resentment over ultimatum

[whiningshinji]

Many years ago my wife gave me an ultimatum around having a third child. I adamantly didn't want a third, but to spare my other two children a broken home I acquiesced.

All the things I knew would happen happened. I got locked into a high pressure,high paying job I hated to cover heightened costs, free time totally evaporated and the friends I did have soon drifted due to me going from work to home and back again and never seeing anyone! My hobbies, modest though they were all withered due to lack of time/funds. My wife maintained some of her social contact and hobbies once all children were into school(less full on job with better annual leave - mine unsurprisingly was stingy and was absorbed by school holiday coverage)

The resentment I felt towards my wife over this never went away. Our third child is now approaching adulthood and all I can think about is leaving.

I got dragged to yet another (tiresome) couples thing by my wife. I normally don't drink, but I had a couple this time. We were talking to some people who were talking about how hard the baby and toddler years were and how they stopped at one, saying to us and another couple how did we manage three. I said it was a very hard slog - my wife chipped in by saying that we wouldn't change a thing.

Apparently at this point I scowled and muttered that I would. I wasn't even aware of doing this! Either way my wife is now getting an inkling that my mindset hasn't been changed by the years. He attitude has wrongly always been she was right and that I fell into line in the end and was content.

Now suddenly she is encouraging me to meet up with friends (who I haven't spoken to in 15 years) and mentioning finding a club for one of my old hobbies.
Bit late!

I am 80% sure I will leave, but this has thrown things because I was hoping to quietly arrange things and then cut the cord. I certainly wouldn't fight on the house or forking over half savings, the house is paid off and she can have it! Well worth it to break free of her.

I don't know what to do, I just feel the resentment has totally eaten away any affection I had over the years.

Blame your wife for your crappy life rather than take any responsibility for it yourself? Very mature.
Are you really wishing your youngest child didn’t exist?

The third child thing is a red herring.

Yes, your dw was wrong to give you an ultimatum. But you're basically blaming the existance of this third child for all your life's woes.

You already had two children. Would your life really have been dramatically different with just two? Doubt it. You'd still have had a mortgage and bills, still have had plenty of family and childcare responsibilities curtailing your free time and hobbies.

If you want to split, split. But time to get a grip and stop blaming the third child for everything. You've not lived the life of a single and carefree man...that ship sailed the moment you had ONE child.

I to be honest think some of this is a bit harsh.

You reached a really serious crossroads in your marriage where you both wanted opposing things that would potentially be a deal breaker for the other person. Neither of you was unreasonable with expressing your wants there.

I don't think it's fair to say that your wife blackmailed you into having a 3rd child the way some people here are suggesting. You had conversations and debates about it, you weighed up the pros and cons, she felt so strongly about it that she would have left in order to have a chance at another child without you (which I understand is hurtful but that's how badly she wanted another child and in another thread she'd have been recommended to be honest about that if that's how badly she wanted one) but she was very honest and clear about where she was at. At no point were you mislead. You both knew the work involved and the lifestyle changes. You did have a choice to walk away at that point but you decided to stay and go ahead with a 3rd knowing what that life was going to be like. That was an informed choice that you made.

The problem here is that you made a commitment that you didn't fully follow through with. I think in these situations you either decide to walk away or you go all in and you only went half in - you went through all the physical motions and blamed it on her and your child and allowed it to fester instead of taking accountability for your choice in this and mentally and emotionally opted out.

At the end of the day if things had been different and you hadn't had your third your wife could well be on here talking about her inability to move past it and her resentment towards you. You should have been in marriage counselling when you hit this crisis. Obviously none of this is easy and it's a very difficult situation to be in but the road you took was your choice. Your wife is not the source of all your discontentment.

It sounds like your wife is now in a position where she can't win... you've now expressed wanting more social outlets so she's encouraged this and included you but now you're complaining that it's too little too late or the wrong type of socialising (so you've publicly embarrassed her) when you haven't effectively communicated with her for a long time. It sounds like you've made your choice and then come to her with complaints she can't easily fix like the need for your salary to pay your bills- at some point if neither of you can do anything about the situation then yes you do need to suck it up.

