Tl, dr:
– wife is happy and copes with anger
– is starting to exhibit this behavior toward our daughter
– I worry our daughter will resent me for not stepping in
My wife is very unhappy. When been married 16 years. She's a stay at home mom but doesn't want to be a mother. I make the bigger paycheck and we sacrificed our life beat our families to move for my career. This was a joint decision but over 10 years later it's weighing on her.
She's become a recluse. She avoids building friendships, finds fault in everyone, and is resentful that she's home doing the menial work, cooking, cleaning, etc. she's stopped driving, relying on public transit, rarely Ubers, doesn't trust them. Is resistant to therapy.
I've gotten us into couples therapy twice and it's gone poorly both times. Her stance is that everything is my fault, and that she'll try to fix things when I do. I a poor communicator, she points this out regularly, I avoid conflict at all costs and enable her behavior.
She gets angry a v lot. Until recently, most of her wrath has been directed at me. I've learned to deal with it. Recently it's started to be directed at our daughter. I came home today to a declaration of no tv due to not finishing chores. Cool, unified front. But then toward bedtime she's raising her voice over and over again, repeating the same points, telling her again and again she's not trying, until our daughters crying, and she keeps going.
I don't feel comfortable with this, and I'm just starting to realize: this is how she treats me to. It will just get worse. And I'm enabling it.
I don't want my daughter to hate me. I want to help. I think I need to leave, but I worry I'm actually wrong and I am the problem. I think im getting depressed, and had days last week where I just couldn't work. Laid on the floor in my home office.
I don't know what to do. I've been holding on thinking it was better for our kid to power through this, but if she grows up to hate me I'll never forgive myself.
Sorry for the wall of text. I don't know what anyone could do with this. I just needed to start getting it out. Thanks for reading if you got here. I've gotten myself another personal therapist and will try to work through next steps.