Is it worth being in this relationship for the kid's sake?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I am an Engineer, my wife is FNP, very NICE lady, all her coworkers, patients love her for being NICE and she’s the best at what she does professionally. If you google the term ‘nice’, you will probably see her smiling face. :slight_smile:

Apart from that, it really hurts to say, as a wife/mother/family woman she SUCKS. Totally disorganized person at home, lazy,no cooking skills(inherited from mom), won’t clean up after herself, zero common sense(likes to pickup hitchhikers on rainy nights claiming they are poor homeless people who needs to be helped - advised about the consequences of such actions to no avail) and so on. Pretty much exhibits I know everything attitude. Blame others on everything except herself. Lately the little one started picking up these traits and got into trouble at school for arguing/talking back to teachers. Eventually the blame falls on me as usual.

I am seriously concerned about our future and wondering if it’s even worth living/communicating with such a person or just accept the fact this is who she is and move on. Currently I help the kid with his homework and other school stuff as she don’t really care about it and his grades were falling. I worry about his future if I walk away from this relationship and that’s the only reason that pulls me back.

We sleep separate for the past 2 years(started as convenience during on-call nights)and now used to it. So no real attachment, no sex involved, just living under same roof for the child.

Should I sacrifice my life and stay back dealing with this situation or move on and let my son sacrifice his future living with this I know it all NICE lady? That’s the one and only quality she has, BE NICE TO OTHERS. Everything else goes down hill and it’s always my fault.

Obviously it takes more than BE NICE to run a family and she doesn’t get it.:frowning:
I am not expecting an Einstein out of her but there are some characteristics that guys expect from their spouses. Being dumb is ok as long as you take care of the home and family. But being dumb/incompetent and an attitude that comes from having a high paying job is not really exciting. :smack:

#2

Dude, you are already out the door.

#3

If you love your kid you make sacrifices for him.

#4

I read that expecting you to be accused of sexism, for assuming it’s the woman’s job to do the cooking and cleaning and “taking care of the home and family.” That may or may not be fair; but I hope you don’t have unreasonable expectations of what she should be good at, or be interested in, or have responsibility for, by virtue of her being female.

If you both have good jobs, could you hire someone to help with the cleaning and cooking?

Have you ever sat down with her and gone over all the things that need to be done for the household to function, and tried to agree on which are things you should be responsible for, which are things she should be responsible for, which are things you could hire someone else to do, and which are things you could let slide?

It sounds like you don’t have much affection, respect, or liking for her, but did you used to? And could it be reawakened, under the right circumstances?

Is the kid yours, or just hers from a previous marriage/relationship?

#5

You need to drop that zero and get yourself a hero.
:z-snaps:

#6

I’d maybe get a cleaner in first things first - it’s a small price to pay for removing the triggering aggravation of seeing the house a mess.

At the heart of the matter, though, it’s hard to reconcile the picture you’re painting of your wife as a nice person - because she sounds horrendous. Doesn’t sound like any nice person I ever met - are you saying she’s basically a good person who you’re not getting on with, or do you see her at heart as not a good person with this facade of niceness to the outside world?

Basically what’s best for your (?) kid, a happy you in a new life still seeing them and having a good influence, or a miserable you soldiering on in a sham of a marriage doing your best to raise the kid in an adversarial situation. ISTM it’s always the former, unless there’s some reason to fear access after a divorce would be really bad or something like that.

#7

Well you sound like you’ve already made up your mind and also that you don’t have much respect for her as a person let alone your wife. I think if you still have any feelings for her and if you took your vows seriously you ought to at least attempt to seriously communicate your feelings to her, not in an ultimatum fashion, but maybe suggest marriage counseling or whatnot. You’ve got nothing to lose, but maybe something to gain, communication is the key. If it doesn’t work out after all then at least you tried.

#8

How did you end up marrying a person who’s like this?

#9

If you did decide to split up, why couldn’t/wouldn’t your son go with you?

