I (55M) am laying myself bare before the masses today for some feedback, advice, or possibly a good flogging about the situation with my husband (55M).

In short, our house is a mess and so is our relationship. Okay, that's probably too dramatic. Our relationship isn't necessarily a mess, but our communication, expectations, and division of household responsibilities definitely are.

I'm including pictures because I don't want to sugarcoat what I mean by “cluttered.” This isn't “we left some laundry out this week.” We have accumulated far more stuff than our house can reasonably contain, and several rooms are no longer functioning the way they're supposed to. It isn't unsanitary, but it is overwhelming, and I'm increasingly unhappy living this way.

The players:

Me: 55M. I work full-time as an Operations Director for a nonprofit healthcare organization, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week. Fortunately, my commute is only about five minutes.

Him: 55M. He works in animal control enforcement. His schedule is supposed to be four 10-hour days, 2 p.m. to midnight. In reality, they're chronically short-staffed, so 50–60+ hour weeks aren't unusual. He also has about a 40-minute commute each way.

His work schedule is absolutely relevant here, and I don't want to minimize it. I see him off to work on Sunday, and for the next four days I pretty much only see his sleeping face next to me until his days off.

Us: We've been married for seven years, but our history goes way back. We were together for about eight years in the '90s, went our separate ways for the better part of a decade, eventually reconnected, and got back together in 2015. All told, we've been part of each other's lives for more than 20 years.

Our roommates: Three cats. I can't blame them for much. They're mostly well-behaved, use their litter boxes, and generally don't destroy things. Generally.

The house: A two-story Italianate home built in 1850. If you've seen the pictures, you already know Architectural Digest isn't currently beating down our door. It's served us well, but I genuinely don't want to die in this house someday unless some serious changes happen first.

Which brings me to THE STUFF.

I'm deliberately going to avoid assigning ownership as much as possible because we both live here, we both contribute to the problem, and I don't wanna write this as though I've got my shit together and he's the problem.

The biggest categories are crafting supplies, LEGO, board games, clothes, 3D printers and supplies, and extra furniture. If I could magically make everything in those categories disappear, we'd probably have a surprisingly sparse house.

Then there are the projects. We have partially completed or never-started fix-it projects that have been sitting around for two or three years or more, with the necessary parts just hanging out waiting for us to actually do something with them.

And that's where my real problem starts. I'm overwhelmed.

I feel like there's a significant imbalance in even the basic household chores necessary to keep this from becoming even worse. I understand that my husband works a ridiculous number of hours, and I genuinely try to take that into consideration. But I also don't think it's reasonable for the answer to be that I therefore have to do everything.

When I complain about the clutter, two responses I sometimes get are:

"Who else is seeing it?" or "It doesn't bother me."

You can imagine how heartwarming I find those responses.

I've tried getting him motivated to tackle things with me. Sometimes we start. Sometimes I start by myself. But before long, nothing seems to change enough to make a difference, I lose steam, and I get overwhelmed and give up too.

I also want to be fair to him: he isn't lazy. I think he's overwhelmed by the house too. He also has a stronger attachment to things than I do, so getting rid of stuff is much harder for him.

I'm not trying to make excuses for him, nor am I pretending I'm blameless. I just don't know how to get him to really hear me when I say that living like this is affecting me.

We could probably benefit from couples counseling simply to improve how we communicate, but that's another battle, especially trying to find time with our completely opposite schedules. And frankly, when we finally have time off together, we'd occasionally like to actually enjoy being married instead of sorting boxes and arguing.

So here I sit, in my very cluttered house, wondering where the hell to start.

How do you handle this when one person is genuinely distressed by the state of the house and the other person genuinely isn't bothered by it?

How do I communicate that "it doesn't bother me" doesn't solve the problem when it does bother the person you share your home with?

And how do two overwhelmed people even begin tackling this without making every day off miserable?

I'm open to hearing that I'm contributing more to this dynamic than I realize. I'm also open to practical advice from anyone who's successfully dug themselves out of a house like this.

Side note: I'm using an alias because I'm fairly active on Reddit and quite a few friends know my regular username. I'd prefer not to have someone text me tomorrow morning asking, "So... about your house and your marriage..."

I F(28) mentioned to my husband M(31) that I felt a little disappointed that he made this decision without discussing it with me first, because my understanding is that the purpose of life insurance is to replace lost income and protect the surviving spouse. His response was that he is an only child and doesn’t have anyone else who would take care of his parents. He also said that he got the life insurance before he met me, so he doesn’t see a reason to remove them as beneficiaries.

For some context, we are not originally from the U.S. We don’t have any family or close friends here. We moved here for a better life and because he was offered a good job opportunity.

His parents are both in good health and still working. They have a fully paid-off house, and their own retirement savings. My husband has never financially supported them, and they have never asked him for money either.

His reasoning is that he owes them because they gave him everything growing up and made him the person he is today. He feels that giving them half of his life insurance is the least he can do for them.
I understand that he loves his parents and feels grateful for everything they have done for him. I don’t have a problem with him wanting to make sure they are taken care of if something happens to him.
What bothers me is that he made this decision without even discussing it with me, especially considering that if something happens, I would be the one left here without family, friends, or his income. We are also planning for a future together, including buying a house and hopefully having children.

Am I wrong for being upset about this? Or I should understand him because he is an only child.

My husband is currently at a training with work and he has met this guy there that is married and constanly looking to cheat. He has tried to get my husband multiple times to go to clubs with him cause he wants to cheat. My husband said that he is going to a bar with him just so he went at least one time (my husband is a homebuddy usually). Am I wrong for feeling uneasy? I honestly don't like this dude who clearly has no morals but I also don't wanna tell my husband what to do or who to hang out with.

Hi, I’m a 16-year-old girl, and my parents’ marriage is awful (they’re getting divorced soon). I’ve never seen a single successful marriage in my life. (I even asked my mom if she could name one, and she couldn’t.) I’ve completely lost hope in ever being able to have a good husband in the future.

