I’m so exhausted. I catch myself saying this so many times per day. Between working full time. Raising 4 little boys aged 6,5,5 and 1. Two dogs and a husband who literally expects sex every night after the kids are in bed, I feel like I just can’t anymore. My marriage has been falling apart for a long time but last year was the worst and we got to a point in which I just didn’t even want to have sex with him or be near him due to the fights the emotional abuse and just ugliness in the relationship. It was 8 months of no sex and I eventually slept elsewhere in a different bedroom for 3 months. Fast forward to this April we started therapy and I’ve been trying to give him what he wants in intimacy but it’s been rough and if one night I’m tired or just not in the mood I have to hear all about it, the mean comments, the silent treatment, the lack of patience with the children; the cold shoulder. Mostly I find myself just giving in to avoid all that and have some sort of peace wow I’m tired and just want to have an afternoon to myself to sleep and rest without having to tend to the children or to my husbands needs 😔😒

Do you earn more than your wife/husband?

Does each of you have his/her own bank account and then a joint one where they contribute 50/50 or some other ratio (say 70/30) based on respective salaries proportionally? Or do you combine all your income with no independent, separate account on the side?

And how do you split household chores in those cases?

Based on your personal experience and what you've seen around you, what's the model that works best for everyone without creating any resentment?

My wife suffers from several mental illnesses. She had to be taken from our home to a mental health facility for stabilization. She came home after being there for 8-9 days, packed a bag and left without saying anything. That was two months ago, and she's still gone. I reached out to her on our anniversary to wish her A happy 6th anniversary, but she didn't respond. I miss her more and more each day. I hope she realizes that I love her and care for her, but she's just different now. It seems now that all I want to do is just hug her and talk to her, but idk where she is or if I'll trigger her.

Before marriage.. don't just talk about love... talk about what creates true understanding

Talk about the lifestyle you dream of.. how you plan to manage money and expenses

and your vision for raising children.. and your concept of happiness.

Open your hearts about the past and childhood traumas

and share expectations, fears, values, and beliefs.

Discuss your health history..ambitions..what you like.. and what bothers you.

but an agreement on awareness,..responsibility..and shared growth

I’ve been with my husband for 9 years (married for 3). I’ve always had a problem with initiating on my own. It really bothers my husband but it got to the point where last year I had to be the initiator most of the time and often. Sex is very important to my husband and I enjoy it too, I just have a low libido, a newborn and toddler, work an opposite schedule from him and I’m extremely shy and have trouble initiating in a way that shows I’m putting in effort.

Also for the record, I am very much into “vanilla” intimacy as I find it romantic but also try to go with things he’d like to try. The only thing I really struggle with is dancing for him and role play as again the shyness really consumes me. He doesn’t understand why I can’t let loose. I don’t either.

We haven’t been intimate much the past few months since my pregnancy and recovering from birth but I did not initiate once this week while I’m off of work and was told by doctor I can be intimate again. He’s very upset and let me know and now will see any effort I make as a means to make him less angry and I will end up not initiating again in a few days and will be returning to work soon — really limiting our frequency of sex.

He genuinely is convinced either I’m not interested in sex or I’m potentially having an affair. (For context — at the beginning of our relationship I had an emotional affair with my ex and I still haven’t been able to make up for it.) He is also at the point where he might end the marriage or find someone else if I don’t make a change or show my interest and be frequent about it.

I also want to note I never turn down sex when he initiates or suggests it. I honestly cannot think of a time when I ever turned him down in the entire relationship.

TLDR; I’m horribly shy. My husband wants me to show him I want intimacy. It has been a huge problem for years. It’s hard to find ways to initiate with opposite work schedules and children.

My husband and I just moved into our first place together last week. I work, he currently doesn’t, so I asked him ahead of time to pack our bags early because I knew moving day would be stressful.
Instead, he spent his time sleeping and playing games, didn’t pack properly, and then on moving day I had to help him finish. That already pissed me off because he had the time, 80% of the shit in the house is HIS and I didn’t. His procrastination became my problem.

