Dear DSO: "My Wife Has Suddenly Changed!"

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Subject line: I just found out that I am a C-T! I don't know, I'll let you fill in the blanks there. He says, uh, my wife of 8 years— we've been together for 15— she told me she wanted a divorce a week before Christmas. I asked her to go back to work full-time to help clear the mortgage. Now the youngest of our two daughters, ages 5 and 3, is in full-time education, and she said she hated me for putting money above her happiness and trying to force her back to a career that she hated. And he says, parentheses here, I financially supported her through university prior to getting married and have effectively been the sole breadwinner since the kids arrived 5 years ago. So let me pause here to try and digest everything I just read. That's a lot. Been together 8 years, together 15 years total, married 8. You have 2 kids, 5 and 3. The youngest, the 3-year-old, is now in full-time education. And so you looked to the wife and said, "Hey, how about you go back to work so we can pay off this mortgage of ours or pay down this mortgage?" And she flipped out saying, "I don't wanna do that," because for the last 5 years she's been a stay-at-home mother. And probably in your very pragmatic male mind, you're like, yeah, but kids are out of the house. What are you gonna do all day? Go make money so we can pay off this mortgage, right? And she didn't take kindly to that. All right, so, since then we fought about money and her lack of respect for me. Another parenthesis here, he says, and her mother's lack of respect for me, constantly critical of my spending so much time, oh, constantly critical of my spending so much time at work, my lack of progress renovating the house, telling me to shut up in front of my kids, Ugh. She refused to help set boundaries with her mother. So we're back to the wife. The wife refuses to help set boundaries with her mother, claiming I never supported her and I have refused to try and recon— oh, and she has refused to try and reconcile our marriage. Sorry, there's a lot going on here. She moves out with the kids soon at the end of April. This is some time back. He left this, so I'm reading this in June, so she and the kids are out by now, um, to her brother's vacant apartment, rent-free of course. Uh, here's where it gets interesting. So remember the timeline: 3-year-old, 5-year-old. All right, so he says, we had a much improved sex life over the last couple of years after I threatened to leave her. We gave it another shot. This continued right up to a couple of days before the breakup. So for the last couple of years, you've had a much improved sex life until she finally said, um, I want a divorce. Uh, she also refused to have more kids despite us agreeing to have 4 to 5 prior to getting married, and it too almost split us up. And now she has finally pulled the plug, saying a part of her will always love me, but she essentially feels nothing for me anymore. Another pause here. 2 years ago, uh, you threatened to divorce her. This would have been with a 1-year-old, I guess, toddler, infant in the house. So you have a 1-year-old and I'm not gonna do the math here, sorry. So your youngest was 1 year of age, you threatened her with divorce, sex life improved. Was the threatening of divorce over the lack of sex? So Baby, sex dwindles down, you threaten divorce, sex ramps up, and then after 2 years of that, she suddenly comes to you and says, "Me want divorce." On top of that, you are pissed because you wanted more kids and she didn't. This is all very interesting. Something's up here, dude. Um, it may not be what you like. Uh, I find her constant emotional outbursts and the awful things she says to me Okay, you find that what— he lost his train of thought here. I'm sorry, it's kind of jumping all over the place. She essentially feels nothing for you anymore. You're tired of her constant outbursts and the awful things that she says to me. Gotcha. I— she claims I'm an awful person and she shows zero empathy towards me, even our— or even our children who are struggling with the situation before she moves out. She claims I only pushed for joint custody to pay less child support and and she doesn't seem to care one bit about the 15 years of history between us, let alone how hard I've worked for our family. How does someone change overnight like this to the heartless, hateful person I see now? And how should I best proceed with her both during and after the divorce? Okay, how is this overnight? That's my first thought. This has been a dumpster fire for a while now, hasn't it? I mean, what a chaotic shit show. You got her awful mom nagging at you, she refuses to defend you to mom, mom's calling you stupid, and blah blah blah blah blah. Wife is yelling, you— she has two kiddos, you want more, she says no. Which, by the way, I wouldn't bring more children into this shit show either, to be quite honest with you. I'm sorry if that's insulting, but dude, and, uh So you threaten divorce, sex life goes up. After 2 years of that, she's like, I've had enough of this shit. I, I would love, love to hear her side of the story here, dude. I'm not trying to throw you under the bus or anything, but it doesn't sound good. And the fact that you want 4 or 5 kids and she refused, that pisses you off. It kind of has this domineering kind of thing about you, possibly, that something's making my ears perk up to go, this doesn't sound good. Sorry, dude. So again, I would love to hear her side of the story. Maybe she sees this past 2 years after you threatened divorce and the ramped-up sex life, maybe she sees that as pure hell. Maybe she lost all feelings for you at that point. She was just going through the motions and she's had enough. Maybe somebody else is in the picture. I don't know. But dude, let's not do this whole overnight thing. This wasn't overnight, man. This has been going on. It sounds like she has— she brings a lot of baggage to the table in terms of this toxic mother of hers. Heard that more than a few times. Um, sounds like you have issues. It's a— what a shit show. So this, this is— this just didn't come out of nowhere, dude. Um, and then she's just going to throw away the 15 years and she doesn't care about— who knows what's going on in her head. I would love to talk to this woman. I'm sure we've got some— we'll have an interesting perspective on all this. And so how do you best proceed? You Just try to be as amicable as humanly possible. Kids are your number one priority in this. Number one, you just rock their world. They're 3 and 5. Ugh, I feel sorry for these poor kiddos. What little stability they have has just gone out the window. Mom's going into some apartment, vacant apartment brother owns, and just, what a mess, dude. So you gotta worry about those kiddos. That's your number one priority. Stop worrying about how, you know, emotionality this, emotionality that, how could you do this, how could I do that. This has been broken, it looks like, for a while now. Um, just do your best to remain amicable, fair. If she's been home with the kiddos for 5 years and has been jobless and you've been a-okay with that, uh, she probably has some money coming to her according to the law. Um, don't know, uh, by some of your language in here, it sounds like— I can't tell where you're from— it sounds like you are possibly from the UK, talking about going to university and you throw the C-word around, so Um, it's very, uh, British of you, possibly, but, uh, uh, it sounds like this is over. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe go talk to somebody, work on your issues, what got you into this mess, what caused you to stay in this mess, uh, how the hell you got here. Uh, if you don't, you're going to recreate this again with the next lady, and there'll probably be a next lady. Men tend to— I'm not trying to throw men under the bus here or anything— men tend to not want to be alone post-divorce. Majority of us remarry, get at least get a live-in girlfriend. Interesting little phenomenon there, much more so than the ladies, believe it or not. I know a lot of men don't believe that, but the stats shows that's the case. So you're going to take all this baggage into the next relationship. Let's, let's figure out what's going on here. All right, brother. But thanks for reaching out. Appreciate it a great deal. And have a good one.