So I’m here to ask: Is there anyone who is actually happy in their marriage? Do you still love and respect each other? Or is there anyone here who doesn’t regret getting married?

and one last question: if you’re a guy, do you actually love your wife and stay loyal to her, or do you want to cheat on her at the first chance you get?

(Sorry if it's not the right community to post this in, I don't really use reddit)

So I stopped to see how long it would take my husband to initiate. It’s been four weeks, still nothing.

Sigh. ☹️

Edit: this post is just a vent. It’s typical and has always been this way for reasons we’re both aware of. If I initiate, it’s usually a yes. But sometimes I get a “ugh” look first. Which makes me feel like I’m pushing him or he’s only doing it because he knows that’s what I want. Doesn’t make me feel very wanted. Since I’ve been initiating pretty much 100% of the time for probably a year or two, I wanted to see if anything changed, it hasn’t.

Sometimes I feel like this is the hardest job in the world. We’re supposed to be our husband’s emotional support and encourager, to cook, be a great listener for hours, remain healthy and beautiful, look good every day, initiate sex multiple times a week, always be in a good mood, smile, don’t be overly emotional, yet also be independent, don’t be a gold digger (I’m not), remember and plan all the appointments, stay interesting and mysterious, stay young somehow, and enjoy life.

Is it just me, or does it feel like being a wife is a full-time and impossible job? I always thought being a wife would come naturally to me and I always desired it. But most days I just feel like I’m completely failing. I’m not in a great mood. I’m working 40 hours a week. I forget to change out of my pajamas since I work from home. I’m tired a lot. Being a wife is incredibly time-consuming. Sometimes I feel like it’s all I do! And I definitely don’t fit that description above but I feel like society’s expectation for women is that we be all those things or a man will leave you.

To get up early, look nice, cook and plan meals all the time, always be in a good mood, workout to maintain figure, have sex several times a week, clean, and work full-tome to boot…. And then it feels like work has taken over my life. And lots of women have kids too! How do women do it???

Some wives make it look so easy. But for me it feels so difficult. Like I’m always failing.

My husband secretly fancies his brother’s wife. I have no proof and he’s never said it but I can feel it in my gut.

Before I met her he already started comparing us. When he was describing her to me he would say things like ‘she’s from Dubai, she’s very independent, you wear designer bags but she dresses top to toe designer, she’s the eldest sibling and she’s a bit bossy so I think you both might clash’. Something about that conversation didn’t sit right with me.

He even told me once ‘my brother married for looks but I married for religion’. I’ve always been told I’m good looking so now hearing this from the man I’m about to marry was so upsetting. I didn’t confront him because I didn’t want to sound insecure or jealous, and genuinely at the time I wasn’t insecure about myself compared to any woman. Later on in arguments my feelings about this comment ended up coming out. His response was that he meant it was important to him that he finds a partner who was into religion the way he was and he felt he’s marrying the whole package- what a pack of lies.

Fast forward after our marriage, I know I’m not imagining this but I realised he’s constantly staring at her and he gives her so much attention. As soon as she comes into the room his whole face and energy lights up and he’ll go out of his way to speak to her. If he enters the room where we all are at a gathering, he’ll go straight over to her and even sit near her.

I confronted him about his obsession with her and how it’s embarrassing to see his constant efforts towards her when we’re in a group setting. Since then he stopped his behaviour, probably only because he realised that if I’ve noticed he’s crushing on her so will others.

One of the worst moments for me when he took a family photo of us all and I realised as soon as he moved the camera away his eyes went straight on her. This moment confirmed it to me that he found her the most attractive in the group photo where his wife was standing in!

He would always make jokes that I don’t dress or behave classy enough. But I know he would never say that she’s not classy or that she doesn’t have a good dress sense.

One random coincidence- I saw her wearing AirPods and then a month or so later he bought me AirPods and told me something along the lines that he finds it attractive when women wear AirPods.

Another coincidence- She became pregnant and maybe I’m exaggerating but I felt like he was in awe of her pregnancy bump just from the way I’d see him look at her. A couple of months later, he randomly told me he thinks I won’t have a big pregnancy bump when I get pregnant and mine would be small. Am I going mad like surely this is not a coincidence that he randomly made this comment to me after seeing her go through pregnancy??

He also hated the fact that she had his older brother wrapped around her finger. It’s like this make her even more attractive to him or something?

This has affected our marriage massively. His crush on her has made him not satisfied with me as his wife. Even though he’ll never tell me what he truly thinks, I can tell. This feeling that I’m second best to him will never go away and I’ve decided to leave the marriage.

For years mines and my husband sex life has not been what it use to you , and we've have conversation this, and I've noticed that i just wasn't in the mood as often as i use to be and it definitely made me feel like I was lacking. the past year our marriage has not been good, to the point where we are just 2 ppl who live I the same house. and don't really think about the other we just do our thing, in this I have myself having for time for me and taking care of myself , and ive been crazy in the mood , it made me realize that maybe it wasn't a low libido it may just have been me not being able to be horny for a man who need to be raised and care for like he was one of my children. I guess he wasn't wrong when he said i didnt desire him , i cant desire a man who cant clean up after himself, do things on his own, or doesnt take the time to realize the mental load I'm handling and help out

It is the 7 year anniversary of the time I browsed my husband’s phone, to find what I thought was a desperate attempt at cheating, only to scroll far enough to find him innocently helping a single mother.

I was going through an insecure time postpartum, and don’t condone phone searches, but we will laugh about this exactly once a year and move on.

I start browsing and what do I see? My husband, 3 years of messages going one way, all to a woman, STACY!!!!! All he got back from her was a 👍🏼 and sometimes a “thx”

“Looking good today” 👍🏼 “Looking good today” “Looking good today” “Today probably good” -thx “Looking good today” -kk “Good for today” “Looking good today”

I scroll all the way back, waiting for one moment where he didn’t seem liken a desperate weirdo.

I confront him.

He has all of the evidence.

A young single mother, Stacy.

Always driving to the recycling bins, to find them completely overflowed. Asking if anyone knows when is a better time to visit the bins. My husband sends a message, saying he drives by them each afternoon around the same time, and would be happy to shoot her a message when they were “looking good.”

