'I feel like I made a mistake by marrying my wife. I also feel like a hypocrite because I changed.' MAJOR UPDATE

"I [35 M] feel like I made a huge mistake by marrying my wife [30 F], but I also feel like a huge hypocrite because I was the one who changed."

My wife Sarah and I have been married for 7 years and we have been together for a total of 10 years. I was raised in a very traditional and religious household and was brought up believing that men are the breadwinners and women should stay at home with the kids. Sarah was raised in an equally religious household and had similar views as I did.

After college, I got a job doing financial work for a large company and moved to a different city. I didn't know anyone in the area and decided that attending one of the local churches would help me meet new people.

Sarah was one of the church members and I fell head over heels for her. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever laid eyes on and she is also extremely kind and caring. After a year of dating, I proposed to her and we were married after a two year engagement.

After the wedding, Sarah finished her degree and started talking about having children. I asked her to wait a few years until I started earning enough money and she agreed. Kids went on the backburner for a while and Sarah dedicated herself to creating a home for us while I went to work. A few years passed and I finally got the promotion at work.

Sarah was ecstatic and we both agreed that we could have the baby. Sarah and I tried for only two months before she became pregnant. She was thrilled, but my happiness was mixed with a bit of apprehension and nervousness. I didn't know if I could handle taking care of another human and it was scary. I decided to suck it up and put on the brave face for Sarah's sake.

Our son was born and Sarah devoted herself to caring for him. Because I had been promoted, I started spending less and less time at home. The job was demanding and I was working 70+ hour weeks. I had to wake up earlier and earlier while Sarah stayed in bed and slept. When I came home, Sarah always looked relaxed and happy, playing with the baby.

I know that I was being irrationally jealous, but I started to resent Sarah. Taking care of the baby seemed so much easier than my job and I hated how all of the financial responsibility fell back on me. It has been two years since I started feeling this resentment and I started going to a therapist, but it's not helping. I hate coming home every day and trying to speak with Sarah.

She has never had a job and does not understand how stressed I am from working. It's like I am speaking to a child whenever I try to discuss anything like finances or any topic more in depth than what is taught in high school. I don't want to be married to someone who doesn't feel like my equal. I know that this isn't Sarah's fault, but I feel like I am trapped and I just want out.

TL;DR: I'm bad at summaries. Wife and I married and she always planned on being a stay at home mom. I took a promotion at work and now I feel resentful towards my wife for staying at home with the baby. It doesn't feel like Sarah is an adult and I don't know how to handle it.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

cathline wrote:

Keep up the counseling. And add couples counseling. You two have communications and expectations issues. You originally agreed to her never working. You are changing the game now. Why didn't she work before you two decided to have a child? You write like you agreed on that. You should probably get a vasectomy so you don't have any more children, just in case.

Taking care of a house and child is not easy. You can pay 20/hr for a maid, more for the cook, and I don't know how much for a nanny while your wife works. So you can come home to an irritable spouse, a cranky baby and someone who doesn't want to hear about your day. For some folks - you are living the dream. You get to come home to a clean and happy household.

Your child is being raised by a primary parent. You don't have to worry about your wife cheating on you or doing d$%gs or ab#$ing your child or being a financial drain. She isn't dumping her daily woes on you - instead she is taking care of things - getting the furnace fixed, waiting for the plumber, painting the spare room, decorating for the holidays, making good food, etc.

And you resent that. You may need a different counselor, but keep trying. Here are some other things that can help -- Hit the gym - get those endorphins flowing! Learn something new - take a parenting class or two. Teach your child to ride a tricycle or fly a kite, etc.

OP responded:

I'll try to suggest the couples counseling. And you are right, I did agree to all of that in our relationship. That's why I feel like a huge hypocrite; because I am being hypocritical now. I know enough to realize that, but I don't know what I can do to fix it.

We do have a maid that comes by once a week and honestly I would trade the clean house for a wife that can hold a conversation with me about anything other than reality tv or what happened in church. And yes, I resent it. I don't know why I do, but I do. I don't want to feel this way :(

[deleted] wrote:

I have a friend who I went to school with. Both to business school after, lived as roommates together post college, but he moved on. Makes 3x the amount I do, which is impressive for anyone his age and education.

And he has no time with his wife or kids except one day a week, has no friends anymore. I on the other hand work hard at my job for my 8-9 hours a day, come home and it's gone. I'm not worried about work ever, and it's great. I like my job, I love my home life.

upsidedownward wrote:

Have you talked to your wife about this at all? I know this is repeated in every post in this sub, but it still bears repeating: communication is key. If you haven't done counseling with your wife yet, I'd definitely suggest it. If she's in the dark about how you're feeling, then it's not fair to her or your child if you just jump ship before seeing if it can be saved.

TimePanda wrote:

First of all, taking care of a kid is no walk in the park. Once they start moving around, they're basically looking for new and creative ways to kill themselves constantly. Yes, your job is demanding, but she isn't laying on the couch with the kid watching soap operas all day. Now that that's out of the way, what does your therapist say to all of this? You say that it's not helping, but what exactly is being suggested to you?

I'm guessing that you haven't communicated much of your feelings to your wife, so that would be my suggestion of where to start. You could also discuss what she wants to do when the kid is old enough to go to school. My mom was a stay at home mom, but once I was in school, she got some part time jobs, joined the PTA, and volunteered all over the place.

I feel that it really helped her establish herself and make her feel good. Lastly, I think you need to start dating your wife again. Get a sitter and go out, just the two of you. It could be that you just don't see her as her own person any more and just as a mom, losing her individuality in your eyes.

Two months later, OP shared an update.

