Mark –

I feel it would be in my best interest to be on my own. Focus on my happiness and the adjustment/happiness of my daughter.

I don’t know how just yet, but I feel like I need to take the steps.

I should divulge a little bit more to give a bigger picture.

A few constant issues have been the following:

Her son has a learning disability. He has attention issues, which have caused him over the years to fall back to the abilities of younger children. He struggles heavily. I have always made a point of saying we should seek help, we need professional help, but it always fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t until this year (10 years after me parenting this child) that my wife decided to say, “we’ll do things your way. You can take the reigns.” I’ve pushed for years to get the kid help, to no avail.

My wife has not taken interest in my interests. Rather, she has made passing criticisms. I used to be in a band, and we were progressing quite well, but she hated how I was gone, doing shows, stayed late, etc. – Now I must reiterate, playing music is my dream. It is my one true passion. She pushed so hard, that I finally quit. She asked if I resented her for it, and of course to keep the peace I said no. I made up that I had differences with the guitar player. It killed me. I found other hobbies. Toy collecting (I’m a huge video game enthusiast), as well as media in general. I also took up video games. I felt I wasn’t allowed to do much outside of the house, so I began finding things I can do in the house. I also began smoking a lot of marijuana. I asked her to take interest in the video games I played so we had common ground, she said they all looked the same. This has been constant. She can’t be bothered. I know it’s trivial, but its what I’ve had to make a huge hobby of mine, so it was a big deal to me. She also criticized having my ‘knick-knacks’ on display. It’s not adult. When I finally removed it all and put everything of mine in a small corner in the basement, she acted like I didn’t have reason to do so. I just didn’t want to feel like what I enjoyed was stupid anymore.

I don’t feel like she was malicious in these things, but I also don’t feel like she understood the effect it had on me. When she criticized the games, I told her to watch to see the intricacies, the differences, what made them unique. She couldn’t be bothered. Same with movies, she couldn’t stick anything out for me, wasn’t interested. It isn’t until I had the meltdown that she wanted to try. For me it felt like it was too late.

On the flip side, she quit her job, and I encouraged her to do what she loved. She paints, and we’ve pursued a business in it. I’ve learned to build wood signs so she had canvases. Not an interest of mine by any means, but I did it for her. To help her. She wanted to do childcare. I wasn’t big on it, as I have expensive things, but I obliged. I let her pursue it because I knew its what she wanted. Eventually it became a burden to her, to keep up with painting, that she didn’t have enough time for herself keeping the house clean for her childcare and trying to find a balance. It killed me that I gave her what she wanted, and she felt it wasn’t enough.

Again, I carried on to keep the peace. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted the kids to be happy. Happy wife happy life, and in the push of it all, I lost touch with my feelings. My emotions. What I needed, and so did she. The criticisms, the emotional neglect, it took a toll and I fell out of love with her.

I hope this helps give more context. I will divulge more as I go.

Thanks again.

Hi Anita –

Thank you for replying. My daughter is 7, and her 11 year old son does live with us. Her son is fairly oblivious to the situation, or so he leads on however my daughter is absolutely in tune with the current situation and is being affected.

I love my wife, but I am not in love with her. She is a terrific mother, very giving and outgoing. She is a very giving partner in the sense that she provides cooking and cleans regularly as well as takes care of the household. The issue is that she tends to treat that as my emotional support. If I bring up criticism or neglect of my feelings, her rebuttal is that she does so much for me. Quite often this is why I would shut down cause I would see I was hurting her by not properly showing her I appreciated the things she did for me.

She sees the micro managing as being my fault, because I became submissive/passive. She is having a hard time seeing that it was due to her rather actions, her anger, criticism. It became easier to obide to keep her happy than to go against the grain. I fully admit this was not the right approach however to keep the peace and not rock the boat, I chose to roll with ‘happy wife happy life’.

I obviously didn’t realize the emotional and physical toll this would eventually have on me. The hard part about not discussing with friends or family is that when the meltdown happens, they have trouble supporting because to them the marriage has been picture perfect. It makes it look like I’m habing a single bout, and overexhaggerating. This has left me feeling even more isolated and because I’ve relied completely on my wife’s opinions and choices, I feel powerless and the cycle will just continue.