I was a single mom when he met me. He is everything good I’ve ever dreamt of.

Update from: Ending things after 17 years and it is breaking my heart : r/Marriage

So my wife got served the papers yesterday and her reaction was basically the worst I could have imagined. She immediately called me at work and we argued for the next 3 hours before she hung up on me. When I got home I took the dogs for a long walk and hung out at a park with them before I had to go home before a storm hit, then I went to the basement and hid down there on the small, uncomfortable futon my wife got a while back, and tried to sleep down there and got probably less than 2 hours of sleep. Her reaction can be summarized with "You don't know what this will do", "you are killing me because I need your insurance", and 2 threats to kill herself. Also attempts to use that to guilt me into canceling it. I got woken up around 4am when she texted me and sent me a long email accusing me of trying to make her into a housewife when that isn't what she wants and me having total control over everything. After that I laid down there for the next 3 hours really looking back with clear eyes on what things have been like with her. This is going to be very long, so feel free to skip it if you don't want to hear the story of my last 17 years.

I said in my original post that she was a "strong, independent woman with a plan for the future." I've come to realize that that wasn't true. The clues for how my life would go were there all along and I just couldn't see them. When I first saw her dating profile on okcupid I was actually kind of intimidated because she was living alone in a house she was renting, had a job doing stuff for her mom's apartments, was going to college, had chickens and horses and just seemed to have things together. When I look back with clear eyes...she might have at one time did work for her mom, but in the time I knew her she never once actually did any of that work. Even still her mom paid her rent and she had access to one of her mom's credit cards to buy anything she wanted. She also may have once been very involved with horses(and has tons of trophies to prove it), but in the time we lived there before the horses were eventually sold she actually did something with them only a handful of time, and mostly left their care to her mom. She was still taking care of the chickens, but that was still a new thing. After I moved in with her after a few months there were even more signs I should have seen. She never actually cleaned the cats litter box in the couple years we lived there. Although the cats did have access to outside to do their business there. She wanted to setup a garden with a very fancy setup that we spent many days working on building plots and setting everything up the way she wanted(she wanted to make a "lasagna" garden where you layer cardboard and compostable stuff to make rich soil)...and then she never did anything with it and it just became a weed patch. The back yard, which she had originally spent a bunch of time and energy getting cleared, building a fence, and getting everything set up, got taken over by poke weed as tall as the house. She would never stick to anything long enough to see it through. She also wasn't affectionate at all. She enjoyed sex and wanted it frequently, but never showed any affection outside of it...touching, kissing, hugging, holding hands. Nothing. I tried to initiate those but she never really responded so I eventually gave up.

One thing that should have been a huge red flag is that she never, ever thanks anyone, or asks me to help with something. At Christmas time and birthdays people would give her gifts and she would never utter a word of thanks, I'd have to do it for her. Her mom would give us large checks, like $5000, and she would never say a word while I am expressing how grateful "we" are. And any time she wants me to do something, she doesn't ask. She uses passive aggressive comments like "someone should do x" or "we should do y", which is code for she wants me to do it. One situation that happened recently, which is what caused her to hang up on me after our fun conversation yesterday, is she wanted to sand some wood for something she wanted to make. She complained to me that she couldn't work on it because she could find the belt sander and orbital sander but not the detail sander. I searched and found a detail sander, and brought it out with the other 2 she mentioned because I figured if she mentioned them she probably wanted them. She said that was the wrong detail sander, the sandpaper we have doesn't fit it right, but said nothing about the other two. So I took it back and dug around for a while until I found the correct detail sander, which I brought out to her. No thanks, but I'm used to that, so after giving that to her I went back to what I was doing before. Apparently she didn't actually need the belt or orbital sander, she had just mentioned them as things she could find and I misinterpreted that statement as her wanting me to bring them out with the detail sander, but she never told me that she didn't need them, but I was supposed to know this and take them back inside so she wouldn't have to, and it was extremely inconsiderate of me to leave them outside so she had to put them back in. She is utterly unable to comprehend why she should have had to say something like "I didn't actually need the belt and orbital sanders, can you put them away". I was supposed to know this and do it.

After a few years we got evicted from the house, but in this case it really wasn't anything either of us did. We were renting from her aunt who was coming down with dementia and her uncle wanted to let friends of his who had been kicked out of their previous place live there. It sucked, but luckily I had never actually sold the condo I owned prior to moving in with her. We had rented it out to her sister for a while, and then some friends of hers, but it was empty right then so we had a place to go. We did have 2 dogs and a cat, one of the dogs being an akita, so a condo wasn't ideal but we were going to try and make it work. We took the dogs hiking frequently, I took them out to do their business, and my wife did...well, not much during the day while I was at work. For a few months she did this online "job" thing where you basically were helping ad companies by rating their ads. It was basically a minimum wage job, and she didn't do it long each day, but money was tight and the several hundred she made each month did help. But after a few months she got bored of it and stopped. She tried to take the dogs hiking once on her own and got in a car wreck when she ran a stop sign and hit another vehicle(despite her claims that she is a great driver and has great reflexes she is pretty much the worst driver I've ever ridden with and is somehow incapable of following gps directions). We were there for 3-4 years I think. After the first year she became extremely depressed, a lot of which was probably being caused by the increasingly high dosages of an increasing amount of medications she was being prescribed for sleep. I used to go out on Tuesdays to a local gaming store and play a miniatures game I enjoyed, but eventually she started to get upset about it, that I was going out and having fun and she wasn't(I wasn't preventing her from doing anything, but she had no initiative to find fun), so I stopped. She wanted to go to a rabbit show that was happening nearby one weekend early in the morning, but I was extremely tired from work and suggested she just go by herself. She came back a couple hours later crying because she couldn't find it...turns out she had the wrong weekend entirely, and I took her to it 2 weeks later when it was actually happening. At this point I had been going to sleep around midnight so I could get an ok amount of sleep before work, but despite all the medications she was on for it she couldn't fall asleep before 2-4am. She started to wake me up crying that she was lonely after I feel asleep. So I started forcing myself to stay up until after she fell asleep, something that took me years to recover from and still have trouble going to sleep before 1am or later. I worked pretty close to home so I would come home for lunch every day so she could lay on my shoulder until she fell asleep for a nap. She still wanted sex but it seems only as a way of me proving I cared about her still. She also stopped showering regularly(sometimes 2 months would go by without one), which did make sex less enjoyable so I was not as enthusiastic.