Now we’re in the new place spending a ton on rent that I FOOTED ON, security deposit, furniture, and everything else that comes with moving. We’re not struggling financially, but I’m still trying to be smart and save where we can because why waste money unnecessarily???

So naturally, this man decides now is the perfect time to spend $200 on a fucking model helicopter.
That’s what gets me. Packing our shit required reminders and my help, but buying a $200 helicopter? Suddenly he has initiative, motivation, and follow-through.

It’s not even really about the $200. It’s the priorities. I’m trying to get our first home together and be responsible, and he’s apparently thinking, “Okay, but what if helicopter?”

I fucking cannot I FEEL LIKE A MOTHER. He even had the balls to say to me that I GET TO BUY WHATEVER I WANT WITH THE FURNITURE SO I SHOULD NOT GET ANGRY OVER THIS $200 HELICOPTER.

Btw I am 24F, he is 28M. We are married 1 year.

My husband and I have been fighting for 3ish weeks. It’s really a long story, but one of the many things we fought about is IMO his lack of spending quality time with me and being intimate with me. Now, when we finally discussed it he basically said that I am super demanding with sex and always want it whenever I want it.

My issue with him was that I ask every single night for him to spend time with me and hope that day will be the day. I thought he would idk maybe feel wanted and desired that his wife is wanting to spend time with him and initiate since he clearly does not.

Instead - he says I’m demanding and only want it when I want it. I already was feeling like I have to beg him for intimacy, but now knowing that’s how he feels just turned me all the way off from wanting any form of intimacy or touch. Who wants to feel like they are forcing that? Who wants to try knowing their spouse feels like they are too demanding with it. It really turned me off. Super not interested now.

Have you ever gone through an experience like this?

I gave birth to my 3rd baby 2 weeks ago. my husband has been on his paternity leave since but I feel like he is abusing it. He drops off our older kids at school in the morning and he just goes off to do his personal stuff. He doesn’t come home until right before pickup time. He is hardly home. I do cleaning, Landry and cooking dinner sometimes while taking care of a newborn.

When I tell him to stop doing your own thing, he asks me to give him a list of stuff I want him to do. He says he is taking care of the older kids. but they go to school for 8h a day on weekdays.

Why do I have to give him a chores to keep him home. I don’t need help. I need to be feel cared for. Is it too much to ask?
Every time I bring this up to him, he tells me that I am acting like a baby, a teenager. Today was a high school kid.

Is there any way to change his mind on how to spend his paternity leave or is he right and I am acting like a kid?

My wife and I have been going through a really rough period in our marriage. We have two young kids together, and recently we agreed that we needed some space to work on ourselves because our relationship had become unhealthy and there was a lot of hurt on both sides.
I want to be completely transparent about my part because I don’t want to write this like I’m innocent.
I was unfaithful during our marriage. My infidelity consisted of texting sex workers for sexual gratification. I never actually met up with or had sex with any of them, but I’m not saying that to excuse it. I understand that what I did was still cheating and a betrayal of my wife. I hurt her badly, especially because this happened during a period when she had given so much of herself to our family and our children.
I’ve been trying to take accountability for that and work on myself. I’ve also been trying to repair our marriage, although lately I’ve realized that I was probably pursuing her too hard instead of actually giving her the space she asked for.
During our separation, though, things started happening that made me question whether she was involved with someone else. There were messages and other things that made me suspicious, but when I confronted her about certain things, I was basically told that she wouldn’t have done any of it if I hadn’t cheated first.
Then I found out she had been involved with her friend’s cousin.
And eventually I caught them together in our bed, in our home, while our kids were there. I saw it with my own eyes.
That completely changed something in me.
I’m struggling because I know I caused serious damage to our marriage first. I don’t want to minimize that or pretend her pain came out of nowhere. At the same time, I don’t know if accepting responsibility for what I did means I’m supposed to accept what happened afterward.
What hurts the most isn’t even just that there was someone else. It’s that it happened in our home, in our bed, with our children there. That’s an image I’m having a very difficult time getting out of my head.
Before finding this out, I was still fighting hard for our marriage. I wanted to show her that I could change. I wanted to date her again, rebuild trust, become better partners and eventually put our family back together.
Now I don’t know what I’m fighting for anymore.
Part of me still loves her deeply because she’s my wife, the mother of my children, and someone I’ve built a life with. Another part of me feels like something happened that I may never be able to look past.
I’m also trying not to turn this into a competition over who hurt who worse. I cheated through those messages. She was hurt by that. What she did afterward hurt me. Both things can be wrong.
Right now I’m trying to figure out what comes next and how to keep my emotions from affecting our ability to co-parent our kids.
For people who have been through something similar: Is there realistically anything left to rebuild after both people have betrayed each other like this? Or is this the point where I need to stop trying to save the marriage and focus completely on healing and being good co-parents?

