Too controlling?

Seeking some more objective advice about current marriage situation. We’ve been married a year but been together for four and recently have been cycling through recurring issues.

To give some background we both met while working overseas, my wife is Thai and I’m British (both in our early thirties) generally we get on well and the first year together was great – similar sense of humour/adventure lots of travelling etc.

My wife is a lovely person but she puts people before herself to the extreme, money or advice it doesn’t matter, family or friends, she goes out of her way often 24 hours a day to listen and deal with other people’s problems. In our second year of dating one of her old friends suggested that she get involved with her in what I instantly knew was a ponzi scheme, she pointed at how much money she was making every month and despite me repeatedly warning about this, my wife (then gf) went all in, even using her credit card to fund this scheme despite my repeated warnings (I explained how it had all the warning signs of a scam). About four months went by of this with the ‘friend’ texting/calling at all hours of the day about this scheme and my wife running with it, it got to the point where it started to ruin one holiday we were supposed to be on together and when I raised it quite forcefully that she should stop this all now, I was told that if I ever mentioned this again she’d leave – so I stopped talking. About 2 days after this happened she lost approx $15,000.

This was a big red flag at the beginning of our relationship but after we spoke at length, my wife said she’d never get involved in this kind of scheme again and that she’d stop talking to this friend who only ever contacted her when she wanted something out of her. Over the course of the next year my wife worked to pay back what she now owed before she lost her job when covid came round and I paid back the remainder, not wanting the debt collection agency to continue hounding her. Since then (the last two years) I have been the sole worker and take full control of our finances, its the only way I can feel secure in our relationship, I cover all rent, bills, groceries, travel, everything. This has worked fairly well up until a couple of months ago –

My wife has been to see one of her friends for lunch and he has convinced her to open an online trading account as he’s making loads of money, it’s amazing etc. My wife had already downloaded the program and is trying to work out how it works (if you haven’t figured this out by now, she’s not the sort of person who will make money trading) when I get home. Again I go at lengths to explain to her why this is a terrible idea (mostly because if she lost money I would be the one having to earn it again!), a long loud argument follows to which I’m told that she promised not to get involved in ponzi schemes again, that she’d never said she wouldn’t ‘trade’, than I’m controlling and she feels she has no freedom and we should divorce. Eventually she uninstalls the program and I’ve heard nothing more about it.

Next up I come back one evening and my wife has shut herself in the spare room and is talking on the phone for at least two hours, I pop my head in to ask who it is and the answer is a “friend” so I go to bed and sleep thinking something weird is going on. Turns out that after more than two years of no contact this friend is in fact the ponzi scheme woman back again, the same woman who my wife has called a toxic b\*\*\*\*, who has been having affairs with married men and using them for their money to pay back her own debt and for various plastic surgery procedures. My wife says they might meet up when I’m away out of country, of course my response is why the hell would you want anything to do with someone like that, she’s clearly not trustworthy etc. Again my wife reacts saying I don’t have the right to dictate who she talks to, that she doesn’t say the same about my friends and all the rest of it, that she can’t breathe and that she wants divorce.

I guess the above points might sound trivial to some, the reality is that as I say my wife is a good person who takes great care of me and is generally loving and kind, the issue is I feel like I’m constantly trying to protect her and now me from her naïve nature and the people she seems to attract. Part of me is seriously considering a split, the other part feels that we’ve come a long way and maybe I do need to loosen up. Interested in an outsider’s perspective.