relationship.

 

My wife is the last person on the planet with ADHD. If she had ADHD there's no way she would have completed two degrees, including a law degree while raising 2 kids on her own and working 30 hours a week. Her decision making hasn't been great and as a result some things have conspired against her, but her focus to completing tasks and ability to block out external distractions is better than anyone I've ever seen.

 

If you spoke to her she would say that every time she gave up on something it wasn't all down to it being her choice. She will absolutely admit that the circumstances surrounding why she had to give up things were down to poor decisions she made previously which ultimately resulted in the path she was on becoming untenable.

 

Her kids are a strange one. My wife feels a lot of guilt for how they turned out. Her daughter has anxiety and pulling her out of the school she loved had consequences. As much as I want to say "just suck it up" to her, she's delicate and needs handling with care. She's very sensitive and if you even look at her wrong she gets upset. I just try and be nice to her and hope that the path she's taking in life will lead her somewhere soon.

 

My stepson has just come out of an horrendous relationship where he was wrongly accused of domestic violence and arrested accordingly. We needed a lawyer to get him off. His ex gf had severe mental illnesses and has been stalking him continuously since. The police know about the situation and have said if we see her near our house to call them straight away. It's been a stressful time for him and he just wants to move on.

 

The consequences of both leaving the school they loved was telling. My stepson especially could sit an entry test and get in to any degree he wanted as his IQ was tested as 157 when he was 5 years old. He's wanted to join the FBI for a while and planned to do some science degree beforehand as minimum entry requirements. What his plan is now, I don't know. I worry he'll be like his mom, stupidly smart, lots of potential but ultimately wasted due to dumb life decisions. He's wasted working at Walmart, but has close buddies there and just seems happy taking the easy path for now.

 

*sigh*

[Chardonnay Renée]

Wow. What an absolute mess! I can see things from both sides, I really can...

 

I can't believe how quickly some people have been to get stuck into your wife, OP. It seems patently obvious to me that she has, and almost certainly is still is, suffering from burnout.

 

OP's wife seems to have bitten off more than she could chew. She obviously thought she could do it all; be the breeder and the bread winner. I do feel awful for her.

 

Good people do make poor decisions with the best intentions, but end up dealing with disastrous consequences which, whilst perhaps inevitable, certainly not deserving.

 

I can totally understand her predicament in being unemployable due to a financial record precluding her from certain jobs.

 

In Australia, most commonwealth government agencies will not hire someone who has been bankrupt within a seven year period in which it is a publicly accessible record.

 

I don't really have any advice to help. I just think that the two of you need to tough it out and try to make things work. Work for each other. Be there for each other. Support one another.

 

Marriage wasn't meant to be easy. Some are harder than others. However, if you really love each other then you guys will find a way to get through this. You'll just have to believe you can do it.

 

I definitely think marriage counseling can help. I understand that financially this might be hard. I also understand that your wife being a psychologist, she thinks she knows all the "tricks" that therapists might use.

 

The truth is, just talking to someone can help. Even the smartest people need help. OP, your wife doesn't need someone "smarter" than her to validate her thoughts, she needs an empathetic ear who can help relieve some of her stress.

 

OP, good luck. Keep plugging away, working, studying, whatever else it is that you're doing to try and improve yourself and the life of your family.

 

Stay strong,

 

Renée.

[BettyDraper]

Pretty much of all this. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, which is why I'd tell any young man to really consider whether he's ready to settle down. It took me a year to realize that the honeymoon was over. At that point we'd bought a house together and my (not at the time) wife was pregnant. I spent years trying to make it work, sticking at it. I'm a fighter so kept saying to myself "stick at it and things will work out eventually".

 

Things never did get better. In fact it all got slowly worse. Another child and marriage brought everything crashing down. But it's only been in the last year that it's felt truly like there's no hope. As two people we may have survived and even thrived if other things weren't so stressful. But that's life and two good people don't necessarily equal one good partnership. We are unable to work as a team, unable to help bring the best out of each other. We do the opposite in fact.

 

I look back with regret, yet I have to look forward with optimism if I'm to be any hope of helping my own two children avoid being sucked into the vortex of crap. I see old buddies, or even just guys my own age with half a house paid off, who are only now just settling down, having kids et al. And they're no better than me in terms of education/training. They just made better life choices, and that's the key to success more than any amount of education or college degrees.

