Not Sure Where This Is Going

[Niall11]

Hello All,

I've been lurking for a while and have read the DR book, the materials linked in Cadet's welcome post, and a pretty large number of threads. So many people with wisdom born of pain. My situation is in some ways not as bad as some others I've seen, and in some ways more challenging. Sorry for the length. There's a lot I could say.

I'm 43, my wife 32, and our daughter 2. My wife and I are together nearly 10 years, married nearly 8. Our relationship was bliss in the early years. We rarely argued and, when we did, patched it up quickly. But since then we've had a lot of job stress, money stress, a lot of extended family stress. The year before our daughter was born we suffered a miscarriage. Since our daughter was born a lot has happened, not much of it good. Every couple of months, we'd have a pretty bad argument but would (or so I thought) more or less resolve it. Only in the past 7 months or so have things hit crisis level.

For the past several years I've been self-employed and things have been up and down. We live in one of the most expensive areas in the country so, even with a combined income in the six figures, we've been barely making it since having our child. Last summer a big project I was expecting to give us a boost disappeared at the last minute, meaning money would be tight for a while.

This coincided exactly with W starting a long-desired new job. She's a high school teacher and was teaching in a very difficult high school in the city for 6 years. Long hours, awful commute, totally draining. She came home and just wanted to veg on the couch. I like to get out and about so it was tough for me. Now she finally had a new job and I was very excited for her. Little did I know...

More details in next post...