The State of My Union

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, I will occasionally provide some updates and general evaluation of my current life.

I'm a husband and father. We have pets. My wife and I are homeowners with a mortgage that's probably less than a third of the value of the house right now. We have no other debt; we don't carry credit card debt beyond the free monthly limit. I'm the breadwinner. I don't hate what I do to earn money but much of it I only do for the money; it's not what I wish I was doing. I earn more than the average for the area in an area that is generally higher than the national average. Our kids are minors.

Thankfully, I'm not in bad health (as far as I know) but I could be more healthy.

Division of Labor

Beyond earning the income, I do most of the cooking, food prep, and serving. I do most of the in-person shopping. As long as it doesn't conflict with my schedule, I drive the kids where they need to go. When it does conflict with my schedule, my wife does it. My driving record is much better than hers so I prefer it be me. One of the kids and I do all the laundry. I handle the paperwork for almost all of the bills including a lot of paperwork relating to general, mental, and dental health - and there's a lot of that.

My wife keeps on top of our kids' education. Over the years we have used formal private schools and various forms of homeschooling, but most of the homeschooling hasn't involved my wife actually sitting down the kids and actively teaching them their lessons. The kids are highly intelligent and generally good students. Only occasionally do they need help from either of us with their schoolwork. My wife also does almost all of our online shopping, and is pretty good at finding bargains and deals.

Notice I didn't mention cleaning. Our place is a mess. I mean, we keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean. But we have a lot of clutter (not hoarding) and pet related destruction. Irregularly, we pay someone to help us clean. It's going to take a lot of work before we'd be back to the point we'd have company in our home, but we have no problem having plumbers, HVAC techs, etc. come in. The exterior, including the backyard, is fine and well kept because I hire people, although the exterior walls of the house could use some patching up and new paint.


Health

One of our kids needs a couple of meds for mental health, and I make sure those get taken because really bad things happen if they are skipped. This kid gets weekly therapy and sees a psychiatrist every month or two for the meds. I don't know what's going to happen if this child ever moves out.

I get weekly therapy. It's pretty much just talking about the past week and the week ahead with an older man; it doesn't feel like active therapy. The real benefit is that it's an hour I won't be asked to be a butler or errand boy, and it keeps my wife placated. likely because I've learned to recognize when I'm heading for a boil over, and also because I've become used to my lot in life, it is now very rare if I get to the point of yelling, and even when I do, it is brief. My therapist will sometimes cancel or I'll cancel due to having too much to do, and missing a session or two doesn't seem to be a problem for me.

My wife, who, among her seemingly countless meds, takes mental health meds, and who has had multiple suicide attempts, doesn't get mental health therapy.

The wife and one of the kids have major dental expenses. I'm glad my dental health and overall situation has been good. My wife has regular treatments for her physical health.


Love Life

My wife and I have been going on dates, less than weekly, something we couldn't do for many years except for rare occasions. The kids are now old enough and usually well behaved enough we can leave them home for a few hours provided nobody is having a breakdown, whereas there was a time we literally couldn't leave them with a babysitter together, and that includes with family members. Per my wife's wishes, these dates usually consist of fast food and shopping. Now that's high romance, right? The dates are usually when the kids are occupied, separately, somewhere other than the house.

Things are pretty grim as far as our sex life. We're simply not sexually compatible. She's still very attractive and hasn't gotten fat or butched up, like so many wives, but her drive is low and the stars rarely align in a way that's going to result in her consenting to sex. I refuse to badger her about it or whine about it to her; we've discussed it enough already.

About once every 3-4 weeks, we will do SOMETHING sexual, but it's usually limited, inhibited, scheduled (and delayed or canceled more often then not before it finally happens), and one-sided. "She comes first" has been part of my attitude for decades. If it was only once in while that she'd say "Just let me take care of you," it would be OK, but it's a turnoff that it's as often as it is (relative to how often we do anything at all). I enjoy a woman's body, and I want to enjoy hers. I like tasting a woman and spending time down there. Given that I love her and will not go elsewhere, I want to spend a lot of time on her down there. I feel like I'm a chore, like a burden to her. I'm grateful she's willing to go down on me at all, but then, as always except for intercourse, she treats my semen like it's poison. So, just when I'll be on the way to the most intense pleasure, it stops and I'll ejaculate, but the orgasm is much less than what it could be. It's not like it takes me a long time. She's not getting lockjaw down there. We do it so infrequently that I don't last long these days. These are the only times she cares whether I orgasm or not.

Conversely, when I do get to go down on her, it's probably going to be the end of the evening, because she is usually unable to do anything after her orgasm, or, she'll not be in the headspace or physical situation to reach orgasm, and will eventually stop me, and that's usually it.

She has SAID she wants me to tell her anything she can do to make things better, but she's already shot down or no longer wants (or pretends to want) the things I enjoy that are fairly simple and mainstream, so I don't know what to say to her. "I never really liked that" after she let it go on for month or years is a real killer. What else is going to fall into that category next? I'm not going to suggest things I already know she will reject because she has rejected them already. She's not into my fantasies; I'm willing to try/play off of hers but she hasn't shared more than one. We're not going to do it more often. I can't tell her [this thing she now does that she needs to do that I'm being vague about on purpose and isn't going to change for the better] is a general turn off for me. She's also done/said things over the years that kill erections and relationships as a whole, things some therapists will say there's no coming back from. I suppose if I lose my memory I'll be better off?

