# 22 years and heading for the rock. Looking for opinions.



## LongTimeUnhappy (Feb 4, 2014)

It's a lot of text, but I'm leaving it. Looking for honest advice and opinions. I'd even be OK with, "You're a monster, she should leave you." I think there's room for improvement on both sides of this marriage.

===========

Not even sure where to start, but I'll try to be fair in my descriptions. I'm completely fed up with my wife, but realize that I'm not perfect by any stretch. I'm not sure how much love is still there or can be re-kindled. We argue a lot and we both think are doing more than our share of the household work.

*Us:* 22 year marriage. I'm 48, she's 50. We have 3 boys, 27(stepson), 21 & 18 and 2 grand kids.

Our marriage has always been pretty traditional. I'm the "bread winner" and she's stayed home to raise the kids. I'm incredibly frustrated with the marriage and feel that I'm only staying in because of the problems it would create with our kids and there's a real danger that the boys will draw closer to their mom than me.

*My good points:* I have a pretty successful, 1 person technology consulting company. I earn 90-95% of our income. I have pretty traditional responsibilities around the house. If it's broken, I fix it or hire someone to fix it. Anything complicated is mine (yes, I know how that sounds). I'm responsible to pay bills, get taxes done, keep all the technology in the house running, etc. I'm fairly handy and have built decks/sheds, replaced sinks. I'm willing to get my hands dirty.

Early in our marriage, I worked very long hours, but i've also been a very involved parent. I coached lots of youth sports, was PTA president when they were in elementary school and try to provide advice and support now that they are older. I tried to raise my stepson like he was my own, though I know I wasn't perfect. I did pay for everything for him growing up as he has a worthless biological dad.

*Wife's good points:* She's a very sweet person and everyone loves her. I think she's very pretty and when things are good, really like being around her. She is a first class mom/grandmother and her life revolves around her kids. She's fair and honest and guileless. I don't have any worries about faithfulness. She responsible for most of the household work: cooking, cleaning, laundry. Our house is always messy, but very livable.

*My bad points:* I'm a very "take charge" person which means I can be an *******. I have a hard time listening without offering ways to "fix" the problem. I can be very critical of decisions/actions. I think that I'm providing constructive criticism, but am aware it can be tiring. I believe because my wife is so unprepared to solve most problems, that it forces me to be the one to make a decision. I seriously try to be self aware and make sure I'm not the evil movie husband who's trying to keep my wife on puppet strings and make every decision for her.

I could be in a lot better shape. Ex-athlete, but I'm easily carrying around an extra 40 lbs. Even with 8 months of regular gym workouts, I'm still way too fat (I hate it, so I'm sure it doesn't excite her.). 

I believe I'm a high functioning alcoholic. I'm cutting back, but 4-5 nights a week is my average. I get comfortably numb (3-5 drinks over 4 hours) not blackout or even falling down drunk. I'd be completely happy with fewer nights and 1-2 fewer drinks.

*Her bad points:* I think she's lazy and has no interest in self improvement. She only thing she does without complaining is take care of her grandkids.

She's never had any interest in a career and now that our kids are adults, she is quickly losing interest in keeping the house up. She complains constantly how hard it is to decide what to cook for dinner. This seems like such an easy problem to solve and it's a major problem in her daily routine.

She works 15-20hrs/week at a job that pays $8/hr. I earn 20X her income, but she gets steaming mad if I insinuate that my job might be more important than hers when its time to re-arrange schedules for kid duties.

She is completely unaware of all our finances and would be completely lost if something were to happen to me. She never opens any mail and she doesn't even know how much our mortgage payment is. I've tried to get her to help pay bills, but she claims that I'm keeping it from her because I put it on the computer. Yes, we still have paper checkbooks.

She spends waaay too much time worrying, but not enough time doing anything to help out. Our kids are adults, but she still panics when they are 20 minutes late. She gets mad at me if our 18 year old leaves the house and I don't know what he's doing, who he'll be with and when he'll be home. I'm staring at a pile of bills with two DMV letters that she'll never touch. But she has a calendar reminder in her phone about when my stepsons DMV bill is due.

*Sex:*Can't leave that out. I'm a guy. I want more sex and she doesn't seem that interested/concerned. Somehow, I expected that when the kids got older, we'd have less blockers to having some sexy-time. Somehow, our grand kids end up in our bed 3-5 nights a week. I haven't kept track, but I'm guessing we average 1-2 times a month. My hints and flirting go unnoticed. I've pretty much given up waiting and consider porn my sex life. I figure when she gets ready, I hope I'm ready too. I'm willing, but tired of waiting. I realize that the grandkids might just be an avoidance technique, but when we have sex, she really seems to enjoy it and we both get to "Ooooo".

*And a little more:* We've had lots of ups and downs throughout the marriage, but I've never even considered divorce. I can get angry, but my wife gets tantrum angry and had thrown out divorce more than a few times in our marriage. It's only the last couple of years that I'm starting to consider it.

