Hello Everyone,

Thank you for the responses, My wife and I will have a lot to talk about and process.  I spoke with her last night (Saturday), and we discussed her work and hours, how it is affecting our son and myself (more about our son than me).  So she worked a half-day today and we spent some time together as a family, but she had to go back into work to finish up and wont be home until after I put our son to bed. She understands that her hours are affecting us, but her answer is that she can’t change her hours because of her job, and she has no help, and she took on another client this week, and didn’t tell me because she knew I would get mad about that.  But we will have another discussion tomorrow about how everything is affecting us.

TeaK: She is very messy at home, her desk is piled up with receipt’s, paper’s, plants, pictures, and other things.  Her side of the room has clothes, shoes, books, and other things strewn about.  At work her feed room is very organized (which I helped her with, built some shelves, added a feed bin, and some other storage), and she keeps it very well organized, since there are other people that use it, but her “office” is a mess, she has tools, nails, screws, papers strewn about.  We will talk about her resuming therapy the next time we have a discussion about it, I hope she will, but I am not sure if she will do it.  I will try though, Thank you.

Anita: I do love her, When the thought of splitting up crosses my mind I get sad, and feel like I wouldn’t be able to do it without her, but maybe its just a guilt thing, because I do most everything by myself anyway.  These past few days I have been doing extra to show her that I am being supportive and loving, but it doesn’t seem to do much, maybe because its too little too late.  But I will bring this up when we have another discussion tomorrow.  Thank you.

Aardvark: I understand what you mean, analyzing everything is fine, but it is not everything.  My son’s needs are being met, he is fed, clothed and happy.  He doesn’t have a lot of time with his mother though, which I am not sure how much that will effect him.  As for the other two, that would be no.  Which I will bring up with her when we have another discussion tomorrow.

We have a lot to work on and talk about still, and I thank you all for your input and suggestions.  I will write back and let you know how everything goes.

Thank you very much!

Hello TeaK,

I guess I meant that she listen’s to me complain, whether about work, family or anything else, and just thought of it as her being stubborn or scared of change that she would not take my advice on her business.  I never really thought about it as her being manipulative because she is the type of person that wants to help people, puts them above herself, but she is now putting everyone above her family also.   She also has a lot of self-doubt, which is why, I believe, she continues to ask me what she should do as far as her work is concerned. As far as understanding why she doesn’t want things to change, I am somewhat like that, especially in my job,  if something works, don’t change it.  But I understand that things NEED to change with her work, because it is causing problems with our family, I guess I relate to it a bit, which is why I use it as an excuse for her.  Maybe I keep justifying it in my mind by making excuses for her?

I get hints of resentment from time to time about me not helping her in the barn, I have helped her quite a bit over the years at the farm, but I told her when we first got together that her job is her job, I won’t be helping her all the time.  My family has also asked me why I don’t help her at the barn also, and I give them the same answer.  I had an Ex-girlfriend who I used to help with her job (she cleaned offices), and she took advantage of that, wanted me to go with her almost everyday after I got done with work, and would get mad at me if I didn’t help her, so I do not want to go through that again.  So, maybe she is resentful of that, and takes it out by staying late at work?

I do not like to get into fights with her, because she will shut down emotionally.  The last time we got into a fight, we were yelling at each other, about her work and hours, and she just shut down, she wouldn’t talk to me for a full day.  I know that I said some things that were very hurtful, I called her a part-time wife, and I think she was resentful of that for quite a while.  After we did start talking again, she did not want to have any conversation about what we were fighting over, if I brought up the subject again she would just shut down again and not speak.  I think this is why when we do talk about her hours and such it is infrequently, because she will just shut down.  As far as the dates go, I don’t confront her about it, I just let it go, once in awhile I maybe broach the subject of her being late all the time, and she will tell me that she has always been that way.  She has always been late to things, our first date was the only time she was on-time, she was actually early, but after that she was always late.

It took me awhile to write this, I found myself defending and making excuses for my wife while I was writing this.  Things like her being resentful, I would try to defend her and tell myself that she isn’t like that, she wouldn’t be resentful of me.  But some of her comments recently have started to creep into my mind, such as the other night when I said that I loved her, she said “the only reason you love me is that I gave you a son”, and it seemed a bit playful at the time, but the more I think about it, she didn’t say that she loved me afterwards, she just said goodnight, gave me a kiss and went to bed.  Also she has been kissing my cheek lately instead of a kiss on the lips, It really hadn’t caught my attention until now, while reading your post.

I will have to maybe make a list of things that I would like to talk with her about and sit down with her and discuss everything..

Thank you.

Hello Teak,

Thank you for the reply, I believe that my wife and I are a good fit together, and she does sacrifice most of her time to her job, even if she doesn’t have to be at work, she will stay to do things that she wants to do (mostly tidying up the barn or doing things in the barn that the owners of the property should be doing, like fixing fence boards or fixing horse stalls.) We have talked about her hours and changes to her business that would let her have more time, but she doesn’t do anything about it.  We have the same discussion anywhere from 5-10 times a year: She will ask me what she should do, she lays out options about how she should change the business, we discuss it for an hour or so laying out the pro’s and con’s of each option.  When all of that is done, I tell her what my opinions are about it, what I think would be the best course, and ask her what she REALLY wants to do..  and she can’t make up her mind.  So we end up back at the same spot after every discussion, sometimes I get annoyed when we are talking about it because she never follow’s through with her idea’s, I have become increasingly annoyed with it  over the past few months, and the last time she wanted to discuss her business plans I snapped at her about it.  It’s almost as if she doesn’t want anything to change, which I understand, and she has a problem with her own self-worth and was in therapy for it, along with other things.

I might be over reacting a bit, and probably being stubborn about house chores.  But in my eyes, a relationship should be a joint effort, and if I am the only one putting in effort, then it feels like I just have a room-mate instead of a spouse.

– Anita,

I will take a look at the workbooks you mentioned, and maybe start there.  I am afraid that if I ask her to go to couples therapy she will not have time, or stay at work longer to avoid it.  The workbooks I could probably get to work since we can do it at home, but we will see how it goes.

Thank you both!