Warning that this is long, but I just need to get this out there. I’m just looking for advice and perspective.

TL;DR version is that we married young, grew apart, and now are disconnected. No cheating or abuse involved. I feel like I’m just a paycheck to her and I’m just around to support her dreams while I get little in return. I love her, but I don’t see her changing. I’m scared of divorce, but it might be the right thing.

My wife and I have been together for five years, married for two and a half. The last few months have been very difficult for us and I feel like we’ve been in limbo since. It started one night by her saying she thinks we should separate, and that she’s been thinking about it for a couple weeks already. She said I can have the house, the money, and she will just go back to live at home with her parents. She just wanted to be out of this unhappy marriage.

Her reasons for thinking this way is that she feels like she can’t be herself and has to walk on eggshells, we don’t have enough fun together, and we don’t have deep conversations.

I kind of understood her points, I know my flaws and I work on those things so I can be better for myself and for the marriage. For the last point however, she meant that we don’t have enough conversations about religion. She’s been more and more religious throughout our relationship and marriage while I had just started going to church when I was dating her. I am not big into it, but I do it because I want to make her happy.

Anyways, I really didn’t say much during that conversation and just asked her at the end if this is it, but she didn’t give me an answer. I was pretty broken over this as she really put a lot of thought into it before we could really talk about those problems more. I slept in a different bed that night and the week to follow. The next day she came into the guest room and suggested we do a daily devotional and scripture readings each morning, try it for a month and see what happens. So, I did that for 6 weeks with her. Nothing changed, she said she loved me more than ever but her actions did not show it.

For the duration of our marriage, and maybe a bit before we got married, I felt that I was just the safe choice for her. I felt that way because she’s always had a plan for her life, it was to graduate college, start her career, get engaged, get married, get a house, then advance career further. All those things have been checked for her. I have a good career that affords us a house and to be able to live only on my income. She was switching jobs frequently in the nursing field until she recently started her own med spa with her mom. For awhile she’s put less and less effort into the relationship, putting other things above me and our marriage. Less effort when it comes to passion, pursuit, priority, and partnership.

It has been hard for me to communicate my feelings with her, because when I do she doesn’t really listen. She always has an explanation for something she did that I didn’t like, and not only that, she takes it a step further and tells me how I should think and how I am wrong. We end up just going in circles trying to figure out a problem and I have to concede my points just to brush them under the rug. Then when it happens again, I get upset, and she gets upset at me for being upset. Cycle repeats.

Because of that trait of hers I don’t feel respected and heard. She is a loving woman, but I just feel like I’m lesser of a person than she is, or like my opinion is less important than hers. I brought up us getting a credit card so we can stack points for vacations, since we haven’t been on a vacation since our honeymoon. She said no because Dave Ramsey says no. She’s unwilling to compromise because she thinks there’s only one solution to things, and if it’s not her solution then it’s wrong. She’s also pretty closed minded. That bleeds into our sex life, which is very vanilla and she’s essentially a starfish. It also bleeds into our ability to try new things and have fun as a married couple.

She’s told her mom about our problems recently, and she essentially had the same things to say about her as I just mentioned (needs to be more open-minded, more than 1 solution to problems, compromise, needs to listen and do instead of giving explanations and not accepting responsibility).

Those are the big points, other than that our relationship has been pretty good. These things just have been getting bigger and bigger and now we are here. I’m meeting with a divorce lawyer later this month to discuss my options. We don’t have any kids but do own a house together, and live in a community property state. Her business can do very well, margins are huge, so I will be missing out on the potential to live an upper middle class/higher class lifestyle down the road. It’s just not very profitable right now since they’re just starting. I understand how stressful it is, and I do as much as I can to help her out with the business. I’ve also essentially taken over all of the house chores and still work my full time job. I still get pushed down in her list of priorities, still get starfish sex, and still doesn’t really listen to me.

I’m just lost and confused on what to do. I want to be in a happy marriage, and she’s an amazing woman, but I’m just unhappy now. She’s also unhappy, and we are both aware of our sides.