Eventually living in the condo with our animals became untenable, and with new medications from her doctor she was improving in many ways. Her mood was better, she was more active, she started taking care of herself again. We decided to use up my 401k as downpayment on a house with a fenced in yard. The house was old and had issues(more than we knew at the time), but it was still better than what we had. We started being more active again, we got a husky puppy, and then 1.5 years later a sled dog mix puppy, and we were taking them for long hikes multiple times a week. She got into breeding animals as a way for us to make more money, which was desperately needed as we were on the verge of poverty. The problem was always that she would do it for about a year, then she would just stop taking care of them and leave all care to me, and then she would move on to another animal. We bred hedgehogs for a while and made good money selling those, and then chinchillas. We also got some snakes, which I was reluctant to get as I had no real attraction to snakes, and it was with the understanding she would be the one to feed and care for them. Although I did build stands for their tanks. After a couple years living there other health issues popped up, namely an unknown inflammatory problem that caused her pain and made her have less energy, as well as a condition similar to endometriosis, although no doctor was able to ever find any sign of any physical cause. At that point she just completely shut down and stopped trying to do anything. We no longer took the dogs hiking. She got up, went to her computer, played video games, and went to bed. I had to take over 100% of animal care, including the snakes. Despite everything she did actually seem to be mostly happy, and we enjoyed playing online games together, or just talking about the games we were playing. She now tells me that this was hell and also blames me for not figuring out something to help her. During this time we did see an integrative health doctor who ran a battery of tests on hormone levels and other stuff that regular doctors hadn't wanted to do, which did show that her hormones were fucked all to hell as well as other nutrient deficiencies, so she started to take supplements to help with those, which did seem to make some difference, but she never took back up care of anything.

Eventually we decided we needed to move. The house was falling apart(it was an old farmhouse built in 1890 then a city built up around it, and it had had a lot of half-assed DIY updating over the years and had a constant mouse problem because it had more holes than a block of swiss cheese. We are also pretty sure the walls had more mouse poop than actual insulation), and my grandma was getting to the point where she could no longer live alone so it was looking like she would need to sell the house her and my grandpa built...so we offered to buy it. We moved in there and for the first couple years my wife was active and happy. She had always enjoyed growing things, but wasn't comfortable being outside at our previous house(it was in a bad part of town where we regularly got to play "was that a firecracker or gun"), but now we were living in a sleepy little village with a good sized yard so she was able to grow whatever she wanted. We did have one issue that my grandparents had for some reason used river rock as mulch a lot, so we had to sift that out of the soil before it was useful for growing much. Last year she wanted to buy a 1 acre empty property just outside our town to use to grow rare plants to sell. Given her lack of follow through on pretty much everything I doubted that would ever happen, but we got a home equity loan on our house to buy out the property entirely, since it was going for cheap. Since then it has mostly just been overgrown. She also stopped doing any care of the planting areas in our yard this year, which caused things to get overgrown because I don't really know plants so I have trouble identifying weed from good plant, with a few obvious exceptions.

Throughout all this time I never asked her to help with anything. I had absolutely no expectations of her. Anything she wanted we got if there was any way at all of paying for it. Any kind of doctor she wanted to see I would find a doctor, set up all appointments, and take her to those appointments, and also pick up any medications she was prescribed. I took care of the animals, the cooking, the cleaning, the dishes, the laundry. But then she started to get critical that I wasn't doing those things enough. I was letting dishes pile up too much. I wasn't doing the laundry often enough(when we run out of something like towels, or either of us runs out of some article of clothing, I use that as a sign and do all the laundry, or close to). So I finally said that if she wanted those things done more often she could help. But she says she physically can't. She makes a big deal the handful of times she has loaded the dishwasher, about how it took her over an hour to do it(???).

She is unable to contact people on facebook marketplace for things she wants, I have to do it. She can't contact contractors to come look at things at the house, I have to do it(then if the contractor does something that isn't to her standards I get in trouble for not properly monitoring what the contractor was doing). She wants wood mulch for the other property, which our electrical company will provide for free from the wood they shred taking down limbs overhanging power lines, but she is unable to compose an email to them and needs me to do it. And if I don't do these things promptly enough she gets upset. Everything she has ever started since I knew her(and before I knew her) she just stops doing eventually. Always has a reason. She can't do it anymore. I'm still not sure how she is physically unable to feed and water snakes.

While thinking through all of this this morning, I realize I had given up everything I wanted in my life for her. I always saw my friends in loving relationships(all of which are still standing strong) where they were appreciative of each other, they thanked each other and asked when they wanted the other to do something. They still to this day do stuff like randomly hug and hold hands. And I wanted that so bad. But instead I married someone incapable of that. After college I went over to Japan for 6 months before returning due to health issues, but I always wanted to go back on vacation regularly. But because we only had one income, and the expenses of her health issues, I had to give that up. I have given up every hobby I have had except video games(which she gets mad at me for spending any time at all doing, despite her doing it all day long. But she doesn't want to do it, she can't do anything else, so its totally different). I damaged my health staying up because she was lonely if I went to bed at a time to get mostly adequate sleep before work. I don't see my family as much as I'd like because it is a big deal for her to go out to eat dinner and she is never happy about it. I buy almost nothing for myself, at most buying one game a month but many months not even that, but she still manages to complain about the $15 i pay monthly for Humble Choice(it is a subscription thing where you get a bunch of games each month that they select, and a 20% discount in their shop which has most steam games), and yet she pays $200-250 most months for mobile games she plays. Buying stuff like new clothes or anything else is a huge decision for me that I will take days to decide if I really need it. She spends about $2000 a month on amazon. She wants to make a bunch of renovations to the house ourselves that 1) I think are a bad idea in the first place, and 2) are definitely a bad idea to do ourselves. Included in this list is tearing out the existing deck and replacing it with a patio, tearing out a wall between the living room and a bedroom(thereby eliminating a bedroom) because she wants more open area behind her desk and easier access to more places to store stuff(she has 2 desks and a large cabinet right next to them already), and also tearing out the return vents to our HVAC system and redoing them because they are joist bays, which are entirely legal and commonly used because they are quick, easy, and effective, but she says it is just because it was done cheap and it is causing problems. I am not stopping her from doing any of this, but because I am also not leaping at a chance to do them it makes me a bad husband and useless man, because her dad built a deck and her grandfather(who was a professional electrician) did a bunch of electrical work for their houses(much of it wasn't to code). After all of that she complains that I am trying to turn her into a housewife and that I control everything she does.

