unsurehubby

Hi, Im new here and looking for some advise.
My wife and I have been together for 9yrs and married for 4yrs. We've gone to counseling at 2 diff. places(first one cost to much and the second one was doing us wonders for the year we went. Therapist had life issues to deal with.) We stopped going last August and life was good ... for a little while.
Wife constantly says that I don't care about our relationship cause i never set up counseling again, even though lately we wouldn't be able to afford it. Since we've been out of counseling according to her I haven't changed in my ways and am always mean to her and don't do anything for her or listen to her and remember what she says.
My wife stays home with our 2yr old boy which I wouldn't have any other way and love her to death for. She does clean the house and cook dinner quite often(cause she wants to not cause she has to) but other than that she doesn't show me any love. There's times she doesn't listen to me and I call her on it and its always "no you didn't say that" even though I know I did. She also has a problem admitting when she's wrong.
Anyways we are both not perfect and got things to work on but for some strange reason every thing's my fault. She's started threatning me with divorce and Im not sure what to do any more. Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks and sorry for the novel. Also i work anywhere from 9 to 16 hrs a day and am out of town somewhat often. Don't really enjoy coming home to a disaster and spending my night cleaning after working all day. Seems to be happening more and more often as of late. Is it to much to ask to come home to a semi clean house?

turnera

No. SAHMs should be responsible for cleaning the house. Have you ever checked to see what she does during the day?

Why do you say 'not cause she has to'? Have you two not had a discussion about what her responsibilities are? You need to.

Now, on YOUR side, what do you do to make her feel loved? Do you know what things are most important to her? What makes her happy? For instance, is you being a good financial supporter most important to her? Or is it being a good dad? Or being the person she can talk to? It's important for you to know exactly what makes her happy, and be that person who provides it.

Tamgerine

Even if you can't afford counseling, it might be beneficial to pick up a book or two on the issue. That way you could show that you care, and continue to work on your marriage together through the book, and you wouldn't have to spend so much money on counseling. You two could set apart a time each week to read/work through it or discuss it, basically like your own counseling session.

You two should definitely set aside some time to set a schedule of who is responsible for what - but switch it up sometimes. Even I would be exhausted if I had to do one chore ALL of the time, even if other chores were split up evenly between us. It just gets tedious.

artieb

One way to break the tedium of chores is to make a list of them, and time how long they take, and make slips of paper (or cut up a few index cards) with each chore and how long it takes written on it.

As a SAHM, it's probably reasonable that she do more housework than you, so maybe agree on a ratio of 2-1 or something. Add up all the minutes on the chores to see what you get. Say it comes to 6 hours a week; what you do is pull slips out of the hat until the times add up to 2 hours. Then she gets the four hours that are left.

Next week, you do it again. That way, at least, there's a variety.

Also, you might like the book Speed Cleaning, by Jeff Campbell.