Wife 25F is making me think I’m 29M insane

Bear with me, cause this is a bit of a long one and the details matter in how everything played out lol.

I didn’t have much growing up, drunk neglecting parents, was broke. I started working at 15 and dropped out of school at 17 because I got by well and had a job lined up for me. I was depressed and extremely anxious, basically felt like I don’t look good enough and I’m not enough. I spent 5 years into my 20s working on myself, went into therapy, used google and YouTube videos to educate myself about mental health, dove heavily into working out and dieting and changed everything about myself over the 5 years. Didn’t date because again, I felt like I wasn’t good enough and need to work on myself more to “deserve” that…. So, a little over 2 years ago I felt like I finally was enough. I was very fit, I took good care of my body in general, I was financially stable and I loved every day of my life. No alcohol, no drugs, just a healthy stable lifestyle.

I go on a dating app to test out the waters and within a week I was matched with a wonderful young woman, who 6 months later was married to me and moved in with me. I felt like I was rushing too much and it was a mistake then and I know it was now. I started off the relationship giving 110% into everything.

I took her on loads of dates, picnics, romantic walks, I was affectionate towards her, listened to her needs and wants and complied. I worked 12h shifts(called her on all my breaks, texted her nonstop, she came to my work on the overtime) because we lived off my salary alone and even though she was at home the whole time I’d still come home and help her cook and clean since she was just always too depressed and exhausted to do it herself. Weekend came around and I was making breakfast in bed for my poor tired wife. I think in 2 years I got weekend breakfast cooked for me twice total. I helped her through her anxiety attacks, helped her with her sleep paralysis, tried my best to uplift her and show her how she can grow and overcome her issues – she came out of a toxic relationship and had baggage but she had the perfect opportunity to fix herself with a loving, supporting husband who offered her access to therapy, gym, dieting or any hobby she wanted to do, she just didn’t want to do anything on her own. After around a year of me giving 110% I came to a realisation that the only time she shows affection is when she wants sex. That was literally the only time she would come kiss me, which I pointed out. Why aren’t you more affectionate towards me? Why did you tell me you ironed your ex’s clothes, packed him lunch before work, made sure he doesn’t have to lift a finger around the house, planned cute things to do together while he was mentally and physically abusing you AND cheating on you but with me you only expect me to do everything for you while you barely give me the bare minimum and never do things that would make me see you care about me? Her response? “I’m only giving you like 20% of my love, I’m just traumatised and need time until I can give you more.” She told me she expects me to keep up my 110% while she works on herself, which didn’t really fly obviously because I distanced myself. The sex before this was 15x per week, pretty much nonstop, after that it turned to 3-4x per week because I also realised I sexually give her everything she’s ever asked of me but she never does what I’m into. When she told me about things she wants to try I googled about it and made it work, when I brought something up it was just forgotten. I lost my sex drive pretty early on because it felt selfish to me. Now again I’m being told I’m failing her and she’s “not gonna be able to go on like this very long”. ???????

From the start she was extremely insecure and had ridiculous trust issues. If I was home from work 10min late due to traffic we’d argue because I cheated. If I googled some stuff on my phone browser at work I was talking to other women online somewhere. If I smiled, said thank you, bye to a cashier in a store I was flirting. I was not allowed to speak to women, under any circumstances. She said it’s only acceptable if they’re under 15, or over 60……. lol. She cut me off from my friends, she didn’t allow me to workout because gyms have women except I have a home gym but spending an hour away from her was just unacceptable, even at home. I had new career options where I’d work and train over the weekends and eventually swap work, which would bring more money, which she knew I needed because living off 1 salary doesn’t cut it and she prevented it from happening. When I tried to learn to code slowly on my own, she gave me shit about it for 2 weeks until I just gave up. She just wanted to lay in bed and watch TV and “chill”. When I tried breaking up, she’d always cry for hours and tell me she’s gonna change, or as of recent just toss out “I’m gonna off myself” to emotionally blackmail me.