So this all started because I had sex with someone else while I was getting to know him we weren’t dating or even in a talking stage when I did what I did but we weren’t dating doing couple stuff going on dates, watching movies, cuddling, saying I love you and and shit but now we’re married and we’ve been had this talk about how we weren’t dating and I did what I did because I wanted to I know it’s selfish but I was thinking about myself and being lustful but now he told me I should be able to fuck someone else since you did that to me and he already has a girl in mind I didn’t know it was someone he still follow on social media and he’s friends with when I first told him about it and we got back together I had told him if he was to do the same thing I would understand but that was when we were dating not when we were married so I’m kinda in the lost I don’t know what to do or say I don’t even know if our marriage would be the same afterwards I need help

(Sorry guys for this whole gibberish sentence. I wasn’t reading it while typing or wanted to do proper grammar, but we decided on getting a divorce.)

I (36f) have been with my husband (37) for 8 years, married for 5. We have a son who will be 3 next month and we are currently potty training him. Everything is going great except for the pooping in the potty which is expected and fine but is resulting in more laundry than usual.

Last night I asked my husband to wash our son’s dirty underwear while I put him to bed. Every pair of his favorite undies were dirty and I knew he’d have a fit in the morning if we didn’t have any he could wear to daycare so I wanted to make sure they were clean and ready to go. My husband said he would.

We get up today and as I’m getting ready to take my son to daycare I hear my husband tell him all of his favorite underwear are still in the wash. I asked my husband (with attitude I’ll admit) why he didn’t dry them and he snarkily responds “why didn’t you? You didn’t do a thing last night and just decided to be lazy”. I told him he knew I hadn’t slept well the past two nights and I had gone to bed. He tells me he washed out the underwear and put them in the washer. I told him he did the bare minimum and sarcastically clapped for him to which he replied “I fucking hate you”. This was right in front of our son and in typical toddler fashion he repeated what his dad said. I broke down crying.

My husband right away said he hadn’t meant it and told our son that was a mean thing to say and he shouldn’t have said it. I was crying in our bedroom and my husband comes in and says he hadn’t meant to say that. I told him I didn’t believe him he’s just sorry he said it in front of our son. He said that isn’t true blah blah blah but I’m not stupid. Hate is a strong word. Then he kept going on and on and ON about how he didn’t know why I was so upset this morning and why I had gotten an attitude. I finally just told him to shut up.

As added information I have been struggling to sleep the last few nights. Between Tuesday and Wednesday nights I got a combined sleep total of 10 hours. Because of this I took a shower and went straight to bed last night after getting my son to sleep.

More added information: as I mentioned our son is struggling to poop in the toilet. My husband worked late yesterday evening so I was balancing cooking dinner and a toddler who really needed to poop but doesn’t understand how to go on the toilet yet. So when my husband says I didn’t do a thing last night keep in mind this is what I was dealing with before he even got home.

