# How long is too long



## RGS (Dec 16, 2012)

Thank you all for this forum and advice. I have been reading for the last three hours about various situations and feel the need to air my laundry also. I have found many new things about life and met great friends via forums and I am a huge supporter of them. They are great tools, along with the internet. 

Ok, so onto my story. Bear with me if it is a bit long. (ill put cliff notes at the bottom for anyone who doesn't want to read)

My wife and I have been married 10 years as of last Sept, married young. She was 19 and I was 20 but I was also in the military and things ...well they are different with military life. For 8 years while traveling the globe with her, we had a great marriage. Our daughter was born Nov of 2008, April 2009, she moved back home a few months ahead of me to start our new life out of the military. 

I worked a crap job while attending school, she started working with her parents at their company. I was happy for her, she was happy and we continued to build our new, much different life. The thing is, she became so wrapped up with her parents, neglect towards me became something I couldn't deal with and I took my desire for comfort to someone else to fulfill. This happened for a few months and when I told my partner I wanted to cut ties, she confronted my wife about our relationship. This brings the date to March/April-2010. 

I moved out for a few months while my wife and I tried to rebuild our relationship. With time, counseling and forgiveness, things were moving great. We eventually started being intimate again a few times a month and I felt we had a great relationship going. I think she was happy with our relationship, too. I landed a great job after completing my degree and I felt that catapulted our relationship. I felt more confident in myself and felt I was really providing something for my family. I think she felt very relieved in that now everything would be okay. (I was never unemployed) She became more involved with her parents business. 

So here we are today, my feelings of being in the backseat have found their way back to the forefront. She has consumed herself so much in her parents business that it totally consumes her. The unfortunate part, the pay is horrible and the family business of 15+ years is failing. (the last three weeks/month she has barely made minimum wage) I haven't figured out if she brings it upon herself or or parents place it on her, or if it just happens. Her sister also works for them and seems to have the same stress. A huge part of me tells me that its not intentional, it has just happened. There is a bit more to it with both pro's and con's but the con's outweigh the pro's, of course my opinion. I consider happiness a form of payment too, but I don't think she is truly happy with what she is doing. 

We have financial difficulties, yet she won't let me have any control over the finances. She has ASKED me to take over the finances. I'm not trying to flaunt myself but I have a B.S. in business and am halfway through my MBA. I have been trained in managing finances with schooling and used to manage a large amount of money in the military. A friend brought to light that it is clear that she is hiding something from me. Duh! I think that she is using our money to help her parents run the business. Even small things like purchasing something for her parents with the understanding they are to pay us back, I don't think happens. Our vehicle (and gas), our cell phones, our internet, our computers and iPads now help run the business. I make more than enough $$ and have budgeted our money on paper with over $1000 a month extra, yet I get calls/texts monthly because of late payments with the necessities of living. Where does our money go? 

Between she and I, I dont feel we have had meaningful sex in ...I cant remember when the last time we had true intimate sex. She doesn't have sex to satisfy her, she does it to satisfy me. She always has a headache, tired, stomach hurts, or anything else she can come up with. The last time I feel she was even horny for me was over a year ago when she woke me up and it was amazing. 

I feel she wants nothing to do with me. The small things like a kiss when I come home, having a plan for dinner, putting together my lunch, support for my new career seems to be non-existant. Even asking her to proof-read a big assignment for school seemed to be a complete inconvenience to her...and we were sitting by the fireplace in our living room. 

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Now...lets not play the selfish game, allow me to briefly explain my thoughts about what she would say if I sat her down and discussed these things with her. 

She working for her parents business: She adores her family. If she could spend every night with them, she would. She would say she is only trying to help her parents move their business along in a positive direction. 

As for sex, she isn't happy with her weight. She has lost a lot of weight, ran several 5k's over the course of the year, and has done a lot to try and boost her self. I find her very attractive and tell her that all of the time.

Our finances, she says she doesn't know where the money goes. 
-I'm well aware of where it is going. 

