H50, W45, kids under 10. When W & I met she was leaving school. I was independent and dynamic. I became a SAHD about 10 years ago but still earned some extra money and did some very cool things. In the last 2 years, W had wanted me to do more work but it was nigh impossible because I was doing so much childcare etc on my own. W started earning more but I was contributing nearly as much as I was using some money that I've saved (we had a lot in savings). We were not short of money at all but perceived status could well have been an issue. MIL for example is very much impressed with status. MIL may have preferred her daughter to have married someone with a higher status even if they were not a nice person. MIL has even said to me "I wouldn't have married you".
W always had a sense of entitlement to a big house etc. Ironically, we could now actually afford it due to a lot of savings but didn't spend it because we couldn't find the right house in the right location.
In the months before W left she made a few nasty comments (out of nowhere and like a wild animal) about me not working as much. I saw a really nasty side in those few moments that I'd never seen before. Sometimes I was working at home all night, grabbing a couple of hours sleep in the morning once she had woken. W would then make a fuss in front of the kids saying I was sleeping-in. I would say I'd slept 2 hours when she'd had 9 but it didn't seem to matter. It seemed she wanted the kids to think I was lazy and to give that impression to the IL.
W seemed to be jealous and resentful of me spending more time than her with the kids. They listened to me but W would have to ask them several times to do things. I would tell the kids to listen to their mum, whereas W would constantly undermine me in front of them.
I had let myself go putting on some weight but that really started before we were married when I started to do well at work.
I had been going through some depression due to the death of my F. Ironically, I was coming out of that at the start of the year, had started to lose weight and feel much better but it seems W had already started planning to leave.
W hadn't seen me in a suit with a briefcase for years and those are the types she works with. A couple of weeks before W left, I had a biz meeting, put on a suit for the first time in ages. That night I told W that I'd got my mojo back. After we split, wife shouted at me that she'd been planning to meet me for coffee that day after the meeting to finish with me and tell me in a public place. It was only by chance that I'd missed her call to meet.
My hair was quite unruly and she had preferred it when it was neater - which of course was when I used to wear a smart suit. As a surprise, I got a haircut back to how she wanted me to have it... but she left that very day so she didn't know until after she had left. Also that day, I sent flowers to her at work (which was a first). I hadn't known she was leaving me that day.
"What were her reasons for not making time together?"
W was working full-time plus studying for exams and we didn't have anyone to help with childcare. At weekends, W was very, very slow at getting ready to go out for the day. It was so bad that most of the day had gone before we'd leave home. If I was taking the kids into school, W would kiss them goodbye and not even think about doing the same to me.
A couple of months before W left, her parents were around for a week in their 2nd home but she spent those evenings with them. I realised to myself that she had chosen to be with them rather than me.
W also stopped giving me any credit for anything good. It was like she didn't want me to make her happy. W was incredibly abusive towards me, rewriting our history etc. I'd never seen her tantrums so bad - so much so that I packed some things to leave. W told me to stay - but I now know that she had already been planning to leave me when saying that.
When W is with me, her eyebrows look very tense, her pupils are tiny, she looks stressed, defensive, angry, guilty, like a wild animal about to go out of control... but she seems overly happy when I see her speaking to other people and is pretending she has more friends than she actually has. W lies to me constantly about things she doesn't even need to lie about. The lovely W I once knew isn't there.