Your posts are coming across like you've sulked your way through, pretending on the surface to be fine and are now planning to blindside her with a divorce. Sometimes we're dealt a shit hand op and we just need to make the best of it in not sure I have that much sympathy from what you've written here.

I agree with this, whatever happened happened and can't be undone now too much water under the bridge.

Something similar happened to a male friend of mine, they stayed together too but the resentment grew arguments ensued. They tried for years but split after the youngest went to university. They both maintain a healthy relationship with their children now, it was hard to start with but it settled after a couple of years. They are both much happier apart.

For both your sakes OP it's worth considering your options, you can see a solicitor, look for another home etc and still not need to go through with it if you don't want to. You can leave a partner any time for any reason, you only need your own permission to do that.

Once you've made up your mind do be honest though and don't spring it on her give her time to process it too, it's tough living with the fallout but suddenly upping and leaving can be devastating to everyone including you.

Just leave. Life is too short to live it full of resentment

Sorry, but with two adults working, I simply do not buy that one more child caused you so much financial hardship and additional work that you were completely unable to have friends or hobbies for the best part of 20 years.

You seem to have projected all blame for your life not working out how you want onto your wife and now loathe her because of your own weakness in failing to make your life how you want it. And you say absolutely nothing of your feelings towards your third child so it seems that you don't especially value them as a person either.

I think you have the right idea. Leave, and leave your wife the house. She probably deserves it for putting up with all your moaning without doing anything over the years, or you having a face on every time she organised yet another 'tiresome' social event.

Please do everyone a favour and leave.

No one ‘made’ you do anything. You made a choice and have decided that you didn’t like the consequences of that choice. That’s on you, no one else. You could have chosen differently.

I suspect you would have still been working just as hard, with such little free time, even if you’d stopped at two children. The cost of adding a third isn’t really that much over the two you already had, especially once you’re out of the nursery days.

You have been making plans to leave. Either theoretical or practical.
The house is paid off and you have savings.

I guess some sort of, you keep your pension, she gets the house? Not sure a judge would sign that off.
Either way, crap or get off the pot. You have been blaming your wife for years for your lack of agency and enjoyment of life. So leave. Stop making it someone elses fault you are unhappy. Even now you are blaming her for spoiling your plans to slip quietly away. Plans she didn't know about!

You've talked the talk, now walk the walk. Have the courage of your convictions.
Seize the day, take half the savings. Go. Change your job. Do all the things that being a married father is holding you back from. You are not helpless.

Honestly, I think this is laughable. I am a single mum with only one less child than you (who are both still primary age) and I still manage to find the time and energy and money for hobbies and friends.

It is ludicrous to claim your free time and money was completely absorbed by one more child when you had a wife to share the load. Your wife seems to have been able to organise plenty of tiresome couples' nights for you to roll your eyes at; why weren't you able to organise a beer at the pub to stay in touch with your mates once every few weeks or months?

I disagree.

It was an ultimatum. OP was blackmailed into another child by the threat of having the two he already had pulled away from him for at least half the time (quite possibly more as 50/50 time, while a starting point, isn’t that common, especially when children are young, and was even less so nearly 18 years ago).

A ultimatum means that his ideal - a 2 child family together the whole time - wasn’t on the table at all, only her ideal or a divorce.

OP stayed for the kids. He wasn’t freed by his choice, he chose the best of the two alternatives he was presented with but neither was what he wanted. It’s hardly surprising he’s resentful, his wife is the source of his discontent.

I’m not suggesting this was solvable - she might well have been equally discontented and resentful if she’d stayed and not had a third, and OP may have been the source of her discontent. They were fundamentally incompatible, but OP delayed the break up because staying with his children was more important to him than being free of an unhappy marriage.

I don’t think you can save a marriage where one party gave an ultimatum that made the other party unhappy for 18 years. That’s a fundamental breach of trust and love.

OP has stayed for the children. Now the kids are going, it’s time for him to leave too.

A ultimatum means that his ideal - a 2 child family together the whole time - wasn’t on the table at all, only her ideal or a divorce.

There were always three scenarios on the table.