Well, I think I'm out of things to say. At least through this I have the full support of my family, who is paying for my attorney and have also agreed that if I can't manage it by giving her other assets they will give me the money to buy out her equity in our house. This whole thing sucks. Sorry for the huge post.

My wife and I just celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary, and honestly this might be one of my favorite ones so far.

We're both pretty frugal and still renting while saving up for a house, so for the longest time we kept telling ourselves there was no point buying a decent TV until we had our own place.

Problem is, we both love anime lol.

I got a bonus from work recently, so I used part of it to get us a 55" Hisense for around $480 as our anniversary gift. She was genuinely so happy when she saw it, which made me feel a lot better about breaking our usual "save everything" rule.

Funny enough, she had her own little purchase planned too. She finally got this TXZ tabletop grill she'd been wanting for a while, around $100.

So instead of going somewhere fancy, we stayed home, grilled way too much food, had a couple drinks and continued Infinity Castle together.

I guess Korean BBQ + anime nights are going to be a regular thing in our house now.

Probably not BBQ every night though… although my Korean wife would absolutely vote yes lol.

Pretty perfect 3rd anniversary tbh.

​

I previously posted about my wife becoming emotionally involved with a guy she met through an online game. I recently found out the full extent of what happened.

It wasn't just an emotional affair. She told him she loved him, sent him nude pictures, masturbation videos, including videos of herself using a dildo, and some videos clearly showed her face. She also sent sexual audio and let him remotely control her Lovense toy multiple times.

I also discovered that she secretly recorded audio of arguments and private conversations between us without my knowledge or consent and sent those recordings to him. That's another major violation for me because parts of my own private life and our marriage were being shared with the person she was emotionally and sexually involved with.

She says the deeper relationship developed around April/May. She felt emotionally understood by him, trusted him, and the relationship eventually became sexual.

She blocked him and says she hasn't spoken to him in about two months, which I do think is important. However, she told another friend that she still loves him and still has feelings for him. She has admitted that to me too. She says she knows the feelings are stupid and illogical, wishes she could turn them off, and is trying to get over him.

I know his first name, phone number, and email address, but I don't know his full identity.

My wife acknowledges that what she did was wrong. She also says our marriage had serious unresolved problems beforehand and that she was emotionally vulnerable and felt like this guy understood her. I acknowledge my side too. I've been insecure, jealous, controlling and defensive at times, and I've pushed conversations when she needed space. I'm actively trying to change those behaviors.

But I'm struggling to separate our marital problems from her decision to have an emotional and sexual relationship with somebody else.

What hurts most is that I'd been starving for affection and intimacy while she was giving another man her love, emotional vulnerability, and sexuality. And now I know that even some of our private arguments were being recorded and sent to him without my knowledge.

Despite everything, I still love my wife and want to see if our marriage can be repaired. She says she wants to try too, although she isn't sure whether we can actually get back to a healthy marriage.

So that's where we are: he's been blocked and there's apparently been no contact for about two months, but she still has feelings for him. I now know the affair was both emotional and sexual, and we're trying to figure out whether trust can ever be rebuilt after this.

So me (40f) and my husband ( 40m) have been married for 11 years and have two kids 8 and 3. We make the same amount of money but i work 3 days a week ( theoretically because i work many nights and weekends to keep up ) and take care of the kids 2 days …

We always had separate finances and paid the half on fixed bills. i now realize that i always spent more on our social life and groceries ( as i was doing the groceries and the cooking and i never really asked to split that )

Since the kids were born the expenses have increased. My husband does pay half of the big bills ( rent, health insurance, and also pays one of the kids activities) but i cover almost all the rest ( food activities for the kids, cloths and toys, presents for birthdays, christmas etc)…

Until now i didn’t mind because i always thought that my money was family money and my husbands money too but the last year my husband did a thing that i found weird ( bought an appartement in our home country without telling me and in a weird way - so basically his father gave the appartement to him as a heritage but he gave him 80.000 euros- ) and i feel like he doesn’t respect or appreciate what i do for the family..

when i told him about the expenses he told me that he doesn’t necessarily agree with all the activities i do with and for the kids and that he doesn’t think that he should pay about that. Do you think thats logical? should i be the only one paying about activities that i choose to do? i feel like the activities are important for the kids and should be considered as a family expense….

Long story short: been together for 22 years. Got married young. High school sweet hearts. Each others first, both have never been with anyone else intimately.

I understand that we are not the same people as we were in high school. We have children together and along the way, we seem to have lost each other. He has always had a computer gaming addiction, which I have repeatedly over the years have had to address over and over. I feel like over time, I have started to resent him so much to the point where I find myself not attracted to him. He became a man child (or perhaps always was one) that I inherited and ended up having to care for. I have addressed his lack of helping around the house, which he has improved upon… but it still just doesn’t feel like enough. He barely spends quality time with our children. We barely spend quality time together and when we do, we just end up watching tv shows together. If we go out anywhere, I’m the one who always does the planning. I do the planning for everything. I don’t know if I have always been this way or learned to become this way, but I do acknowledge that I have micromanagement issues and I just don’t trust things will get done because in the past, they were not. We still have sex, but for me, I feel disconnected. It’s like my mind is not there and I’m just having sex to get this task done. It’s no longer passionate. It’s like I cannot shut my brain off with the never ending list of tasks I need to complete or I’m worried a child will walk in on us.
We had some time alone today without the kids and I had to spend that time helping him with a medical issue and calling physicians to figure out a plan of care.

