Dear Dave,

you are welcome. You said she has self-esteem issues and lots of self-doubt. That, coupled with her comment “the only reason you love me is that I gave you a son“, might indicate that she really doesn’t love herself. Perhaps she believes that she is a bad wife and mother, but at least her job is what gives her satisfaction, and maybe even an escape from her feelings of failure as wife and mother? She is always late, even when she promises you a date night, and that too can be a way of self-sabotage, because it proves to her over and over again how inadequate she is.

Also, she might want to do things right – fixing the barn – because she believes she can’t do things right in her marriage?

This is just one possible explanation of her behavior – of her rejection of every and all attempts to change her working hours so she can spend more time with you and your son. When you confront her with it, she shuts down, she doesn’t want to talk about it, she stops speaking to you at all. What might be happening is that such confrontations open her wound of feeling not good enough, of feeling like a failure, and it’s too painful. She can’t bear it, so she shuts down.

If this is plausible, I believe your wife would need to continue working on her self-esteem and heal her wound of being not good enough. Because this wound might be causing all this turmoil…