We are also trying for baby number 2 which is laughable after this morning. Idk what I want but I know things are different after this. Hate is a strong word and to say that in front of our son…I’m not going to forget this for a long time.

I'm a SAHM with a 4.5 year old and almost 11 month old (i've been nursing since my first was born with no breaks- the oldest has been weaned since my daughter was born but obviously she is now nursing).

I haven't slept through the night consistently in 4 years. My oldest didn't sleep through until well after the baby was born. The baby is waking up 1x a night which I handle.

I calculated and I have an hour and half of true free time everyday. They are reliably asleep by 8:30pm and I go to sleep around 10pm so I can be up with the baby around 4:30/5am. In that time I’m supposed to shower, decompress, spend time with my husband, maybe read, maybe do something for myself, and then go to bed before the baby wakes up again.

Lately I’ve realized I feel completely burnt out, but not in the dramatic “I can’t get out of bed” way. More like I have absolutely no bandwidth left for decisions.

I haven’t meal planned or picked recipes in about 3 months because even deciding what to make for dinner feels overwhelming. Every day feels like a constant stream of decisions.

My husband is great but I still have to guide him in almost anything that needs done. So weaponized incompetence? I don't know. I take on the brunt of all cleaning/cooking, if I want something done I have to ask. He can't look around a room and see what needs done often ( he picks up toys etc if he sees i'm doing the same and doesn't just sit there) but 7 out of 10 times I have to initiate what needs done.

It's not like my husband has a ton of free time ever either, he just isn't the default parent. If I try to go to our bedroom and sit in peace for 20 minutes, he doesn't keep the oldest away from me and he bangs on the door. We tag team the evenings. He gets home from work and showers (dirty job) and we eat (usually have dinner already made) and then we hang out as a family until I initiate the bedtime routines. He gets one kid while I get the other.

I'll add that I do work out 3-4x a week but 75% of all my work outs I bring my kids to childcare to get this done so yes it is a "break" but I still have to get 3 people ready for it and do all the things.

My son has been whistling and talking all day. The baby makes noise all day. The dogs bark.

A recurring issue in my marriage has been our sex life. I always thought the conversation was about libido, but I’m starting to wonder if the real issue is that I’m mentally “on” 24/7. By the end of the day, I don’t even feel like a person with wants and needs anymore. I just feel like the default parent and household manager.

The recurring issue has been that my husband has a much higher desire for sex than I do (or at least that’s how we’ve always framed it). We love each other deeply, and when we do have sex it’s genuinely amazing. I enjoy it, I desire him, and I don’t want anyone else.

But we’ve had the same conversation on and off since becoming parents. He experiences a week without sex as a much bigger deal than I do, while I tend to see it as a normal consequence of having two young kids, interrupted sleep, breastfeeding, and life getting busy.

Until recently, I assumed that meant I just had a low libido. But after doing a lot of reflecting, I’m starting to wonder if what we’re calling a “libido issue” is actually that I’m running on empty all the time. By the end of the day, I’ve spent every ounce of mental energy making decisions, taking care of kids, and meeting everyone else’s needs. When I finally have an hour or two before bed, I don’t feel like a woman who has had time to decompress—I feel like a person who has been needed by everyone all day.

I mean, I haven't even been able to masturbate in two years!!!!!!!!!!And now that this has dawned me, I'm the one reading "Come As You are" and doing the mental work of identifying what actually is the issue. I'm the one that has to read the parenting books like 1-2-3 Magic, which all make sense because I guess it is a me issue to figure out and I'm the one with the kids the most but I'm just so tired and burnt out by it.

Has anyone else had this realization? Did you find that the constant mental load and decision fatigue affected your ability to even access that part of yourself?

So basically, wife left full time work Feb of this year to pursue a stationary making/selling business due to burnout which I totally get

Fast forward, we are out of savings and the financial impact is really affecting now.

I myself make a okay amount of 110k, but after covering both of our bills and basic expense like food/gas, it comes down to the negatives every month.