His wife's ideal: three kids
His ideal: two kids
Neither's ideal: divorce

He was already getting his ideal but his wife wasn't getting hers. You can't split a kid down the middle so either he had to compromise on one more kid or she had to live with one less kid or they had to agree they couldn't reconcile their differences (divorce).

It's not an easy situation for anyone. One or both are going to end up unhappy no matter what decision is reached. The difference is whether the person who ended up compromising was genuinely committed to making the best of the difficult choice.

To me, it sounds like the OP has fallen into a kind of martrydom trap where he has consciously or subconsciously refused to make the effort to live a full life as a way of 'punishing' his wife for 'making him' have another child.

Leave whilst you still have life in you.
18 years, or thereabouts, is a long time to be holding onto resentment.
You sound thoroughly decent in being happy to leave the house and be financially fair.
Go and find some happiness in your life.

You're marinating in self pity and sulkily hating and blaming your wife for YOUR choice to live a dull and unsatisfying life, OP.

Anything that goes wrong in a man's life is always some woman's fault, isn't it?

You dont have friends because you didn't prioritize them. Your hobbies withered because you didn't carve out time for them. These are your choices. If even single fulltime parents can make time for friends and hobbies - as a pp pointed out - so could you have.

You are the architect of your life, and you've been weak willed, passive, and low energy about it, because that's YOUR CHARACTER. I don't think you'll be any happier divorced because the selfabsorbed self pitying blaming whiner will still be you.

Grow up, op.

Basically she forced you into years of stress and pain. That resentment isn't going to go away.

Love how the wife’s stress and pain that led her to make the ultimatum is completely irrelevant in this scenario.

If you have paid off the mortgage and kids are now adults then you can now move to a different job / restart hobbies. Heck, I have. It’s great to be out the other side of child rearing.

Having kids is always a compromise - it was for me - disabled child in amongst them so I could never work in the way I wanted & dh did get stuck in a job he hated because of the money it brought in - that was his choice though. Now they are grown up we have a whole set of choices.

Carrying resentment round for decades is not a remotely adult response. You could have refused and maybe your wife would have carried out her ultimatum, maybe not - but that whole discussion sounds rather childish as well. Resenting her for ‘winning’ the argument for decades is definitely a sulky kid response.

Leave if you want to. Plenty of people grow apart during marriage, but take some responsibility for your choices. You could have left your job. You could have said no. At least if you leave you won’t be able to blame anyone else for your misery.

Her ultimatum was unfair. It was all about her and her wants. She wasn’t thinking about the OP or the two children she already had. She was determined for a third for her - no-one else.

I reckon the third child might feel the decision was for them too.

Don’t be daft! You don’t say we need another child for them. That’s not a reason.

It’s a reason for him to not be honest with his full family now as it will cause them hurt. But it’s not a reason you give/use for having more children.

OP I do feel for you.

I'm currently a mum of two and desperately want a third. My husband doesn't want another as he really struggled with the baby years! And we don't earn an awful lot.

I would never give him an ultimatum! My family is complete, even if it could be even more complete...

Look, it sounds like you have been a dutiful husband and father for many years so follow your gut for once. Please don't frame any separation as resentment for having a third child as that could be extremely hurtful for that child.

It sounds like your wife is now in a position where she can't win.

Isn’t that the position the OP was in when she said give me a third child or I break the family up?

Usually the stance is if one doesn’t want another child, then you don’t have one. But there seems to be a lot of ignoring that stance on this thread. The woman’s wants trump everyone’s else’s here.

Your wife is abusive and controlling.

Get a solicitor and divorce her as soon as the kids are adults. Make sure you get at least half the assets.

Op why did the third child make such a financial difference over 2 children? Is there a huge age gap?

I aimed for 3 but ended up with 4 as my final pregnancy was twins. We would have only elected to have 3.

I am the main earner (always have been). One is significantly older than the younger ones, so in reality it was like having 3. Personally I don’t think three is much different to 2 financially. But I appreciate your situation may be different.

Daft question but can I make sure there isn’t a lady who has caught your eye somewhere? I only ask because that often makes people focus on every negative point about their spouse as they try to remain the good guy. By spinning negatives you can blame your spouse for separation.

If we reverse that logic...

"His stress and pain makes him be abusive towards her."

Really?

Say what?