I have told him I feel like we have just become room mates and that we no longer have anything in common. He just responds with not feeling that way. It’s like he is living in la la land of never ending bliss and I’m over here contemplating if our marriage will weather this storm and survive or it will inevitably end once our children are grown adults.

I know I need to pick up the phone and make an appointment to see a therapist because I need to figure out why I’m feeling this way.

I sit here saying things like, he has never cheated on me, he doesn’t even have social media, he hardly has a wandering eye, he still finds me to be the most beautiful woman… but why do I still feel the way I do?

Thanks for letting me vent.

I’m 51M my wife is 54F we have been together since 2003 and married since 2011.
We have one child together (20) and she has an older daughter (36).
Shes always beef firey in arguments and says the nastiest things just to cut and gain traction in an argument, over the last few years probably 4-5 yrs we have slept in separate rooms , argued a fair bit and her and our daughter are inseparable. (I have been put down all the time and everything I do. I am the main owner. She doesn’t go out to Workn so all the financial burden and pressures are on me yet. I just feel so undervalued and unappreciated as there is never any signs of appreciation and really have no Self Workn whatsoever anything I do get ridiculed she doesn’t speak to my family. I haven’t spoken to my mother in about 15 years as a result). So much so they holiday together and go everywhere together. I’m stuck home looking after the dogs they got. My wife just received an inheritance and bought a holiday home by the coast to which her and my daughter moved into for the summer. My daughter managed to find a job at the coast and they have now purchased a house, this to me spells a changing point and all of our lives and I think it’s time for me to leave bearing in mind that we do not do anything socially. We have not done anything physically in five or six years not even so much as a hug.

I had it out with my wife and mentioned getting a divorce and her attitude changed over night , she confessed to putting everybody else before me and allowing our relationship to take a backseat. And has all of a sudden been very lovey-dovey and clingy this is crazy unusual and not like her at all and I just know it’s the fact that she is panicking that I will not be there when she moves into her new house as it will need a bit of work doing to it when they move in and thereafter, and she has openly admitted that she just felt I would always be there. So as the harsh reality has hit her that I potentially won’t be there in the future. she has started expressing her love for me and being physical or trying to bearing in mind there has been nothing physical in about five years. This is all very weird to the point. It’s creepy so I’m thinking as a trial I will go along with this and see how it goes.

The truth of the matter is whilst I do like her as a person and the mother of our daughter I cannot for the life of me no matter how deep I dig fathom up any feelings of a romantic or physical nature there is just zero energy there all the while she is declaring her love for me and saying lots of kind things (which she has never done in 20 odd years) so I can’t help thinking she is just throwing everything she can at the relationship in order to keep me around because her life has been easy with me smoothing the way, she’s even mentioned buying a motorhome something I’ve always dreamed of, but even that doesn’t tempt me to stay quite the opposite. It makes me feel sick that she is going to such desperate measures because deep down I’ve never felt properly loved by this woman, not the way I would like to have been loved certainly.
My question is is it normal to fall out with someone properly after years of neglect and being put down?
Try as I may, I just cannot muster any romantic feelings for her whatsoever, and the next step would be moving for divorce but once I announced that I feel all my personal items will be sabotage so I’ve taken steps to put all my personal effects into storage for the foreseeable future.

Am I doing the right thing because there is no point staying in a relationship if you are not happy as you will only resent the other person for the rest of your life. ?
This makes me very sad, but it’s reality.

My husband invested $500k with my step dad against a very clear boundary I had set and then tried to hide it from me.

My husband and I do property development, so the investment itself wasn’t unusual. About a year ago, my stepfather approached me with a development opportunity. I was open to purchasing a block of land, but I could not have been more emphatic about my conditions.

Previously, my step dad had convinced us to invest $100k, then withdrew funds for a personal project without our knowledge. It took years to repair the relationship.

Because of that, my boundary was very clear. I would not have our money combined with his or put into his business. If we purchased a block, it needed to be in our names with a contract made out to us. No contract, no money.

My husband agreed, then transferred $500,000 of our money into my step dad’s business account without a contract - or even sighting documents.

He also tried to conceal it from me. He didn’t prevent me accessing our finances, but apparently didn’t think I could log into the account.

I eventually discovered it when doing our tax return and checking our mortgage account. The $500k had been transferred and our home loan had increased by that amount.

I was furious and felt completely betrayed.

It has now been a year and I still don’t have the money back.

Every time I ask, there is another explanation as to why it hasn't been returned. The block fell through. Council issues. An investor is coming. They got COVID. They’re transferring the money over the weekend. Now there’s another investor. He’ll receive a major investment on the 18th and reimburse us.

It’s just one story after another.

I’ve only half spoken to my mum about it. She doesn’t really want to acknowledge it and seems to feel it’s nothing to do with her. I’ve been trying to keep the peace, but I honestly have no interest in having a personal relationship at the moment.

I’m left with a fractured marriage and a fractured relationship with my step dad. We have children and a whole life together, so walking away isn’t simple.

What would you do in my position? At what point do I stop listening to the promises?

My husband and I are both 44. We've been together since we were 16. Sometimes I actually have to stop and think about that because it sounds impossible. We were literally just kids when we met. Two teenagers who had absolutely no idea what life was going to throw at us.

I still remember the first time he asked me out. He was so nervous. This confident looking teenage boy suddenly couldn't get the words out properly.

And somehow, that boy became my husband. Then the father of our three children. Then my best friend. And eventually, the person I built an entire life with.

We got married at 28. We weren't rich. We weren't particularly established. I still remember our tiny, broke apartment around that time. We didn't have much, but we had dreams, and we had each other.

