Yes – financial ruin. A few months ago she realized i (we) had accrued quite a bit of debt. She attributes that to the child support I give my ex for the kids. I cant change that without spending thousands on a lawyer. Even if I did that, there’s little chance for it to change much, if at all. I have spreadsheets going back to almost the beginning of our relationship that outlines who paid for what over the years. Until the past couple years, I paid for almost everything – again, it’s all documented. She started takimg on some of the bills because she started making more money recently. I struggled to pay for the growing needs for my girls, and she resented that. Although I provide child support, my ex wife has been looking for reasons to not buy them clothes – a stupid form of punishment. This is especially hard for my youngest daughter because she is growing into womanhood quickly. So I end up buying her clothes so she doesnt keep playing sick because she’s embarrassed that she keeps outgrowing clothes. Up until a couple months ago, my girls were very active in gymnastic, ice skating, softball – of course the most expensive sports. She always resented this also, but it gave my girls structure and discipline. I guess it was a non-negotiable subject for me and she didnt like it. When she discovered the debt (that again I wasnt hiding) – hindsight and based on where this thread has lead to, it’s telling me that this is the moment I lost her. I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. The money was not all going to me and my girls, but that’s how she saw it. Last year a couple of her family members moved in. We had 2 more adult mouths to feed. Most of that came from my pocket. I didn’t whine about it – I fed my family. My youngest quit her main sport and was trying to find something new – it was an expensive journey. With our new high deductible health insurance, I had to pay $4,000 in deductibles because my daughters and I ended up having unavoidable medical issues. I was willing to put myself in debt to take care of my family. I’m also willing to get myself out of debt. I planned on getting a second job. Before the kids, I always worked multiple jobs. I was trying to wait until they were out of the house in a few years because I didnt want to be absent from home. Like I stated earlier, I was the structure. Her children didn’t treat her with respect when I wasn’t around and I didnt want to make it worse. My thought was that money is one thing, but giving them all (including my wife) structure was more important than money. She had no problem feeding the childrdn sugar filled cereal for dinner because thats how she was raised. It’s not like I was going bankrupt. In the times I had to ask my wife for money, she would get upset. I didnt understand because I’d financially supported so much for so long and she was making more money now. She’d lecture me about saving money. There I was going in debt for my family and she was saving money. She was mad that she had to use her savings. My vehicle broke and she had to tap into her savings to pay the $900 bill. I figured that’s what the savings was for. She looked at this as “her” money. I think this was the last straw. I don’t know if I would have done things differently now, because things needed to be paid for. She complained about our cable/wifi bill for months, so right before the end, I cancelled it. So day one without cable, she sat down for dinner demanding I put something good on like she always had. Then she got upset because there wasn’t anything on. She told me I should have kept the wifi – even though she told me we should all just use the data on our phones. I couldnt win. The only time in her life that she supported herself was when she was 17. At that point, the state was supporting her. She continued relyjng on the state when she intentionally had babies not long after that with her leaker ex boyfriend. I helped her get away from relying on statd aid. Early on in our relationship, i had to convince her to take advantage of a job opportunity to make more money because she didnt want to give up state aid. I told her it’s about bettering yourself, not holding yourself back. She’s bettered herself now, and she feels she does’t need me anymore. I’ve heard that money is the #1 reason for divorce, but I blindly didn’t see this coming. She didn’t even attempt to seriously address this outside “smart-ass” comments – but again I shouldn’t have been surprised by this because her inherited lack of communication. I know we didn’t see eye to eye on this, but thought the love and family we had would perservere. Money isn’t what makes me happy – it was my family. Now it’s been broken in half.