 

Your story exemplifies why it is a good idea to wait until you are over 25 and more established before marriage. I know there are outliers but people need time to mature and get to know themselves before settling down.

 

I agree that life choices make all of the difference but education is usually very helpful as well. When I use the word "education", I'm not only speaking of college degrees. Vocational school and life experience are also valid forms of education.

 

When one partner has far more life experience than the other, it usually causes a huge imbalance in the relationship. The partner who has lived more life than the other is in a position to take advantage of their mate who is often younger. That's what happened with you and your wife.

 

Remember that you're still a young man.

[Trail Blazer]

Your story exemplifies why it is a good idea to wait until you are over 25 and more established before marriage. I know there are outliers but people need time to mature and get to know themselves before settling down.

 

I agree that life choices make all of the difference but education is usually very helpful as well. When I use the word "education", I'm not only speaking of college degrees. Vocational school and life experience are also valid forms of education.

 

When one partner has far more life experience than the other, it usually causes a huge imbalance in the relationship. The partner who has lived more life than the other is in a position to take advantage of their mate who is often younger. That's what happened with you and your wife.

 

Remember that you're still a young man.

 

I find it hard to reconcile with a notion that my wife took advantage of me. Perhaps unwittingly, but I do find I hold her to higher account because of her academic intelligence. We expect more from those whom have demonstrated an ability to do more. She helps so many other people, she's not one to take advantage of others in any context I've seen.

 

If anything, she's told me her biggest mistake was overestimating my abilities. It's as though she naively thought one day I was going to magically turn into some genius.

[BettyDraper]

I find it hard to reconcile with a notion that my wife took advantage of me. Perhaps unwittingly, but I do find I hold her to higher account because of her academic intelligence. We expect more from those whom have demonstrated an ability to do more. She helps so many other people, she's not one to take advantage of others in any context I've seen.

 

If anything, she's told me her biggest mistake was overestimating my abilities. It's as though she naively thought one day I was going to magically turn into some genius.

 

I think that members who believe that your wife preyed on your youth are referring to the considerable difference in life experience between you two. When you met your wife, you were still young and idealistic. She was far more aware of the pain and disappointments life can bring.

 

How do you plan on approaching your marital issues?

[Trail Blazer]

I think that members who believe that your wife preyed on your youth are referring to the considerable difference in life experience between you two. When you met your wife, you were still young and idealistic. She was far more aware of the pain and disappointments life can bring.

 

How do you plan on approaching your marital issues?

 

I understand that. I'm almost 33 and my wife just turned 46. So I'm the same age as she was when I met her. If we'd met at the ages we are now, the 13 years of life experiences (obviously different to the ones I have had currently but still adult years of experience) would mean we were a lot closer in terms of life experiences. I'm sure that when I am 46 I will have a lot more life experience under my belt than in 2017, but I think the valuable experience in this context would plateau out. In other words, I am so worldly wise compared to the age of 20 that the scope to learn a lot more has diminished.

 

My marriage is an ongoing saga that is literally taken 1 week at a time. It may be a cliché, but it is pretty much how it is going. We still have financial problems as I simply can't earn enough to pay rent, food, bills and the like while funding an existence that is anything more than mediocre. I had a discussion with my wife this tonight that was frank, honest and devoid of anger and emotion - something rare for our discussions.

 

My wife is unwavering in her quest to join the police. She is booked in to have gastric sleeve surgery in December. She has also seen a plastic surgeon in Portland to have a tummy tuck once the surgery is successful and she's gotten to her ideal weight. It will hopefully be around the Chrisymas time 2018 when she's ready to apply, with an early 2019 date hopefully when she's accepted into the academy. For the moment I'll just have to hang on.

 

We spoke about a lot of things, and my wife expressed her concern over how dysfunctional we are as a team. She's worried that when she does start working again full time, she will be left to deal with the house duties etc which was a contributing factor to her heart attack 6 years ago. Things have changed since then, her older 2 kids aren't at school anymore, and it was her son's sleep condition and her daughter's anxiety which caused a lot of stress while trying to balance a new born baby at the time and a 4 year old. My wife's stressful government job and being bullied at work were all things that are no longer factors.

