Update 2 – AITA for shutting down my wife’s party favor idea?

Reddit! It’s me, the guy with the wife who gave out fish as party favors. I’m back, and I wanted to update you guys again on how things are going, both because I’ve seen some eagerness for updates and because this has become a great place for me to vent.

TL;DR: My wife gave out fish as party favors at my son’s birthday party, got mad at me when I refused to let her do it again, had me plan the whole party (which I’m very proud of and think I did a great job), and now I’m questioning my whole marriage after her behavior.

To make a long story short, we’ve decided to get divorced. To make a short story long, here’s how we got here:

I took a lot of your comments to heart about divorce and abuse. I’ve taken a lot of immaturity from my wife over the years, but I told myself I was in the wrong. It’s easy to see from the outside that I was in a bad situation, but when you’re in it, you don’t realize how tough everything gets because it becomes your normal. The fish story was just a tipping point.

We went on vacation a couple weeks ago. We traveled down to Georgia to stay with my wife’s parents. To put some perspective on how I’ve been manipulated throughout this marriage, my in-laws agree with their daughter on just about every disagreement we’ve had. They once sat me down and lectured me about how I’m not making enough money to support their daughter, that she shouldn’t have to work, and that I’m not a good enough man or husband because I don’t take her to Disneyland every year. They’re very much ingrained in the church culture, hence why my wife relies on her church/church friends for literally every bit of advice.

During our trip, we all went to Cracker Barrel. The whole time, my MIL and FIL didn’t talk once to each other. They stared at their phones or at their menus, everything just felt so cold and uncomfortable. They weren’t in love, they seemed just annoyed to be around each other. And it hit me—that’s my wife and I exactly. And that’s how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives. It’s not going to get better.

I excused myself to the bathroom and cried. It wasn’t about the fish or her wearing a swimsuit to a wedding. I wasn’t happy, I was being gaslit constantly, blamed for everything, and was stuck in an emotionally abusive marriage with a childish wife who won’t take no for an answer and wants everything her way, or else I’m apparently a horrible monster.

I told my wife later that evening that I wasn’t happy with our marriage. Maybe I shouldn’t have started this conversation on vacation, but I just needed to get everything off my chest. She admitted she wasn’t happy either, but just kept telling me that we should try to make things better. That we needed to stay together for our son. When I asked her what we can do to make things better, she said “I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about this right now.” We left it at that and went to bed, we really weren’t getting anywhere.

We didn’t say a word about it for the rest of the trip. We spent a lot of time apart. I took my son for walks and hikes that my wife didn’t want to go on. We all watched movies together, trying to keep the happy act up to avoid ruining the trip for our son. It sucked, but I do think he had a good time regardless of everything.

A couple days after we got home from the trip, I got a call from my mom, she was in tears on the other end, asking about my marriage and what was happening between us. Apparently, my wife had called my mom to vent about how terrible of a partner I was, about how I demanded we have sex (not true, our intimacy in general was extremely lacking and she shut down any attempt without negotiation or conversation. I never demanded anything), how I don’t make enough to allow her to be a stay-at-home mom (she hates cooking and cleaning, I’m not even sure what she would do all day as a stay-at-home mom), and again about how controlling I was. I tried reassuring my mom as best as I could, and she said she understood that I had good reasons for how I was behaving in our marriage. But that essentially fractured my relationship between my wife and my mom, and pushed the end of our marriage.

I confronted my wife. It wasn’t this big dramatic, emotional moment. I was just done. I was apathetic, hollow. I felt nothing for her anymore. I told her “this is not how a person treats someone they love. Do you even love me?”

After a long pause, my wife said “no. I honestly don’t love you.”

And in truth, I didn’t love her anymore. I ended it there, telling her “fine, we’re getting a divorce.” And all she said was “that’s your decision. If that’s what you want.”

So, that’s where we’re at. We haven’t started anything legally official yet, but we’re on our way. I’m sleeping on the couch, she’s declared she wants to keep all the pets (except the fish, of course). My son is taking it well. We told him together, and all he said was “it’s okay, I knew it was going to happen soon.” He’s so incredibly smart and mature at 8 years old, and I’m really grateful he understands. We reassured him that we both love him dearly, and that even though this is a big change, we’re all going to do everything we can to make this easy.

As for her church, I found out all along she was sleeping with the pastor!

…Nah, I’m just kidding. For some backstory on our church experience, I used to be pretty religious and attended “Church A” with my wife. I started questioning my faith and told her how I was feeling. She got so angry, angrier than I’ve ever seen her. She tried to hit me, so I blocked her arm. My wife then screamed at me for “putting my hands on her,” and tried to leave with our son (he was 4 at the time). I refused to let him go with her, and she stormed off on her own. My wife told all of our church friends how much of a monster I was for what I did, to the point where they started encouraging her to call the police on me (she never did, she just told me that’s what they advised her to do). After that, I refused to go to that church, and later joined “Church B,” which my wife joined too (she wasn’t motivated to go to Church A without me). We left Church B for a multitude of reasons (terrible leadership, money laundering, poor treatment of our son), and my wife insisted we go back to Church A. I tried, but everyone there treated me so coldly. Not once after the incident did any one of my “friends” from Church A ask how I was doing or if what they were told was true. I stopped going to church altogether, and she kept going. Now, they’ve all but excommunicated me, and I never plan to speak to any one of them again.

I have a long road ahead of me. But I’m just grateful to be taking the steps I need to be happy and free from this marriage. Thank you, Reddit. In a way, I always knew something had to change. But seeing your replies helped validate everything I was feeling, and made me feel a bit less crazy.