I’m now out of shape, financially broke to a point where I’m working 2 jobs, 12-16h a day 7 days a week and depressed. She finally took up a job, 2 pay checks later she didn’t offer a single cent to help with anything, I still cover the bills and everything around the house. I work 2 jobs and I’m the one cleaning the entire house, our room especially is a fkin mega mess every 2 days cause she throws papers and trash around the room or the bed instead of in the bin, doesn’t put her dirty clothes away, doing the dishes and the laundry. I have to listen to her vent about being tired and drained after 5 days per week of 8h work while I do double weekly, I don’t even get a chance to express myself. Oh and ironically, she’s telling me how she’s talking to all these different male managers at work about random things which makes my brain want to explode after she attacked me for flirting and cheating for saying “thank you, bye” to a cashier in a store, or accused me of cheating at my main job when a woman in her late 30s came to finish our company’s yearly financial report. We work in a hall, the woman worked with her boss in a closed office. She accused me of cheating with this woman because I told her my colleagues told me that she broke up with her ex and now lives back with her parents which in her head was a lie and according to her I was the one talking to her directly on a Tuesday, told me I’m a cheating dickhead and to leave her alone. Funny part about this one? That woman was not at work that week and on Wednesday her boss told me she’s actually on sick leave. But I was cheating with her at work haha magic! I literally never spoke to women randomly because we don’t have them at my job and I had to explain myself for not doing it because she just assumed I did and accused me of it. Now she actually talks to other men, which I normally don’t have an issue with but just the fact she attacked me for months because she assumed I did and I didn’t, and now she’s doing it and I’m supposed to listen to her stories….. What?!

She’s the most negative person I’ve met in my entire life and I’m not sure if she’s right on this one or if she’s manipulating me but – apparently it’s just “how women are”? I feel like she’s just a mean person towards me. She doesn’t ever say or ask things nicely, she does it with a mean attitude in a mean tone and I know I’m not imagining this or taking it too personal because I can hear how she speaks with everyone else and I’m the only one getting that specific rude attitude. I always imagined having a wife would mean I have a safe, supportive space to talk about things but instead with her, IF I even get a chance to express myself because she’s always too busy expressing herself, I just get ignored. They say you should open up, tell your wife how you feel, communicate etc – I do and I get ignored and eventually it backfires because at some point she throws my emotions and feelings into my face to belittle me. I’ve now stopped expressing myself to her entirely and she’s constantly on my ass why I don’t talk to her when she can see I have things on my mind… Like, what?

A few months back she started saying she wants us to move into an apartment. Yes, let’s add more expenses on me. We currently live in a massive 2 story house with my dad who’s 72 years old. He was a terrible dad while I grew up but he sobered up about 6-7 years back and he’s been trying really hard to be a good father. A little over a year ago he was diagnosed with aggressive throat cancer that came out of nowhere and since the surgery, he’s unable to speak and he’s practically unable to do anything. The surgery was successful but we can all see his health is slowly declining and he doesn’t have much time left and she knows this, and I told her I wanna be around him in his last stages of life and be there for him but for her, it’s too much of a burden because he makes a mess on the floor and she has to clean his dishes sometimes(most of the time he does it himself). I told her to never touch anything in the house again and I’ll do it instead of her because he is dealing with a lot and is depressed and I feel like mopping the floor and washing a few dishes for him isn’t a big deal for me, but for her it’s something that’s brought up every 2 days in an argument. When I said that, she got pissed off and annoyed with me as always. Ironically, her mom is 49 years old and is being heavily overworked and she says now that she has a job, she’s gonna save up and force her to move in with us and take care of her entirely so she can relax. For her mom she feels empathy, for my dad she doesn’t. Add part 2 of irony, before she moved in with me she had to mop the floor twice a day every single day because their dog made a massive mess daily and she never had an issue with it and I never heard a single complaint about it but when it comes to my dad, it’s a massive issue she can’t live with…. Maybe I’m reading all this wrong but it just feels extremely selfish – people on her side need help and deserve it, my family doesn’t? My dad was nicer to her when she came to our house than he ever was to me and that’s the thanks he ends up getting lol.

I feel like I’m losing my mind pretty much. I didn’t talk to other women, I wanted to get into a relationship to make my wife happy and I expected the same in return. Instead all I got in return was being accused of doing things I never did and I spent 80% of our time defending myself against accusations she made up in her head, and she keeps claiming that’s normal and that’s just how women are. She keeps claiming she’s only giving me 20% of her love and can do better but never does which just screams to me that I’m not the man she wants. End of the day, the only thing she’s been somewhat content with is the sex, which she’s addicted to and when I jokingly asked her what item she sees me as she said “a dildo”, which might sound funny but I literally feel like I’m just being used for some venting, comfort and sex.

Any suggestions on how to approach this? I’ve tried bringing these things up many times and it just never changes. It’s difficult to leave and I feel like someone who isn’t a heavy empath and tends to put other people first won’t understand what it feels like when you know somebody isn’t good for you but they threaten offing themselves and you feel trapped and don’t know what to do…..

Any suggestions are welcome. I have nobody to talk to about these things because of how cut off I’ve been from them everyone I had in my life.