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So here I am today, coming to a bunch of strangers begging for advice. Bringing up that the business is practically ruining our marriage will make her think that I am attacking her family and their business. It will create hardship. I quite honestly enjoy her family, when not discussing the business. 

I feel as though where she and I want to go in life are very different than they were a few years ago. I want to move on to bigger and better things, she wants to stay a slave to her parents. 8-10 months ago when I thought things were very merry, I asked her about having another child. Her response was no, she doesn't have time with the business to be pregnant, it was out of the question. Still to this day, she wants nothing to do with another child, and quite frankly, neither do I at the moment. 

I have considered finding a second job, just to omit myself from her and my feelings, be a father as much as I possibly can to our beautiful daughter. -Find a drug that will take away sexual desires. That was just a stupid thought, and I can't live like that, for those reasons. 

How long does this go on? This has been going on now for several months. When I sit back and consider what the root of the problem is, it stems back to her involvement with the business. I ask myself, is this civilian life? Reading others experiences, no, it isn't. I can't sleep at night (actually had a horrible dream about all of this the other night) and I am just very unhappy at the moment. 

Trying to fix this isn't going to end without a serious fight between she and I and her family.

**edit, I forgot to mention the cliff notes**

Married for 10 years
Left military
I was unfaithful, we worked things out, life was great
She became super involved with family business 
She now has no interest in me or an intimate relationship
Considering divorce.


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## anchorwatch (Mar 5, 2012)

You say she is stressed over the business. Stress can kill libido. 

You've been through MC before, you know the drill. Time together = a good relationship. 

You must have told her the amount of involvement with the business is killing your marriage. What's her answer? 

You sound half in and half out. What do you want?


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## RGS (Dec 16, 2012)

Thanks for the reply, sorry it took so long for me to respond. Yes, I want to stay with my wife. I want to have a wife, a best friend, someone to share things with, someone to build a life with, not a roommate. 

If she wants to work for her parents, that is fine with me. If she is going to be paid with a low wage, she should work like she is earning a low wage, regardless of who it is for. Happiness shouldn't include sleepless nights and stress to the point that it interferes with our marriage. 

I am quite honestly scared to tell her what I feel about the business and our relationship. I am almost certain I know how she will respond. She will be hurt by my thoughts. She will feel as though I am attacking her and her family which will rip her apart. I don't want to make her upset by telling my feelings. 

Confronting her at Christmas will be a horrible time to bring these things up. Part of me wants to continue to just move on, knowing that the business probably cant sustain itself longer than five years, just suck it up. The other part of me says, its time to 'crap or get off the pot'.

I'm really torn.


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## anchorwatch (Mar 5, 2012)

RGS said:


> I am quite honestly scared to tell her what I feel about the business and our relationship. I am almost certain I know how she will respond. She will be hurt by my thoughts. She will feel as though I am attacking her and her family which will rip her apart. I don't want to make her upset by telling my feelings.


No. Even though you know she will be hurt by the conversation, it has to be said. If you keep going with out a seriously heart felt discussion, you will build up more resentment. That resentment will slowly kill your love for her. As that happens she will sense the anger and apathy in you and she will in turn build resentment towards you and lose love. You'll both start to add other things into the equation and around and around you go until till the anger and resentment kills any chance you have left.

It does need to be done tactfully. Not demands or ultimatums. Along the lines that your losing her and you need her help to before your fear comes true. I'm sure you can come up with something that doesn't frame it as her feeling attacked. (I don't know if you could come up with any viable options for the business that she may see as an alternatives.) 

RGS, you have to be the leader here. I don't mean the boss or the dictator. A leader takes control of the situation at hand, with his family's needs and welfare in mind, and guides them to a better place. 

Have you read "His Needs, Her Needs"? If not get, read it, show her the theories.

edit; I'd drop the resentment and make sure the Holidays were as memorable and loving as I could. Then when I had the conversion early next month, she'd know I was speaking out of love and concerned for her and us.


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