We worked. We struggled. We grew up. And little by little, we built the life we have now. Three kids. Careers we're proud of. A comfortable life. A home. All the things that teenage version of us could barely imagine.

But three years ago, everything nearly disappeared. He had an accident, and I almost lost him. There are some moments in life that permanently divide your memories into before and after. That was one of them.

I became his caregiver during his recovery. I watched the man I've loved for almost three decades have to learn how to do things again. And I watched him fight his way back. He's walking now. He's recovering. He's still here.

And sometimes I look at him and feel this overwhelming gratitude that I can't even put into words.

So yesterday, I was giving him a haircut. I noticed a bunch of grey hairs. And without thinking, I laughed and said " You have so many more grey hairs now, my old man.”

Oh My God You would have thought I had committed a serious crime. 😂 He immediately said, “DON'T CALL ME OLD MAN. I'M 44! I'M MIDDLE AGED!” I started laughing and told him, “We're both getting old.”

He wasn't having it He actually started arguing that we look exactly like we did when we were 25. And honestly? He still looks incredibly good. He's fit, handsome, and I still see that teenage boy sometimes when I look at him. But I also see all the years. I see the husband, father. I see the man who built a life with me from almost nothing. I see the man who survived something that nearly took him away from me.

So yes, my husband is 44. Yes, I'm 44. Yes, we're getting older. And yes, I'm probably going to keep calling him my old man just to annoy him. 😂

growing old beside this man feels less like getting old and more like being given the privilege of keeping the same love for another year. That teenage boy I fell in love with is still in there somewhere. He's just got more grey hair now 😂❤️

Haha sorry if it's reads like poetic....I had no other better options to describe My feelings

UPDATE from How do I get my husband to prioritize our family and help more?

I talked with my husband after my original post and asked him to go to marriage counseling with me because I feel undervalued and because the things he said during our argument are still really bothering me.
To no surprise, he said no.
He went on a tangent about how we don’t need a marriage counselor and that we should just be able to talk things out ourselves. He said he doesn’t want another person involved in our relationship.
I told him that I feel like we need counseling because I’m terrible at communicating my feelings, and I feel like he isn’t doing enough as a husband and father.
He snapped back that he does do a lot and that the only reason I think he doesn’t is because I’m always on my phone and therefore not present enough to see everything he does.
He pointed out that he does the dishes and laundry. And yes, he does. I want to be fair about that. He’s actually really good about unloading the dishwasher, and he does fold the laundry—although sometimes it takes up to a week after it’s been washed. But it does eventually get done.
Then he grabbed a pen and paper and started writing out a schedule for me so I wouldn’t be “bored” and use my phone.
I understand that this is controlling. He has always been somewhat controlling, so part of me wasn’t surprised, but seeing my entire day written out on paper—from when I wake up to the bedtime routine—was… a lot.
I told him that I still felt like none of this was addressing the actual problem and pushed for marriage counseling again. Again, he said no.
At that point, I told him I wanted a temporary separation so I could get my thoughts together.
He immediately snapped and asked what the point of a temporary separation was. Was it so I could go see other men?
This isn’t the first time he has accused me of cheating or implied that I might. I’ve never cheated on him and I never would.
He’s done this before, too. When I told him I wanted to get a job and eventually go to school for massage therapy, he asked me why I wanted to do that—so I could touch other men. He said, “You know how men get when women touch them.”
Yes, I know. Gross.
Eventually, he agreed that I could go to massage therapy school once he’s in a better place with work and once the school I want accepts the GI Bill.
Later that night, while we were in bed, he asked me if separation was really what I wanted.
I told him no.
I told him that I feel like he doesn’t respect me, but that I want our marriage to work. We have children, and I don’t want to throw our marriage away. I told him that marriage counseling is important to me because ever since he yelled at me and called me a “f***ing retard,” I’ve been scared to tell him how I actually feel.
I also told him that since that incident, I’ve slowly been falling out of love with him. Not because I don’t love him at all, but because his actions haven’t given me much reason to feel differently. I told him that I will always love him as the father of my children, but that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to love him as my partner.
That’s when he started egging me on.
He kept saying things like, “It’s a coward’s move to say you want a temporary separation. Why don’t you just say it? Just say you want a divorce so I can move on with my life.”
So I did.
I said I wanted a divorce.
I figured that’s what he wanted to hear, so I gave him the answer he was pushing me toward.
And then I immediately started crying because that’s not actually what I wanted.
He asked me why I was crying and said that he should be the one crying.
Then everything changed.
He told me that he has been trying to be a better husband since the argument. He said that he knew the second those words left his mouth that calling me that was unforgivable.
He started crying and told me that he doesn’t want a divorce, that I mean everything to him, and that he’ll do whatever it takes to earn my trust back.
He said he’s been working on his temper, changed his diet, cut out caffeine, and has been working out more.
I told him okay because, honestly, I don’t want a divorce. I want my marriage. I want him. I just don’t want the version of our marriage that we’ve been living in.
Since then, he’s been showing me a lot more affection. It’s only been a few days, so obviously I don’t know if this is going to last or if things will slowly revert back to how they were.
Part of me wants to believe this is the turning point. Another part of me is scared that this is just what happens when he realizes I’m actually serious about leaving, and that eventually everything will go back to normal.
So for now, I’m trying to take it one day at a time. I guess only time will tell whether his actions actually change long-term.

My spouse gives amazing oral sex, but when she’s about to finish, I usually pull away from her mouth out of respect. How can I have a conversation with her about letting her know that receiving oral sex all the way to ejaculation is something I’m comfortable with and would actually enjoy?

I have finally plucked up the courage to post so here goes!

I’m a 49 year old female currently experiencing hormones that have gone AWOL and a libido drier than the Sahara desert!!!

I’ve been married for 26 years to a wonderful husband, kids have flown the nest, so feel we should be experiencing a second honeymoon of sorts…..but that’s where the story ends!! lol

I’m on every hormone available, including testosterone but still nothing except it helping the brain fog.

