When marriage gets tough, it’s like trying to find your way through a maze. Sometimes it’s great, but other times, hurtful words can tear everything apart. This story is about a couple facing those tough times, realizing that they need to end things for their own happiness. It’s a sad tale of heartbreak and the search for a new beginning when love just isn’t enough anymore.
He shared his side of the story.
About a year ago, I was out doing some chores. It was a Sunday, and my wife was still asleep while the kids were playing. She woke up around 11:30 and called me, asking where I was. I told her I was either at Home Depot or at the diner nearby, about 30 minutes away. She got really upset and demanded that I come home right away.
She was mad because she woke up and I wasn’t there. But I had already been up since 6:30, doing chores, exercising, and looking after the kids. I left home at 10:00 AM. Usually, I take care of the kids because my schedule is more flexible, and I make twice as much money as my wife.
It takes me about an hour to get home. When I got back, she started yelling at me, calling me names and threatening to take the kids and leave if I didn’t want to be part of the family. Since then, I’ve felt like I’m living with someone who wants to hurt me emotionally. Her words and threats really affected me, and I’ve talked about it in therapy several times.
My wife, friends, and parents all told me to forget about it, saying I was being too sensitive. They said my wife was just upset and that she apologized, so why can’t I move on?
But it’s been a year now, and I still can’t let it go. Everyone, including my wife, acts like everything is back to normal. We even went on a family vacation together in February. But deep down, I feel like I can’t talk openly to my wife anymore because of what happened.
Am I wrong for still being upset about what my wife said a year ago? I’m pretending everything is fine, but in reality, I’ve taken on a second job just to avoid being around her. She thinks I’m busy, but I’m really just trying to stay away from her.
He then added more information.
Our kids are 7 and 9 years old, and they basically have their own floor in the house with a bedroom, bathroom, and playroom. I wanted to talk to a lawyer, but two of my business associates said I was overreacting and wouldn’t give me any lawyer recommendations.
I talked to some older people, both men and women, and they all said I needed to move on and forget about it. They said I should try other options before calling a lawyer. One of my friends, who is 55, hung up on me when I asked him for advice. But he called me back a week later and said he’d drive me to meet with a lawyer if I still wanted to.
We live in a big city but a small, wealthy suburb where everyone knows each other. Last year, when I went on vacation with my friend, we bumped into our neighbor at the airport. By the time I got back home, people at my kids’ school knew where I had been and even knew my friend’s name. Normally, I walk the same route every day with our dog, but when I had a foot injury and couldn’t walk for two weeks, a lady at the local pharmacy noticed and asked if I was okay because she hadn’t seen me around.
My wife has threatened to leave me several times in our almost 20 years together, but I always thought she was just angry and didn’t mean it. But last year, she involved our children in her threat, and that really scared me. She hasn’t threatened to leave since then, and I think she knows she went too far. But I still feel like I could be blindsided one day.
I looked at some divorce lawyer websites in our state, and they have calculators for alimony and child support. If my wife decides to leave, I could end up losing a lot of money. We have a post-nuptial agreement that a lawyer helped us with, but I’ve even talked to a friend about renting a studio from him so I can have somewhere else to sleep while I figure things out. Everyone is telling me to either tough it out or pay up to get out of the marriage.
My therapist asked me in August if I still wanted to be married, and I told him I wasn’t sure. But I’ve thought about how much it would cost to get divorced, and it’s a huge amount of money. I don’t even know if it’s worth it. He told me he was in a similar situation 15-20 years ago, and he still got divorced, but he had to pay a lot of money. He said he waited until his youngest child turned 18, but he started planning his divorce about 8 years earlier. That’s the only advice anyone is giving me – to wait it out.