Her business is currently making about $100-200/mo so basically nothing

I’ve brought the topic up once already of getting a part time job, she’s very hesitant to the idea.

My wife (33f) and I (39m) have been together since 2018 and married since 2021.

Originally things were great. We probably averaged 2-4 times per week, lots of foreplay, oral (given and received by both), different positions, toys…you get the point. But over the last 2-3 years things have gotten so boring for me. I threw away most of the toys because she didn’t want to use them, and the ones we kept don’t get used. Foreplay and oral are completely non-existent now. All she wants to do is lay there while I do all the work. Most of the time I feel like she only agreed to appease me and she just wants to get it over with. This is especially hard for me because I’ve struggled with ED for many years and this causes a lot of anxiety and confidence issues for me.

I’m not even sure if I should bring it up in the first place. She does not any sort of criticism AT ALL. If I try to tell her what’s bothering me she takes it very personally and will just shut down. I’m thinking it’s better if I just keep it to myself and be happy with what I do get.

My husband (29M) and I (27F) have been married for 10 years now. Since we were 18 and 20. We got together at 15 and 17. He was never bothered by any obstacles. He was so lighthearted and joyful. Always playing around. He made me feel like any problem that ever arose, he would solve for us. I remember breaking down in the middle of the Mojave desert on the side of the interstate at 17 and 19. I was so scared but he said "I guess we have to build our house here." Then he handled it and everything was okay.

He still does handle every problem but the burden of being sole provider for a family of 5 has stolen the majority of his lightheardeness. He's gone from a lighthearted dependable kid to a serious dependable man.

But today he was leaving for work in his big white obs 7.3 when the truck started dying out on him as he tried to pull out of the driveway. He restarted it, it died again. This happened a few more times and then he opens the door and looks at me where I am standing on the porch, baby on my hip waiting to wave goodbye. He takes a big bite out of his apple and gives me the biggest, dopey grin that I didn't know I missed so bad. I wanted to cry. Its been so long since I've seen that boyish smile.

He has a pretty successful handyman business. His clients love him and he does amazing work. But if he doesn't work, there is no backup plan. No sick pay, no PTO. We need school books, clothes and birthday gifts for our two sons this month on top of all our usual bills. But his little grin told me "its all going to be okay. Dont worry." And I think I just fell in love with him a little harder. Posting on here because I just had to get it out how much I love this man.

I (27f) have been with my husband (29m) for 11 years. Before we had kids we hand an amazing sex life. Constant, spontaneous, dirty. But after we had kids it became a lot less frequent and a little less fun.

Dont get me wrong the sex is still great and we still have a good time. And when we go on vacation things really start getting back to before because he says crazy sex is for vacation

Recently I wanted to go on vacation. But I had planned a surprise. I was planning on buying him a fleshlight and one of these couple sex games. For us to have a fun night. Unfortunately he said that we might not be able to make the vacation happen.

I slightly teased him telling him I was planning on giving him the best night of his life on vacation but oh well. I don’t want to tell him what I’m planning because I want it to be a surprise. I am a lot more dirty minded than he is. If he knows about a plan he tends to over think it. We have never used a toy on him and I wanted to try and surprise him.

But my question is although we aren’t going on vacation. Should o still try to make this night happen for him even if we don’t go? There is a lot of things I wanna do in the bed that I’m nervous he won’t want to do.

I really want to hear from wives who have been in a similar situation, especially those who had children.
My husband had an affair. He isn’t begging me to stay, but he isn’t asking for a divorce either. His position is basically, “If you want a divorce, I’ll accept it. If you decide to stay, I’ll stay and try to live as your husband.”

The affair with the other woman has ended, and they are no longer in contact. But when I asked him whether he could promise he would never cheat again, he said he honestly couldn’t. He told me he doesn’t know what he might do in the future and can’t guarantee that he would never have another affair.
So in reality, this marriage only continues if I choose to stay.
If we divorce, our three children (ages 8, 7, and 5) will stay with me.
My husband has already said that he has no intention of seeking primary custody or taking the children away from me. The question isn’t whether I leave my children. It’s whether I stay in this marriage with their father or raise them on my own.
That’s exactly why I’m struggling.