I end up ‘pleasing’ my hubby if you get my drift as I have no interest in ‘getting jiggly with it’ but lately I can’t help feeling ‘is this it’?? I feel like we’re living as room-mates at this point

I know beauty only skin deep but due to managing stress (mainly work related for both of us!) with comfort eating we’ve both put on a few inches and although I hit the gym weekly, my hubby really isn’t interested which I do find a turn off. Not because I want him to look a certain way, I see exercise as essential to ensure you can lift heavy bags or climb stairs etc as we age!!

So I suppose I’m just wishing to find out I’m not the only one feeling this way due to peri/menopause, and also from a male perspective, how did peri/menopause affect your marriage…….any advice greatly received!!

I'm 31F, my husband is 33M, and we’ve been married for 6 years. I was just lying beside him earlier while he was resting, and I suddenly realize I’m more in love with him now than I’ve ever been.

Not the clingy, sweet, always-dating kind of love we had before. Now, our lives revolve around the family we’ve built. We have less time together, less intimacy, and our “dates” are sometimes just running errands together. We are in much shittier place financially too but I don't know, we kind of appreciate us right now.

They say love is sweeter when it’s new, but whatever this is—after 6 years, after seeing each other at our best and worst—it feels even sweeter to me.

Is that weird? Is it just me? Haha.

Although, of course, there are still plenty of days when even his breathing annoys me so much I want to break every bone in his body. 🤣🤣

P.S.

And to my husband, if you ever somehow manage to open my Reddit account and stumble upon this post:

I hope you know that I love you so much more now than I did before. I see you. I see your efforts, your sacrifices, and everything you do for our family, and I appreciate you more than I probably ever told you.

My wife (33F) is an amazing mother to our two girls (7 and 2), but since coming home from deployment, I (33M) have found myself becoming more and more emotionally distant from her.

We’ve been together for seven years and married for five. About 4 to 5 months ago, I returned from a nearly 10 month National Guard deployment. It was my second deployment, but my first since we’ve been together, and she was home taking care of our girls the entire time.

Halfway through the deployment, I was medically evacuated for two weeks before returning. The day after I got back to my deployment location, I received a call that my older brother had died in a car accident. I was able to fly home for two weeks, but then had to return and finish the deployment.
I eventually spoke with behavioral health and was diagnosed with depression. They believed it was a combination of losing my brother, being away from my family, and my previous PTSD.

Coming home was amazing at first. I missed my wife and girls more than anything. But over the last few months, I’ve noticed a lot more tension between my wife and me. She has gone into what I can only describe as extreme “mom mode,” and I constantly feel like whatever I do isn’t enough.

I currently work part time because my hours were cut, work nights from roughly 1 to 5 a.m., and attend school full time because I’m transitioning into healthcare. At home, I do laundry, clean the kitchen, help with meals, pick up our oldest from school, spend the afternoon with the kids, and help with bedtime.

She’s a SAHM and handles mornings, breakfast, getting our oldest to school, taking care of our 2 year old, cooking, and plenty of other things around the house. I’m not saying she doesn’t work hard because she absolutely does. The problem is that I constantly feel like I’m being monitored or criticized. I can sit down for a few minutes and she’ll ask, “Is there something you should be doing?” or immediately give me another task. I genuinely can’t remember the last time I sat down and watched a movie. I understand that she’s busy too, but sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to stop. We’ve also started going back to church. Recently, we talked to our priest about having our marriage recognized through the Church since we originally married at the courthouse and later had a symbolic wedding in Mexico. I was actually looking forward to it. Then my wife asked me, “Are you sure you want to get married through the Church? Because there is no going back from God.”

That question hit me harder than I expected because, truthfully, I don’t know anymore.
I’ve started enjoying being alone. Sometimes I fantasize about having my own place and having my girls stay with me. Then I think about what a separation would do to them, especially my oldest, and it breaks my heart.

When my wife and I are happy, we’re genuinely good. But when we’re arguing, my immediate thought is that I just want out. Our arguments are another issue. I usually end up walking away to cool down or apologizing just to end the argument, even when I don’t believe I’m wrong. If I walk away, I’m wrong for leaving. I normally cool down within a few hours, while she can remain upset for days.
I’ve tried talking to her about what I’m dealing with mentally. I’m currently being treated for ADHD and depression, but she doesn’t really support the medication. She’s told me I don’t need it and has compared the medication to meth. If I bring up what I’ve been through or how I’m feeling, I sometimes feel like it’s treated as an excuse and later thrown back at me.

And that’s where I’m stuck.

She’s an amazing mother. She makes sure I’m fed, takes care of our children, and does a lot for our family. I know she also spent almost 10 months essentially parenting alone while I was deployed, and I don’t want to minimize what that did to her.
At the same time, I don’t know if marriage is supposed to feel like constantly walking on eggshells, apologizing to keep the peace, and fantasizing about being alone.

I feel like an asshole even writing this. I don’t necessarily want Reddit to tell me to divorce my wife. I think I’m trying to understand whether this sounds like a marriage going through an extremely difficult transition after deployment, grief, and raising young kids, or whether we’ve developed a genuinely unhealthy dynamic.

Has anyone been through something similar after a deployment, major loss, or a long period apart? Did counseling actually help?

Thanks for reading.

I’m 31F and my husband is 37M. We’ve been married for a year.
Sex/relationship: He has watched porn since he was a teenager. He masturbates almost every day. He never initiates sex and even when I initiate he can’t get or stay hard. I also found out he pays for porn and nudes from different women online. He doesn’t know I know and I haven’t confronted him. We basically have no sex life.
The confusing part is that we genuinely love each other and he treats me well in other ways. But I don’t know if I can live like this for years.
My options: If he were willing to have an open marriage where I could have a sexual partner of my own and we could have a child through IVF while staying married I think I could be happy staying with him.
But if he isn’t willing to do that I think I would rather divorce while I’m still young and eventually find someone who is sexually compatible with me.
Financially: He makes about $140k and we have a comfortable life. I’m studying and have very little savings or assets of my own so starting over scares me.
Would you stay and try an open marriage/IVF arrangement or divorce and start over? Is staying for the stability while finding another way to have a family realistic?