TL;DR: how do I get through to my wife if she’s set on divorce because despite lack of evidence she thinks I’m going to cheat for some reason?
My wife and I have been together 6 years, married 4 and for the last three years I have stayed at home with our youngest child because childcare is prohibitively expensive in our area and she wanted to take on the role of primary breadwinner. Now she is frustrated with her career that she’s had the last three years and wants to switch back roles. Currently, her income pays for the mortgage and I pay the rest of the household expenses with my passive income streams. I have been petitioning for about the last two years that I would like to at least have a part time job to help with bills and have some time to recharge from being 24/7 stay at home dad to our 3 kids (She had two before we were married) so this was a welcomed change.
She has always been adamantly against me having a job for several reasons but one consistent one has been her jealousy of me interacting with other people, especially women.
To clarify, I have never cheated, or had anything remotely close to a friendship or relationship with another woman other than my wife since our marriage. She had me delete my social media and block everyone on my phone that was not a blood relative. As far as I’m aware, she has never been cheated on in a committed relationship but for what it’s worth, I know the father of her second child was not exclusive to her and I know that’s damaging to her.
Last night she was having a conversation with her mother about creating an “escape plan” for when I chose to leave her. This is not the first time I’ve heard such a conversation happen between them. To be fair, our marriage is far from perfect, but I have never been one to explore a life outside of marriage, while she consistently threatens divorce every time we have a disagreement, no matter how insignificant.
When I tried to talk to her about how hearing that made me feel, it blew up into a gigantic argument about who does more, I don’t satisfy her needs, I don’t love her the way she needs to be loved, etc.
So now she’s saying she wants to sell the house and separate because when I go back to work, she won’t be able to test that I won’t cheat on her the moment someone comes along, and leave her as soon as I can afford a lawyer.
I love my children and the life l have and I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I have regularly and consistently tried to tell/show her this.
How do I get through to her when she’s clearly been thinking about this for a while and seems to have her mind made up?
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For added context, her mother has been married three times and has cheated on all three of her husbands.
123456
I’d be worried that she was cheating with the constant accusations.
Or he mother has droned her crazy into her daughter.
I’d leave and tell her she is either cheating or has allowed her mother to corrupt her and if she ever wants you back her mother needs to go.
If you reversed the genders you’d say this was clearly an abusive relationship – one partner keeping the other at home doing unpaid childcare and becoming manipulative and threatening when they try to work. Can you see those abusive patterns? It’s harder to recognize when the abuser is female.
I don’t think there are any magic words that will “get through to her”. Because that’s not the point. Her jealousy isn’t really insecurity, it’s control and manipulation. She threatens to blow up the relationship to get you to continue doing as she wishes.
Do you have your own supports? What would life be like away from her?
Have you both considered counseling? Has she ever explored therapy? Her paranoia might be a trauma response to her mother’s behavior, and if left unaddressed, it could impact your kids, making them paranoid too. It’s important to take action.
ETA: you need exit plan in place. This cannot continue. Either she gets help or you divorce her and save the kids.
Sounds like projecting, IMHO.
Let it happen. She’s mentally and emotionally abusing you, isolating you from your social support network, and using you as a nanny for her other 2 kids. You want to be in the nursing home with her in 50 years and be accused of looking too hard at the nurse? Just get out of this already.
Get ahold of an attorney. You are the stay at home parent and primary custodial parent. She should be paying YOU! She wants you to go back to work so she can file for divorce and YOU pay HER! She wants everything her way or the highway. Take the highway. Get an attorney on the DL and file for divorce. Life will always be miserable with her.
Your wife has issues that are way beyond the scope of any advice you can get on Reddit. You are more a nanny/prisoner than a partner to her. The threats of leaving you are a severe form of manipulation and control.
Personally I would run , but that’s not always easy at the very least I would talk to your wife about seeking professional help.
You need to leave her. She’s controlling and emotionally abusive. This isn’t a healthy relationship for you.
You can’t reason with an unreasonable person. If she threatens divorce every time you have a disagreement, that is a person who is not interested in working on the marriage.
>now she’s saying she wants to sell the house and separate because when I go back to work, she won’t be able to test that I won’t cheat on her the moment someone comes along, and leave her as soon as I can afford a lawyer
OK. Let her.
>I love my children and the life l have and I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I have regularly and consistently tried to tell/show her this.
YOU aren’t the one jeopardizing it. She is.
Have you two done any work with a couples therapist? (That said, she is controlling and has isolated you, you don’t go to therapy with an abuser.)
She’s having an affair with someone at work. That’s why she wants to leave the job, because things got messy there. Agree to her proposal for divorce.
Honestly, I would call her bluff on this.
Go to work. Be a person. Have a life. If she wants to project her insecurities onto you then let her. If she wants to leave you because you are doing normal person things and her not normal way of thinking becomes the catalyst for her to want to leave you then quit investing in a person who will tear it all down without any hesitation.
Let her flat out know you do not want to or intend to force her to leave you – but you are not going to be abused, manipulated or even scapegoated as the reason. Tell her you insist on getting marriage counseling to deal with her manipulation and hopefully come to terms with the new “normal,” in your relationship, but if she feels like she cant stay with you because you work then just have her leave now so you can move forward with your own life….
My personal opinion would be it will be hard for her to escape the lessons learned from probably one of the worst examples she could have had, which is a cheating mother who was and is always looking for a way out. She’s bought into it and I don’t think you will be the one to convince her otherwise.
My advice would be: let her go.
It sounds like she is trying to isolate you and force you to be dependent on her, financially and otherwise. She’s not going to suddenly have a change of heart and trust you. The fact that she’s “always” had this attitude reinforces that belief. It just won’t happen and you’re wasting your energy.
Why did you allow yourself to be with someone so controlling?
She sounds like she is cheating and putting together her escape plan so that you look like the bad guy. What kind of rationale is it to break up a family because of something that could happen? She’s playing you man!
This is a self fulfilling prophecy on her part. She’s either crazy or she is cheating herself. Get a lawyer bro, you can’t live with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. Updateme
If the genders were switched, we would all be asking you to consider an exit plan. This paranoid control has the very real possibility of turning violent. Make sure you have a way out of this relationship, including getting a job so that you can support yourself and your child.
Beyond that, counseling might be helpful, if your wife is open to being helped. If not, it can be used as a tool to hurt you further.
Your wife is projecting.
Sounds like she’s gonna owe you alimony
Take the out she is probably a cheater.. you are being manipulated and abused. Get out now before another baby… Suprise!!!!!!. And since she is so suspicious get a dna test for your child.
My first thought is that the accusation is an admission. She might be cheating on you. My second thought is that she or her mother have some traumatic history related to this, couples therapy with individual therapy for her would probably be beneficial, assuming she’s willing to try it and if you can afford it. My third thought is that her mother is trying to poison the marriage so your wife and kids can be closer to her.
Not knowing which I’ll just point out that divorce might be preferable to raising kids in an unhealthy marriage where the threat of divorce is nonchalantly thrown around in every argument. That’s really bad for your kids and their mental health.
And Worley cheating or not healed from her previous relationships. Either way, she needs therapy and y’all need to separate. She’s creating situations and to make you delete your social media? That’s control…
I think you might want to think long and hard about whether this is an abusive relationship. There are a lot of red flags here.