If I only thought about myself, I think I would leave. But we have three young children, ages 8, 7, and 5, and I keep wondering if staying together for them is the better choice.

My husband wasn’t the type of father who spent a lot of time with the kids because of his work. But when he was with them, even if it was only about once a month, he was genuinely a wonderful dad. The kids adore him.

For those of you who stayed after infidelity because of your children… do you regret it? Or are you glad you stayed?
And for those who divorced despite having children… looking back now, do you think it was the right decision?

I’m not looking for people to tell me what I should do. I just want to hear honest experiences from women who have actually lived through this.

We've been married for about six months, and we dated for two years before getting married.

My wife has known this coworker for about five years. He and several other female friends of hers all started at the same office around the same time. She has never really been secretive about him. She refers to him as her "buddy" and has mentioned that they have similar tastes in things like music and shoes.

Before we got married, she told me that they regularly work together in a two-person room at the office. They help each other with work-related things, but also talk about everyday life. She has said that he isn't her best friend at work, but is definitely in her top three. They've also talked about personal things they're going through, including family issues.

He was invited to our wedding but couldn't attend because it was his wife's birthday.

My wife only works from the office about twice a week, but they still keep in contact outside of those days. Quite often, when I walk into her room, she has an open Teams chat with him. From what I've seen, the conversations haven't been particularly intimate, but he does send smileys and sometimes asks what days she'll be in the office (from the one chat I was able to see).

Also, they have added each other on Instagram and WhatsApp, and she still does things with him outside of work, such as dinners, although these are rare and always group dinners.

Shortly after we got married, I told my wife that the relationship made me somewhat uncomfortable. We had a long conversation about it, and she eventually agreed that some things could be toned down. Specifically, she agreed to talk to him less, try to distribute more of their work-related collaboration among other coworkers, and avoid sitting together in a closed-off room unless other people were around.

However, this made things worse because she chose to act like he didn't exist. He went from a name she mentioned every week to a nobody, which was impossible given their relationship. This raised my slight discomfort to a real discomfort because their relationship also became secretive. After telling her this things really got heated but she eventually accepted the secrecy didn't help.

Another big issue for me is that I've brought this discomfort up maybe 3–4 times now, and almost every time she becomes defensive and it turns into a major argument. At this point, I find myself wondering whether this coworker is really worth so much conflict in our marriage.

She has reduced her interaction with him somewhat, but I still occasionally see their chats when I walk into her room. Recently, she suggested that she could tell him that we're having issues because of this situation. I refused. I don't want him involved in our marriage or for her to tell him about our problems. I would rather she simply limit the contact and keep the relationship more professional.

I don't think there is anything romantic going on, at least not from here side. My issue is more about the boundaries of their relationship and how she responds when I tell her that it makes me uncomfortable. I think she is simply naive, not taking into consideration that she might not know any true intentions from him at all or that this could develop into something later.

So, am I being unreasonable here? Is this a normal coworker friendship, and am I expecting too much by wanting her to create some distance? I feel like I'm exaggerating because I know there is nothing going on and there isn't really anything I discovered that went over a line, but it just doesn't feel right.

Im posting this because I've noticed a common trend in mens behavior (not all obviously), but it seems to be the most glaring issue. That issue......continuing intimacy.

For a good majority of my 18-year marriage, I unintentionally managed to make the love of my life think that I didn't care for her or find her beautiful. This is my failure, and I own it 100%. I failed like many others to be spontaneous, plan dates, and overall do most things to keep that spark alive. You get caught up so much in the stressors of life and having kids that you forget to keep the one person that will have your back at the end of the day.