 

Moving forward, my wife expressed how she's struggled to deal with, what she describes as me being "emotionally vanilla". She thinks I lack empathy and an ability to connect on an emotional level with her. I am an even tempered person, I don't get very emotional either way. I don't get extremely excited with amazing things but I don't get down when things are bad. My wife gets extremely excited when things that are good happen and she gets extremely down when things are bad. She's struggling with my inability to connect on an emotional level and she feels like she's taking on life by herself.

 

She's been honest and says she's not sure we're right for each other. We spoke about theories around people staying with each other because it's the "right" thing to do when you're married with kids, or whether it's actually stupid to fight the inevitable just for the sake of being able to describe yourself as someone who "never gives up" and is a "fighter" and any such noble terms. We spoke about whether you actually win when you're on your deathbed and can look into the eyes of your spouse saying "we made it" only to feel regret.

 

My wife is now in a situation where she's unsure whether she would actually regret it at the end. For years we spoke about whether it was just money that was our problems. We spoke about other couples that lasted through hard times, but never had the financial elements as an additional complexity and instead they could take a vacation to Hawaii or somewhere to recharge and destress. I made the point that I feel our financial issues aren't a separate barrier stopping us from being happy and working through the tough times, but rather the financial problems are as a result of our inability to connect and bond to make a good team.

 

We're both confused. I asked straight out whether my wife thought she'd be happier if we broke up. She had a bit each way, saying she thought she would be in some ways but not in others. I asked her if she thought over time those feelings for me would dissipate would it then put it in the positive basket and factor that in before even meeting someone potentially more compatible.

 

She's worried about the kids and the affect is would have on both myself and them. Assuming she has primary custody, which in reality is what she'll fight tooth and nail for and probably get, she's worried about how that will affect me. She has always said and has always previously with her older kids been very cooperative and receptive to their father being in their life, so nothing would change in that regard. I will be able to see them when I want, but it would still be on her terms.

 

Writing everything I have, I know it doesn't read good. But I was really happy with having an honest conversation. For the first time it felt like my wife was resigned to the fact that things won't be ideologically perfect and that I have many flaws which she needs to decide on whether they are insurmountable or not. For years she hounded me to "do this better" or whatever. She wanted to see continuous improvement as a mechanism for staving off mediocrity. When everything fell apart she blamed and resented me for not keeping up. Now she accepts it and who I am and how I can't be transformed, the emotion isn't there and she's thinking clearly.

 

Honestly I'm tired of it all. Is my wife the woman for me? She's an exceptional person who loves hard and does everything she can to help her family and friends. Fiercely loyal and hard working. Very ethical and someone who is relatable on so many levels, but seemingly not on the lofe partner level. I hate the idea of holding back her happiness because I can't keep up intellectually or otherwise. Then I see my buddies with more "simple" wives and they're happier.

 

But in many ways my wife has made me a better, stronger person. I have learned a lot from her and value the many great qualities she has which have only further cemented my desire to be a good person by those qualities rubbing off on me. Everything about her is a great in a sense of me looking up to someone, almost idolizing someone in a way. Then it dawned on me that she's probably been more of a mother to me than a lover, and that's clearly been hard on her.

 

What was that song from Rod Stewart called... Maggie, I think it was? If you're unfamiliar with it, Google it. It pretty much sums up how I feel. Lucky for Rod it was just a fling and he had the good sense to cut it off before it went too far. I, on the other hand, put all my eggs into 1 basket... now here I am, still unsure of where to go 12.5 years later.

[road]

Is the OP's wife posting on her own thread?

[Trail Blazer]

Is the OP's wife posting on her own thread?

 

What do you mean by that?

[Undercoverirish]

Were you unhappy with your wife's weight when you met her? You've mentioned it quite a few times and I wonder if it's commmon that you bring it up to her? As someone who has battled with their weight (I have to work very hard at it and I'm up at 5am and in the gym every day!!), it can be soul destroying to have it mentioned.

 

It sounds like you're in an awful situation. But you've taken a lot on at a very young age and things don't seem to have improved for you. It also doesn't sound like your wife is very good with money but has high aspirations. Nothing wrong with high aspirations but I think money problems can really complicate things.

 

I'm no relationship expert as you know... but it sounds like she's became incredibly resentful towards you, and is quite comfortable voicing it to you. With the issues I have in my marriage, the lack of attraction I have towards my husband makes me feel disgusting when I'm sleeping with him. But I'd never tell him that as he'd be devastated.

 

Do you know if your wife wants to continue in your marriage? Do you want to?