My wife has let me down significantly in the past 3 years which has built festering resentment. We’ve been married 14+ years and have 2 boys, 6 and 12.
We both had online shops through Covid, which both steadily dwindled post covid causing financial problems. Our finances are separate, and after she did the taxes, I found out we were in significant need of one of us getting a job due to debt. Within 6 weeks, I was able to get a job, which I thought would be enough. It wasn’t enough though as our shops kept producing less income from rising costs and other factors.
I was burning the candle at both ends with the part-time online shop and full-time job. I was also doing the majority of the housework and kids after school homework. She doesn’t pick up after herself, and her shop overtook the house. So I often cleaned up after her.
She was still working her shop, but it wasn’t enough. I was hoping she’d take the hint and get a job but that never happened. After about 6 months of waiting for her to do something, I told her I really needed her to get a job to help support the family, and I needed her to do her part around the house.
She would say she would start looking, but after a week, she’d stop looking. Same goes for helping around the house. I’d ask her again after a few months, and the same cycle persisted. This is when I realized my mental health was in real danger and that I was falling out of love with my wife. I told her that I was losing respect for her and thinking of divorce. Something I’ve never thought of before. I told her she was putting the financial wellbeing of our family: kids needs and our retirement into real risk, and I gave her a deadline of 6 months to get a job or I’d seek marriage counseling for us. 4 months past and she hadn’t made any progress. I had a final discussion with her and it finally clicked. She got a job and things seemed to be getting better.
The job was a perfect fit for her, but it had unrealistic expectations that weren’t known until a month after it started. She was put under extreme stress and she had a nervous breakdown. She quit, with my blessing, and I was left taking care of her and the kids. Turns out, her nervous breakdown was likely caused because she didn’t feel like she could quit her job because she was hiding $60K in debt from me. This debt was from living and shop expenses from the past 5 years that she didn’t tell me about.
We were forced to refinance our home to deal with the building debt: original debt plus new secret debt. Our mortgage has been reset with a more than double interest rate.
She has seen doctors and did a little therapy and things have gotten better. She found a better job, relieving some of the stress, and he is helping out around the house a lot more.
On the outside, things look great. She is happy. She has a job she loves. We are earning more money than we have in a while and our debts have been settled from the refinance. On the inside, I know she needs more therapy but is avoiding getting it. Personally, I’m mentally exhausted, and I have lost respect for my wife and feel like I’ve fallen out of love with her. I also lost trust as she hid this debt from me and because in my time of need, she didn’t help until a year of asking.
I’m almost certain I’d divorce her if we didn’t have kids. My oldest asked me a hypothetical question recently: What would I do with a million dollars, and my first thought was divorce my wife and give her half because of the guilt I’d have for divorcing her. I know I need counseling. I have a break in work that will allow for that soon.
I feel like I’m blowing some of this out of proportion, that I need to suck it up and be happy things are getting better. I’m also afraid to see where things land if I were to go through with a divorce with selling house, custody of kids, finances, and being alone. Any advice would be helpful.
tl;dr
Wife didn’t do her fair share around the house and financially for an extended amount of time. Found out she was also hiding $60K in debt from me as well. I have fallen out of love with wife and lost respect and trust for her.