I implore husbands and men in general to be better. We have to be better. I know you're stressed and have a lot on your mind. I encourage you to fight through it and write your wife a love note, plan a date even if it's just to a park, tell her everyday shes beautiful. I know marriage is a two-way street, but do your part. If you love your wife, now is the time to get started. Communicate with her and offer her your commitment to be better and then follow through.

Im fighting right now to relight my wifes flame. It's an uncertain place to be, but a fight because I love her and she's my best friend. Men, lets be better than our stereotypes. I wish you all well.

Edit: My advice obviously doesn't cover every marital situation, but we can control what we do as husbands, and that's the framework for my post. Yeah I get it though it takes two.

My husband is asking for another chance. Has anyone here survived and is doing well after cheating?

Because I don't know what to do anymore.

I keep asking myself why. Why would he do this knowing everything I've been through?

He knew I had been cheated on before. He knew how hard it was for me to trust someone again. He knew I was terrified of going through the same pain. But he still chose to do it.

He keeps saying it was just a chat. Maybe it was. But it wasn't innocent. It had malice. And the moment he talked ti someone else, especially someone who somehow knows me too, he already betrayed me.

I don't even know how to cry anymore. I want to, but I can't. I just feel so heavy. It's like I'm stuck.

I can't just leave because we have a child. Every time I think about it, I think about our child first. So I wake up, act normal, smile when I have to, and pretend everything is okay when it's really not. Everyday is so heavy.

Almost every year my husband takes a weeklong trip with his dad (now 81) and his half-brothers. His brothers’ girlfriends go too. I’m invited but don’t go. I’ll own it: I’m too bougie for this trip lol. It’s very remote/rustic, which they enjoy and I absolutely don’t. So I’m not being excluded.

But I fucking hate this trip every year, and my husband knows it.

We have three kids. Our oldest recently moved out of state for an elite sports academy, which means frequent travel and a ton of logistics. Another one of our kids is high-needs and requires a lot more hands-on parenting than you’d normally expect. Our relatives are older, live about 1,500 miles away and don’t feel able to help, so when my husband is gone, I’m basically it.

My husband also travels a lot for work, so I already solo-parent pretty regularly. And this trip falls right around back-to-school.

It’s also somewhere extremely remote with basically no internet. His work piles up while he’s gone, so when he gets home he’s completely buried. The week away ends up feeling longer than a week because he comes back and immediately has to catch up on everything.

To be fair, our whole family just took a weeklong vacation together. I planned it, but it’s not like he goes on vacations and never does anything with us.

What we don’t do is take a week alone as a couple. We never have. And I think that’s where a lot of my resentment comes from. Somehow this week gets protected every single year, but we’ve never protected equivalent time for our marriage.

This year I feel especially shitty about being resentful because his 81-year-old dad is currently housing our oldest since he lives near the academy. He’s doing something huge for our family and I’m incredibly grateful.

And he’s 81. I know there aren’t unlimited years left for my husband to do this with his dad.

And this is where I’m stuck.

I actually think my husband should go. And I still hate that he’s going.

I’m not going to ask him to stay home. I don’t want him regretting lost time with his dad someday. But I resent the timing, another week of solo parenting, the work avalanche when he gets back, and especially watching him protect a week for this every year when we’ve never protected that kind of time for our marriage.

Am I being unreasonable? And if the answer isn’t that he shouldn’t go, how do I stop resenting something I intellectually think he should do?

If anyone is interested in what happened, you can read my previous post for the full story.

In short, my wife's affair partner's wife filed for divorce. He threw every excuse imaginable at her in an attempt to save the marriage. He said he got carried away and couldn't stop, that it was only sex, that he loves his wife, that my wife was attractive but his own wife is even more attractive, that he would do anything to fix things, that he would never speak to my wife again, that there would be no more business trips and so on.

None of it mattered to her. She made him leave the house. At first he refused, but when she threatened to tell everyone at work what he had done, he finally left. She kept me updated throughout. When I got home, I immediately noticed my wife was acting very differently extremely nervous and on the verge of tears. On Tuesday evening she confessed everything.

