Me: 47. Her 47. Two elementary school kids. Married 11 tumultuous years.

Throughout the marriage and 5 years of dating, the red flags were there but I was merely drifting through life and didnt know/honor my intuition. She was more established in her career and pushing to settle down.

I need advise from men on this. My main dilemma is how a divorce will affect the kids and the resultant decline in standard of living. Neither one of us can afford to keep the family home but we have considerable equity. The cost to rent an apartment will be as much as our mortgage. So the math is clear. We both have established careers but she makes a little more and has a much larger retirement account. I know when all is said and done, I will be fine.

Other than this, I am done with the marriage and emotionally ready to exit.

Reasons why I think the marriage is beyond repair..

1- she is too enmeshed (enmeshment is actually a psychological word.. who knew...) with the affairs of her siblings all of whom are women and divorced or single mothers. She is enmeshed financially, emotionally. She paid her sister's mortgage for years, supported a divorcing sibling, purchased lavish vacation package for her mother and one of her nephews... totaling to the tune of a hundred thousand over the course of 8 years. Throughout this time, she worked overtime, afterhours etc. while I worked and took care of the kids. She would occasionally do fun parent appearances on weekends and uses them as proof that she is a good mother.

She now has three college age children of her siblings' move closer. They stay with her other siblings but as usual she will be guilted into supporting them. None of them works and offer little to no value or set a good example to our kids.

2- her family of origin is her priority. It is almost the kids and I dont count. She picks up arguments in their defense even when she knew damn well they were in the wrong. Siblings guilt her into dolling out money all the time.. She is everybody's problem solver but mine

3- she is disrespectful. She has attacked me physically on multiple occasions. Once for giving our son too short a haircut, another for telling her to wake up on a weekend to feed the kids so we could make it to soccer practice. She has thrown a laptop (on my lovely thinkpad....) almost broke my foot in the process

4- she has ambushed me into arguments with her family members around where they would 'witness' the situation or come to her defense. One of her siblings' kids called me names and ran off.. yes, they are ratchety

5- she has BPD. hot and cold. No highs but the lows keep getting worse. I totally avoid her and sleep on my own. I have become very well versed in psychology because of her.. spent years reading and listening to podcasts to understand this. I am convinced she suffers from this, as does her mother, and siblings

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Given the reasons, I know even considering to stay is pathetic. If you have been through a similar experience, please weigh in- kindly of course.

Cheers

DM