Crosspost "I'm at the end of my rope in this marriage. Looking for advice." from /r/Marriage:

Hey guys, looking for real advice here. If I need to pull my head of out my ass, please don't hesitate to tell me that.

I've posted several times over many years with this throwaway account. For some potentially relevant history, feel free to peruse my history.

My wife has had a rough time at life lately. Her grandma died. Very quickly after this, her good friend died very unexpectedly and tragically. Her biological dad, estranged since she was a teenager, is coming back into her life and kinda throwing things into a tailspin for her.

This has been going on about 6 months. As a result of the chaos above (plus more that I didn't get into), I have been my wife's primary support. I'm mostly ok with this really. Before this latest round of chaos, we'd actually put together a fantastic 6 months or so. Like, really good. The best of our marriage. So I found a second wind to keep pressing forward. But after 6 months, I am exhausted in my role of "support and nothing else".

I am expected to sit and listen to my wife's problems, validate them, actively listen. But when I try to talk, my wife will sometimes just walk away, unaware I am talking at all. Sometimes she'll interrupt me, mid-sentence, to change the subject entirely. Sometimes it seems like she's listening to me, but she retains no memory of our conversation.

She blames a lot of this on increased weed consumption, which is true and obvious. She's been smoking a lot, LOT more than usual to deal with all the chaos. I think the weed is messing with her meds honestly, making her spin out.

And she is spinning out. I am trying to contain it, but things just keep getting weirder. We've been together for over a decade, and only in the last month or so is she into past lives and "soul families". She often talks about new souls and old souls and how she thinks she was a queen or some shit in another time. I don't know. I tune out of this shit. I am atheist and fully think this is all garbage. If she was into this when we were dating, I would not have been able to take her seriously. It is nonsense to me. She is now telling my daughter about this, so my 9-year-old talks about soul families and shit. Honestly, this crosses a lot of boundaries for me. We talked about not raising our kids in religion (as we both were) and filling her head with garbage like this. I fucking hate it. I told this to her, and her reaction was "I should've talked to you before I talked to her." I would've told her not to mention any of this to my daughter. Or me, for that matter. I do not want to hear it, I am not interested in learning more.

She talks constantly about how she wishes we had more money, made more money, had more in savings. As a point of reference, we live in a very nice neighborhood. We have a huge house. She drives a brand new car. Her business makes very little money, but I make well over 6 figures and we have more savings than both her parents combined, yet she still expects and wants handouts from them. I think it is tacky and spoiled, brat-like behavior that I take offensively honestly. Like I am not doing my job providing for her. We never talk about appreciation, respect, or gratitude for our current life. Only about how it is failing her.

She's become fully obsessed with TikTok. She makes stupid videos and makes me watch them. I find them all cringe-worthy and I wish she'd stop. She interrupts our time together to make these dumb videos, and forces me into them when I resist. That may sound like me being an asshole, and maybe it is... but I just don't understand it in the same way she doesn't understand any of my hobbies. But I do not force my shit upon anyone or interrupt our time together to force her into MY shit.

Our sex life is weird. She wants to experiment. We've done a lot of experimenting lately, with a lot of it being things I am not super comfortable with. I'm talking things like role-playing or spanking. These things are very far from things I am interested in or need. But I try. I feel awkward every time. I do not enjoy it. I have asked her to try some things, she just says, "sorry, no, I'm just no comfortable" and that's it. But I still do the things she asks. She asks if I like them. I am honest. I tell her no. But she insists we keep doing them. Our sex life now has fully devolved into a weird thing I am not comfortable with, mostly with us watching porn separately and interacting for as little time as possible. Frequently during our sex, she is watching porn on her phone. I do not like this either. It makes me feel fully optional to the sexual experience, not something we're sharing. If this were every once in a while, fine. But every time we have sex, we start it apart watching porn. We interact very little. I hate it.

And to really top off our current round of issues, my wife told me this weekend she is bisexual. By itself, this wouldn't bother me... I knew going into our relationship that she'd experimented with women, and that she prefers lesbian porn to straight porn. So, I mean, I could've guessed this of course, but we'd never really spoken about it out loud.

And being bisexual isn't a problem for me exactly. But that in addition to everything else is like a weird pattern of behaviors of her just trying to find ways to disconnect from me. In fact, we are not really connected at all anymore. My only role in this marriage is a sounding board. I listen, I nod, I say "yeah, right, sure" a lot. If I try to have a thought, I am interrupted. If I disagree with anything she does or says, I am made to feel guilty for piling on to her other issues. I have asked several times for more from her. To listen to me. To interact with me.

Instead, she makes weekend plans with her friends to go out of town without me. She did it last weekend, she's doing it next weekend too. I know what many of you are thinking, and no, I do not believe she is hooking up with these women on these trips. I think she's just trying to get away from me.

I am very insecure, in this marriage and sexually. I understand that. But I am maxed out. My wife is taking it as a personal insult that I am sorta at the end of my rope in this shit, but I think I've been generally reasonable. But I leave it to the crew here. Any input is good input.

Posted by relationshiptossoutt | 24 August 2021 | Link