#10

Eh, I don’t know. People are imperfect. Your big complaints are that she’s lazy and thinks she’s always right. You’ve just described 90% of the population of the US. My wife is the greatest woman who has ever lived and might be the pinnacle of human evolution. I love her like I love flowers in springtime, but the woman hasn’t admitted that she was wrong in 15 years and I’m pretty sure that she never will. Whatcha gonna do? On my wedding day, a fella from my church came up to me with the greatest advice I’ll ever receive. He said, “Marriage involves a fair bit of disagreement and you have to decide right now, you can either be right or you can be happy, so make your choice.” I can say only that I’m a happy man who has never been right about a thing. :slight_smile:

More seriously, I think that maybe counseling is a better solution than the Big D. Nothing that you are describing strikes me as particularly unique to your marriage, nor particularly egregious. Talking about it might help resolve some of your own feelings on the matter and maybe let her realize the triggers that set you off as well.

#11

What has changed since you first met? Was she a great cook who kept her house clean and was easy-going so you decided to marry her? Or did this develop after you got married? Or after you had kids?

#12

Appreciate the feedback Thudlow Boink.
I get this sexist painting every time I bring up this topic. But when I visit my friends and see how their wives are taking care of their family I kinda feel like maybe I really screwed up.
I am thinking about that option that we have someone come over handle the household chores as obviously it’s not for her.
We had several arguments/conversations over these issues, but You are what you grew up as, can’t change over night.

Some scenarios to give a better picture of her personality:

  1. I have to pick up her hair from the shower floor so it doesn’t clog up the drain on a daily basis. Her excuse being it’s wet and dirty to touch that she will clean up once it’s dry but it never happens. Every time we fight over it, she does it for two days, after that same old story.

  2. Had friends over for a party, she screwed up the dinner. As a host, I became nervous and embarrassed while she started joking around and laughing saying how she screwed up and how she sucks at cooking. Luckily one of my friends bought some food with them, so we managed with it. What a shame, but only I see it that way.:frowning:

  3. Had an argument over the purchase of a $6000 all in one carpet cleaner/shampooer whatever. The sales guy who does door to door marketing was trying hard to sell the crap to me and my beloved wife was supporting his claim that it’s the best life long investment and most people does it. Some people even uses it for 40 years. $6000 for a carpet cleaner? :confused:

  4. Had a hit and run accident on one of our cars. High deductible for $1000 and the fix was around $250. So I didn’t bother calling the insurance. Told wifey not to contact them as well. As soon as I left for work, she called Insurance, they denied due to the high deductible clause. Now it’s in my driving profile history for the past 9 years and it annoys me every time I see it when I login to my account though its not active anymore. Ignorance or low IQ may be?:smack:

I have a laundry list of these but hope you get the picture.

You gain respect by the way you act. After all these years living together, I dont know how I feel about her anymore. I am trying to understand how to respect a person who acts stupid mostly. Every time I bring this topic up, she’s like whatever.

The kid is ours.

#13

She’s a good person in the sense she has a Mother Theresa attitude. Help the poor, needy, wants to adopt homeless kids and so on. Other than that, on a practical/realistic level, not much essence in her personality.

Her parents are immature and act like kids(according to her brother). So she was on her own growing up without having anyone to give any guidance/directions. So she believes whatever she does is right as her parents agree to anything and everything she says and does and expects me to do the same.(They don’t know any better, so how can they disagree?) She treats them more like her kids than her parents if you know what I mean.

#14

Obviously she was already like this when you met her. You DID sign up for this.

#15

What is FNP?

#16

You are right. I DID sign up.
But when you see a matured adult, you expect some basic attributes/qualities, you don’t expect to teach a dog how to bark. Do you? Unfortunately not in my case.

#17

Family Nurse Practitioner.

#18

Probably Family Nurse Practitioner.

OK, a man shouldn’t expect a maid, but picking up after yourself is just part of maintaining a household. If a woman lived with a man who trashed the house and then expected her to clean it up (happens a lot) nobody would tell her to hire a housekeeper, that’s for sure.

“Staying together for the kids” is NEVER the right thing to do.

#19

Asking random strangers on the internet if you should stay in your marriage doesn’t seem like the best way to go. Unless you’ve already decided to leave her and are looking for validation. You won’t get it from me.

Find a qualified marriage counselor or therapist. Go by yourself, go with your wife, whichever. You need a professional’s guidance.

#20

Feel for you man, but some of the responses are pretty funny/true. I’m married almost 12 years and haven’t been right about a damn thing. Last month I wondered aloud to her whether I’d get any of her insurance rebate (that I pay 100% of) back. She yelled at me and said I really don’t know her at all if I would think that she would keep that money for herself. So I was in the doghouse. And she kept the money herself. I lose double and I keep my wonderings to myself now.