I made this post a few weeks ago about the resentment I started to feel towards my wife after I had been promoted at work. I just want to say thank you all for the advice and I have a very happy update for you all. I took a week to think about the post and my own feelings. I talked it out in therapy and I came to the conclusion that I could not keep working 70 hours a week.

It was destroying my relationship with my wife and son and it was also destroying my happiness. I spoke to my boss and he was very understanding and told me that there was enough in the budget to hire an assistant for me. My assistant started two weeks ago and my work load has been dramatically reduced.

I have been able to work a normal 40-hour work week and I am now finally coming home before 6:00 PM each weekday! I spoke with my best friend about my wife and he knocked some sense into me. He told me how jealous he and the rest of our friends were over my wife and how lucky I was to be with a woman who is super-model attractive, yet driven and kind and compassionate like my wife.

Later that night, I drank a bottle of scotch and got sloppy drunk. My wife found me puking in the bathroom and in my drunken haze I confessed to her everything I was holding back. I told her about how I felt left out because I wasn't around for our son, how I didn't feel connected to her like I wanted to be, the whole nine yards.

She held me and let me cry it out and she told me that she loved me. The wife and I are headed to couple's counseling, but we also signed up for cooking classes to build a common hobby.

She says that she will stay by me as long as I stay be her, no matter what happens. I love her and she loves me and I think we are going to be okay. One last detail that I can't think to put anywhere else: All three of us are taking a month-long vacation after Christmas in order to have family bonding time. Wife and I both agree that we need this vacation.

TL;DR: Pulled my head out of my a#$ and told my boss that I had too much work to handle. I got an assistant and relieved myself from that stress. I spoke with my best friend who knocked some sense into me about how wonderful my wife is. She and I are going to counseling and we are going to work it out.

The internet was really happy to hear the update.

Lordica wrote:

Good for you! Now keep it up. Don't do the stoic, suffer-in-silence type. Trust your wife to listen to and care about your problems. A SAHM can still be educated and sophisticated. Encourage her to grow intellectually with you.

OP responded:

Thanks. My problem was that I let my prejudices cloud my view of my wife. She studied hospitality management and I wasn't able to view her skills with the same respect as I gave to math and finance.

I'm learning different techniques to rewire my brain into having a less conservative view. I made a list of all the skills that Sarah has and how they blow mine out of the water. Her skills aren't any less worthwhile than mine, they are simply different. CBT is helping.

RuhWalde wrote:

I'm curious - is Sarah planning to start working at all once your child is in school? From your original post, it sounded like she didn't work even before the baby came along, which was surprising to me. It would be a shame for all her skills to be underutilized forever.

OP responded:

She wants as many kids as I can give her (and support comfortably) and she wants to get pregnant again in 2016 after we have been in therapy for a while and our relationship is solid again.

She was not working before the baby, but she does things like interior decorating and she likes to prepare elaborate meals and parties. She's also active in our church. Sarah says she wants to practice her skills and perhaps start catering or designing custom wedding invites.

sunflower-power wrote:

I'm so glad that you have decided to cut back on your work hours and reconnect with your wife and your family as a whole. I just want to suggest something that perhaps you haven't really considered: being a stay at home parent is hard work, too.

Since you were only seeing your wife later in the evening when you got home, you missed all the tasks she did that day before freshening up and settling down to await your arrival while playing with Baby. You were gone early each morning, before she got up and her own workday began. I've been a stay at home parent before.

Every time you try to do some task, the baby or toddler comes along and messes it up again or creates a worse mess than before. Your couch gets scribbled on with pens when you're not looking, you sometimes clean urine and vomit and poop off your own clothes multiple times a day. Things get broken, things get dirty, things get very untidy in only a matter of moments.

It's not as easy as it looks from the outside. And while you're caring for the baby, you're also rotating through the daily/weekly housekeeping tasks like interminable amounts of laundry, cooking, shopping, running to the dry cleaner's, cleaning the bathrooms, mopping the floors, cleaning up spills and puke and diaper accidents.

It can be difficult to even get a chance to shower yourself. It can be extremely difficult to get things in order enough so that by the time your husband gets home from work, he sees his wife and baby both showered and clean, quietly playing in the living room together, with dinner on the table.

A stay at home wife and mother typically has had no adult conversation all day long unless she spoke to a cashier at the grocery story and she's probably aching for a normal conversation with you. You're probably already aware of all of this, but it's very difficult to compare your office job with what LOOKS like sitting around playing with the baby all day. It's not a fair comparison.

Perhaps you could sit down with your wife and ask her what her days are like, what her daily routine is. Tell her you want to know everything, from poopy diapers to the sippy cup that somehow got milk on the ceiling. I think that once she opens up about how much she actually does on any given day, you may feel a lot less resentful of what appears to be an easy job.

Your wife sounds like an honest, hardworking, lovely woman, and I'm only saying these things to suggest another perspective, not to be judgmental. After having been a stay at home parent in the past, if I was offered that choice or a full time job to choose between on scales of effort, I'd take the full time job any day of the week!

OP responded:

See, I always knew that taking care of the baby was hard work, but my mind was only able to rationalize that my workload was harder. I knew it was irrational and it was akin to complaining that I had 5 finals to study for vs having 4 finals to study for. No matter what, it's a lot of studying.

I think it would be a good idea to bring up what you wrote about in therapy with her. I've been coming home earlier each day and for the first time in a long time, I was able to see her in her yoga pants and a pony tail while trying to care for a screaming baby. You're right though, I do need to work on this part of myself and my relationship.

Also, this is why I am not going to raise my son as I was raised. Growing up, I was constantly told that men are the breadwinners, women stay at home with the kids, your wife should have dinner on the table and bring you a beer and a pipe, etc etc. To be frank, it f--ked me up and it's costing me thousands in therapy to come to terms with myself and fix my attitude.