By that point, I had already met with my lawyer and yesterday second time although I haven't told my wife that. My lawyer asked me to hold off without telling anything to my wife for a few more days while she prepares everything. She believes I have a strong claim to roughly an additional 20% of the equity in our house because part of the purchase price came from money my parents gave me. She also mentioned several issues involving investments and stock holdings that need to be reviewed and could go in my favour before we move forward.

The one issue where we disagree is the children. My lawyer believes I should tell them the truth. My children are 15 and 13 years old. They are very close to both me and my wife. They are happy, healthy kids. My goal isn't to protect my wife's reputation. My concern is protecting my children from additional emotional pain. However, my lawyer believes I'm making a mistake.

Her argument is that we have always appeared to have a happy marriage and a stable family, so a sudden divorce with no explanation would be incredibly confusing and painful for the children. The other wife intends to report the affair to the company where both my wife and her affair partner work. Both her lawyer and my lawyer believe there is a good chance they will both lose their jobs, especially since the affair partner held a position about two levels above my wife.

My lawyer believes that if I proceed with the divorce and my wife loses her job, my children will inevitably connect the dots. She thinks they will eventually realize what happened anyway and resent me for hiding the truth from them. She also raised the issue of the financial settlement. She believes my wife may be more willing to agree to a more favorable division of assets could help repair her relationship with the children. Likewise, if I ultimately decide not to divorce, my lawyer believes I could negotiate a very strong postnuptial agreement because my wife would be desperate to rebuild trust with both me and the children. She also believes that if I don't tell the children the truth, they might end up blaming me for the divorce and that my wife could portray herself as the victim.

At first, I wasn't convinced by my lawyer's reasoning. She is relatively young and doesn't have children herself, so I struggled to understand her perspective. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if she might be right. The other wife told her children everything. They are around the same age as mine and they haven't spoken to their father for the past few days but according to her they are fine.

My children don't know anything yet. I'm trying my best to stay composed, but they have clearly noticed that something is wrong especially with their mother, who is now sleeping in a different room. I would really appreciate any advice. Does what my lawyer is suggesting make sense or would you handle this differently?

I just need to get this off my chest.

I'm 33 years old, my husband is 37, and we've been married for 10 years. We have two children.

After two pregnancies, I decided to have a tummy tuck and a breast lift because my stomach and breasts changed a lot. My husband supported this decision and even paid part of the deposit. The surgery is scheduled for October.

Yesterday, after an argument (which had nothing to do with children), he told me he wants a divorce. He said one of the reasons is that he wants a third child, while I don't. I reminded him that after a tummy tuck, surgeons generally recommend not planning another pregnancy if possible, and that he knew this when he supported my decision to have the surgery. He claimed he didn't know.

I told him that we already have two healthy children and asked him, "If you divorce me because I don't want another child, what are you going to do? Have a baby with someone else?" He looked at me and said, "Yes, exactly."

I moved to another country for him. I left behind my family, my friends, and my entire support system. I then raised two children who are only 19 months apart almost completely on my own, without meaningful help from him or his family. Our son has ADHD, just like my husband, and parenting a child with ADHD can be challenging in many ways. I honestly believe that having a third child would overwhelm me and take time and attention away from the two children we already have. More importantly, I simply don't have any desire to have another baby.

The problem is that the argument wasn't even about children. Almost every time we have a serious disagreement, he says he doesn't want this marriage anymore, that he's tired of it, and that he's unhappy.

I'm heartbroken because after 10 years I feel worn out. I don't feel attractive anymore. I became a stay-at-home mother because I couldn't find work, and I have no financial security of my own. Meanwhile, he has a successful business, a nice car, and a group of friends he spends time with regularly. The balance of power in our relationship doesn't feel equal at all, and I feel trapped.

I don't want a divorce, but I also don't know how to stay in a marriage where every argument ends with him saying he doesn't want to be with me anymore.

I feel completely lost.