'AITA for telling my wife that my life would be better without her?' UPDATED
"AITA for telling my wife that my life would be better without her?"
Informal-Animal-7891
My wife (Anne) and I have been married for 13 years. I am 43, and she is 46. We do not have children. When we first began dating, nobody could make me happy like Anne.
She always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say to me when I was down. But over the past decade or so, she has really started to show her true colors, and a lot of what her ex husband said to me about her has begun to make more sense.
For example, I have a very high-stress job. People bring me problems, and I fix those problems. But when I get home, 9 times out of 10, Anne just has more problems to throw onto my plate.
She doesn’t work so she’s free to do anything she wants to solve said problems during the day, but lately she has even begun making lists of things that she wants me to do after I work all day.
But my biggest issue with Anne is that I can’t ever really open up to her about anything. Whenever I talk about something bad that happened to me, she’ll either try to one-up me or agree with the person who wronged me.
Last Friday, I had a horrible day. There was an enormous problem at work that basically all fell on my shoulders to solve. When I was crossing the street after work, I had a green signal, and a bicycle blew through a red and sideclipped me.
The cyclist yelled expletives at me and then rode away. I thought about calling the police because it was technically a hit-and-run, but there was probably nothing they could do.
When I got home, desperate, I talked to Anne about what happened. She listened and then immediately took the cyclist’s side. I reiterated that the cyclist ran through a red light, to which she responded that cyclists aren’t obligated to stop.
When I told her she was wrong and tried to put the issue to rest, she began frantically googling laws. She found that in our state, they can treat lights like a stop sign. She began triumphantly reading the law to me loudly, word for word, getting louder when I kept trying to tell her that I wasn’t interested.
At the end of her spiel she gave me this incredibly arrogant look as if she was right. I just stared at her for a second and said that my life would be better without her.
She got incredibly upset, shrieked at me until her voice was hoarse, and then packed a bag and left to stay with her parents. She has texted me all weekend demanding an apology, but I haven’t responded. Did I do something unforgivable here?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
FakinFunk
Sounds like problem solved actually. You said what needed saying, and she left. Done and done. Do you need help on first steps for contacting a lawyer or something? Because otherwise it sounds like you got her out of your house with minimal effort.
_Ravyn_
Sounds like thisn was just a tiny straw that finally broke the camels back. OP should stop worrying about this situation with the cyclist and look back at ALL the times he has felt not only unsupported but have had that she dumped in his lap that she could have dealt with herself while he was working. Think about the totality of the situation OP.. and then contact a lawyer. NTA.
AdForward3384
You have no children together and you dont thrive being her husband. Why are you still married? You might take a hit financially in the divorce, but would your life not be better being a bit poorer but free of her?
e_therealone
Wait if the cyclist is supposed to treat it like a stop sign then shouldn’t it stop and yield to oncoming traffic (you, who has a green light)??? So she’s wrong and still triumphantly claiming victory? Personally I think you could have elaborated a little on how she sucks the life out of you, but that’s me being petty. I hope the best for you!
ghjkl098
NTA It sounds like you did it again, look at you, you little problem solver! Well done.
xjprcx
I mean if you said that I assume you want a divorce.
joshhupp
I wouldn't assume that. It was probably a realization that she brings nothing to the marriage and he would be happier alone (I've had the same epiphany.) Saying it to her would be an effort to make her realize how he feels and make a change, but he found out she's not interested in changing or fixing anything.
Many_Monk708
If she doesn’t work, and she’s not a comforting sounding board in your life… what is her place in your world??? I mean seriously??? She sounds insufferable. You could totally get a sweet Bernese Mountain Dog who will agree with EVERYTHING you say and totally back you up every day. And they’re excellent at cuddles.
She sounds like she prizes being right over being happy all the time. I seriously think you might be better off taking some space from her, temporarily or permanently. It’s up to you. But you need support, and you’re not getting it from her.
accj30
She seems extremely tiring to me, one of those who destroy any relationship to be right. I believe that her going is a blessing.
Endora529
NTA. She brings nothing to the table in this relationship besides misery from what you’ve written. Let her stay with her parents. She played a part for you and now her true colors are out.
OppositeTwo8350
The only thing worse than being married to Anne for 13 years would be being married to Anne for 14.
Ok_Food4342
I’m confused. If a cyclist can treat a red light like a stop sign, but that means they have to stop, right? What state is this? I’m calling shenanigans. If you really feel like your life will be better off without your wife, then why don’t you divorce her? She reminds me of my ex. Every time I would share a conflict or something I had, she always took the other person side. She never took my side, ever.
12 days later OP came back with this update:
Two weeks ago, I had an argument with my wife, Anne. This argument stemmed from Anne's incessant need to contradict me and everything I say. Anne left in a fit of rage to stay with her parents, and then kept spamming me with texts demanding an apology.
A few days after Anne left, I felt something I hadn't in a long time at home: peace. I didn't have someone nagging me about literally everything I did. I didn't have to eat my meals in the "correct" order (something about pH balance that she probably saw from some brainrot creator on TikTok).
I didn't have to wash my feet after getting home. I could actually enjoy myself, which is impossible when Anne is around because I found many years ago that she tends to get the most aggressive when I seem like I'm either in a very good or very bad mood.
I then did something I never thought I'd do: I reached out to her ex. He was more than eager to talk about Anne and her shenanigans, so we met up for drinks. He and I both had near-identical experiences with her.
Anne is, through and through, a pretty horrible person, especially to her romantic partners. He cited irreconcilable differences for divorcing her, where it was no specific event, but just a long list of terrible interactions and coming to the realization that he detested her as a person.
During this time, Anne went silent on me. I used this lull in our relationship to visit a lawyer, who told me that due to the nature of laws in our state and the fact that Anne is able-bodied and educated, the chances of me ever having to pay alimony are basically zero.
I called Anne at that point. She, for some reason, still expected an apology. I told her that I wanted a divorce. She threatened to "take everything" from me. I said she could try, but any further contact should be done through my lawyer.
I'm fully happy to split our assets fairly. I'm fairly sure that Anne will agree to any deal that gives her more than half (it's just the way she is), and if it's a 55/45 split, I don't care. All I'll have to do is act like she got the better of me, and since she's an idiot, she'll happily agree.
Thanks to everyone who responded in the last post with advice. Tons of you suggested divorce, which I think was what actually got me to consider it seriously.
Here's what people had to say after the update:
My advice is to not spend attorney fees fighting over furniture. This is an easy one to let them “win” on because the price of attorney fees piling up over furniture doesn’t make sense when you can easily buy top of the line replacement furniture for what you’re wasting on fees.
Yes but pretend you are really in love with certain pieces of furniture. Have your lawyer say "Under no circumstances is anne to get the kitchen table" she'll feel like shes won when you "cave" on it.
I did this. We negotiated through a mediator. I told my ex, ‘listen, we can spend 20k having attorneys argue on our behalf or we can spend 1k on mediation. Both options will get us to around the same point
Then i negotiated for 50% but she wanted cash at hand. So she got half of my 401k. And i bought her part of the equity in our house. She technically got around 60% of cash assets and felt smug about it. But she blew through the cash in under a year and my home has significantly increased in value since then.
I’ll admit it was a bit hard pretending like she ‘won’ the negotiations but I’m not sure she would have agreed to what she did had i not.
But i avoided attorney fees, kept my house, got 50% custody of my kids, don’t owe child support, don’t have alimony, and she waived any claim to future retirement plans which is huge because I’m a federal employee. It’s about as big a win as i could have hoped for given the divorce horror stories i read online.