I used to wonder how husbands could lose sexual interest in a wife who was still in shape. Now I know. I still want to make love with her, far more often than will ever happen, but I can understand those guys now. Lovemaking isn't a priority for her. It's done out of sense of mercy, and it's "last on the list." Why be in a constant state of frustration? Shut down the desire. Stop caring. Masturbate until the desire is temporarily. Some guys go elsewhere. I won't as long as we are married.

Per her wishes, we don't touch while we sleep. I used to very much enjoy cuddling, snuggling, spooning with a woman while sleeping. Gone from my life. I can't snuggle with her elsewhere, like on the couch, because she has set things up in a way that precludes that. We do kiss a lot and are usually verbally affectionate throughout the day, so at least there's that. I mean, if you saw just that, you'd think we were getting it on a lot, but we aren't.

On the plus side, she's not doing it with others, unless through sexting.


Church

Well before the lockdowns, we had stopped going to church because our church, while large and supposedly having staff dedicated to these issues, couldn't handle the behavioral problems of one of my children, and there was nothing I could do to try to do to keep my kid in line that was acceptable to them. They pretty much kicked our kid out, and with that, none of us were going to go. We worked on returning, but they kept moving the goalposts.

Then came the lockdowns, and this was one of those churches that rolled over and went belly up to the the government control freaks.

We found another church that we checked out. We've been attending fairly regularly ever since. Even though this church is not close to our previous church, we kept bumping into people from our previous church. We found out why from someone whose family was a longtime pillar of the previous church. There were two main reasons so many people had switched: 1) The previous church stayed closed while the other church was open, and 2) The newish lead pastor at the old church, who had come from outside of the church, was removing longtime staff to replace them with his friends, and he was disregarding the church's advisors. Sounds ripe for fleecing, but maybe not. By the way, my problem child has been warmly embraced at the new church, and that continued after having what I'd call an episode.

Lockdowns

Speaking of the lockdowns, I'm the kind of guy who can be satisfactorily occupied within my own home, so as far as my own personal needs, I was fine, but it sucked for my children. There were only so many places we could go. I'll never forgive the people who screwed over my children for a couple of years, in part because they'll never ask for forgiveness. Childhood is short, and a good chunk of theirs was robbed.


Finances

Things aren't bad, because we tend to be frugal. My wife buys all sorts of stuff I don't need and won't be using, but at least she usually finds good deals. The health bills are significant. Our vehicles are on the older side. We haven't gone on vacations.


Retirement

Based on everything, I could probably retire in well less than a decade. I'll probably never stop earning income, though, as long as I'm physically able. But it would be nice to be able to turn down work I'm not eager to do. If I hadn't married, I could probably be retired already or within a couple of years, and I'm significantly younger than what most people consider retirement age.


What About Fun?

I do a hobby with a friend. It can mostly be done online. That's for a few hours two or three times per month.

I rarely get to spend time with friends. When I do, it might be with this guy and the people who show up at his gatherings. My wife may or may not go along for that.

Sometimes, other than therapy, I get an hour or two to myself to relax without having to cater to others. Otherwise, fun is centered around the kids' fun.

This is what I recently wrote about needing a vacation.


Family

All of her surviving immediate family and all of mine are still local, but 45-60 minutes away. We all see hers (provided she's not in a mood/phase and refusing to go, in which I take the kids without her) for special occasions. My mom will take (with me dropping off) one of our kids at a time, for a day or two or three, and less often than with my wife's family, we'll all see my mother and siblings. I can take the kids to see my father and his wife, but my wife will never go and she insists the kids can't see them without me present, and so it is much less often that I see them and the kids don't stay. (My dad and his wife aren't abusers, but why my wife has those rules is too long of a story to include here. The kids weren't allowed to stay with her parents, either, for good reason.)


In Conclusion

My life isn't terrible. Compared to most of the world, it's a great life. It's not a bad life. But I'm the kind of guy who adapts and is grateful and, believe it or not, sentimental. While I'm "used to it" now, if you would have described this life to me before I married, I wouldn't have gone through with it. I would not have chosen this life, and it isn't like I now say "But I'm so glad I got this life because it is much better than it would have been if I hadn't married!" No. My marriage is an overall net negative. It costs me time, money, energy, and freedom. The sex isn't worth it. The companionship is fine when she's not in a bad mood or having a mental health issue, but we could have been friends and shared the same laughs and thoughts as we do now.

I could have been better off  staying a Free Man; I was doing well as one.

But if married, I'd rather have had a marriage with more affection, sex, and romance; the freedom to pursue other work; better finances; more time with my parents, siblings, friends, and hobbies.

The wild cards are the kids. Of course I'm fond of them most of the time. But the jury is still out. They could turn out great or they could kill us. And, I don't think the two of us as a team have been able to give the kids the childhood I wanted to give them (even before the lockdowns). Homeschooling and her being a SAHM was supposed to mean certain things that she ended up being unable or unwilling to do, and she should have known that before.

Thinking about it, I wouldn't mind my kids living with us forever. It's not like, if they weren't here, the wife and I would be banging all over the house. If the medicated kid goes off the rails, yeah, that would be a problem. But I know what would be ideal for them would be for them to become established on their own. It would be nice, though, for me to go do things I want to do, or for my wife and I to go places when she's up for it, and have the kids here taking care of "their" pets and the house.

Once the kids are raised, and even more so once I am "retired," I'll regain some freedom. Legally divorcing would mean losing half of everything, paying two legal teams, and paying lifetime alimony. Of course, my wife could file. The results will be the same either way. She says she's very happy with things. But maybe like me with the sex, she's just keeping the peace for now? If she's truly as happy with things as she volunteers to me, then I'm doing my job as far as being a husband, even if I feel like a beaten dog.