Sea_Foam_Green

Right now, my wife is finishing up her last day of work at her current job. Her boss has been on again/off again toxic and she had enough. She’s got another job lined up right away on Monday.

The past two weeks since she put her notice in, it’s been nothing but a torrent of praise of all of her contributions. Every day she’s been emotional about someone telling her how much they value her and are going to miss her. Taking her out to lunches, numerous emails and texts of positive affirmation.

Her new job comes with a HUGE sacrifice on my end. Not only do I have to do school pickups for our four kids, I had to forgo my remote days (2x a week), so I can depart an hour or so earlier to be the one to pick them up every day. Now I also have the sole responsibility to bring them to appointments.

Now, here’s what falls on my plate:

• Morning school prep (Make Breakfast, Lunches)
• Pickups
• if children are sick, I have to be the one to work from home/PTO
• Dinner, given she will just be getting done at work
• Homework supervision
• Bedtime routines
• Cleaning

On top of this, she wants more things off of her plate, like playdate organization and activity planning.

I’m super hurt by this. And she thinks I’m not supportive of the job change for her. What she doesn’t realize is that my anxiety is through the roof of managing even more things while being the primary breadwinner.

It’s so unfair.

She gets complimented for everything she does. No one ever thanked me for my time at work, usually just a brief “see ya”.

She gets less and less on her plate, pretty much by brute force. “About time, husbands don’t realize how good they have it.”

She gets everything she wants. Time, space, possessions. She’s the gatekeeper of our intimacy and doesn’t desire me.

I’m always concerned for her, and compliment and reassure her of any insecurities. She will not even flinch if I have an anxiety attack.

I just want to scream.

It’s been a year, and me (39M) and my wife (36F) have been intimate twice, separated by nearly six months apart.

I know our relationship has had issues, with financial stress and financial infidelity (5+ years ago, I withheld how bad our cash flow was, using debt to maintain our lifestyle). She has been stressed at her job of 3 years, and now she’s gotten a job that strictly is 8:30-5:30, with no carryover into her personal life.

She can’t let go of the pain I caused her. She feels she hasn’t had time to do so since she started working 5 years ago to help gain a foothold on finances.

This carries over to the bedroom. She has always had a lower libido, but it’s straight turned off. I don’t know how someone in a relationship can possibly handle that long (6+ months) without masturbation or intercourse.

At this point, it’s a huge pain point for us. She knows I desperately want to connect physically, but it feels like the path to her healing is a chicken or the egg dynamic. However, sex is unilaterally off if I’m trying to initiate.

Since I’m batting well below the Mendoza line, I told her I’ve had enough and I’m not pursuing her in bed going forward. The straw was my birthday. I spent the entire day trying to take her on a date and be romantic…not even a kiss or hug.

I just feel like I’m dying inside. I’m literally giving it six months or I’m filing for divorce. That will be her birthday present if we can’t find common ground. I would rather live in a shack, mired in debt and alone, seeing our four kids every now and then, then be this fucking miserable every night.

How the fuck do people cope with this?