If we get a divorce, I'd be fair financially, though in my heart I believe that almost all of our financial assets are from my hard work. My family life is pretty good so I am worried how it would affect my relationship with my kids. I think I'd never see my step-son and think my time with my granddaughter would be far and few between. For my other two sons, I think if they were to take a side, they would definitely side with their mother. I believe she would struggle and it would be hard to not come to help your mom when things got tough. 

My unhappiness is fundamentally about feeling like I'm being taken advantage of. Yes, 22 year marriage and I'm struggling with that. I'd be happy to split household responsibilities, but she needs to do more since she works less than 1/2 time at a very low stress, low responsibility job.


----------



## scione (Jul 11, 2011)

So.... you are considering ending 22 years of marriage because your wife does too little household chores?

Have you told her about what will happen if you lose your job? She might be taking you for granted. 

But if you are divorcing because she doesn't do enough at home, wouldn't you end up worse by doing 100% of household chores when you are alone?


----------



## karole (Jun 30, 2010)

Have you considered marriage counseling?


----------



## WatchmansMoon (Mar 6, 2013)

You sound like you've put a lot of thought into the problem and the state or your marriage. It seems to me that talking with a marriage counselor would be quite helpful for both of you. Your wife may not be aware enough of what your concerns are, and if she is but isn't taking them seriously, a counselor can make sure she comes to realize what's at stake. There are marriage retreats that may be helpful as well, some lasting a week, or even just over a weekend. You sound like you're in a stable enough position financially and your children are grown so doing something like this wouldn't be that hard for you. I doubt that you'll get enough feedback to make a lasting positive impact on your marriage by searching here. Maybe you can consider some books that you agree to go through together, but it seems seeing a counselor is in order. I wish you the best. Divorce is awful, so if your marriage is salvageable, do all you can to save it, friend.


----------



## Bobby5000 (Oct 19, 2011)

Reasonable analysis but do note this will screw up your family, create enormous stress at gathering, lead to gossiping, rejection of your new person, and probably some heavy fighting in the divorce. 

Perhaps consider a counselor or a weekend and discuss your concerns with your wife.


----------



## Alpha (Feb 18, 2013)

Honestly, it sounds like you have a good thing going with your family and wife. Who cares if she doesn't give a crap about the bills? Who cares if she worries too much about the kids? And let her feel like her job is just as important as yours, because to her it is. 

Being a full time mom and wife is no joke. Maybe she's a little burnt out so cut her some slack.

Rather than consider divorce, why don't you work on the shortcomings you just listed and see if your wife picks up on the changes. Slowly ditch the booze (hey I like to drink too), go on a good diet and drop the 40lbs, and quit being a take charge ass****, and respect your wife and give her a little more credit.

I bet you won't consider divorce ever again.


----------



## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Counseling would benefit both of you. A neutral party to listen to the two of you discuss your issues would be very helpful.


----------



## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

I sense that you look down on your wife and that there is a bit of a parent child relationship going on. This is very bad for sex since nobody wants to f$ck their mother or father. I know you feel that she doesn't want to better herself but i don't understand how men think they can have a stay at home spouse who's happy with that but all of a sudden when the kids grow up they'll all of a sudden become professionally ambitious. It's a full time lifestyle that's hard to break out of; then you're simultaneously putting down her job while complaining that she's not ambitious enough. I get that your job pays the bills and that's important, but suspect it's not really about whether you deal with the kids. She knows you look down on her and that's why she's so defensive about her job. I think MC could really benefit you guys and help with the communication here.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## LoveBeingFemale (Nov 5, 2012)

I had to chime in here. I'm your wife's age, and we have four children. Children are messy, even at an older age. Grandchildren are messy. It's not her priority. Taking care of you and nurturing your children and grandchildren are her priority--be thankful for that. Might I suggest you possibly offer to have someone come into clean/tidy up once or twice a week?? It's amazing the amount of "stuff" a family has or collects after that long of a period of time. Also, cooking, especially after she has probably been the one to do most of the cooking for that many years, really starts to lose it's luster, especially trying to find new ways to "reinvent" food. There are only so many ways you can make a casserole. She's also probably starting to go through menopause, which can be a very trying time. It sounds like your wife is a very caring individual, which is a good thing. I agree with the others who have suggested seeing a counselor.


----------



## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

LongTimeUnhappy said:


> *My bad points:* I'm a very "take charge" person which means I can be an *******. I have a hard time listening without offering ways to "fix" the problem. I can be very critical of decisions/actions. I think that I'm providing constructive criticism, but am aware it can be tiring. I believe because my wife is so unprepared to solve most problems, that it forces me to be the one to make a decision. rinks.
> 
> *Her bad points:* She complains constantly how hard it is to decide what to cook for dinner.


^^I think your critical streak feeds her lack of making decisions. I gave up making decisions because my H was like you. It was not worth it to me to endure the punishment of his second guessing, anger, and criticism.

She works half time plus does other stuff. She isn't lazy, just sick of the thankless job of housekeeping. So use some of your money to* hire a housekeeper and buy convenience food.*

At age 50, is she peri-menopausal? IME, that was a very physically and emotionally draining season.

There's plenty of things in your post for YOU to work on. I suggest engaging in self-improvement and become the best you can be.


----------

