at a loss need advice
I apologize for the long story to follow but I am at a loss as to what to do next. I will start with the fact that I am a self made man, came from nothing to being very successful. I have been married to my wife for 8.5 years now and we have 2 wonderful kids. I love my wife and I love my family more than life itself, I am the sole provider for them and my wife stays at home raising our children, which leads me to my dilema. When my son was younger (about 1-2 years old) her sex drive completely dropped off and I mean totally, well as he got older it picked up a little bit but not much. Being that I want to be the understanding husband I encouraged her to do what made her happy and at that time it was losing weight which I did as well to help out. She lost 70 lbs and was in great shape, however the sex drive did not really return. My son was 4 at the time and although I was unhappy with the intimacy/sex in my marriage I could live with it as pushing the issue or trying to do what I could to improve it was met with little if any success. Now when my son was 4 she told me she wanted a second child, which I was ok with however I did say that she had to anticipate the added work load and that it meant the sleepless night again. I was working long hours to provide the best life I could for my family (on average 11-12 hours a day 5 days a week) and I made good money providing a very nice house, and a newer vehicle. Despite my work load I did what I could to help out around the house and I also renovated my kitchen and flooring in the upstairs to please my wife. At that time my wife was pregnant with my daughter. When she was born she became the apple of my eye, my little princess. I was very happy. My daughter slept well until she started teething, and now she does not sleep well at all, adding stress for my wife and it has been ongoing for about a year now (she is 2 at the moment). I know that its not easy so I do what I can to help out, I took a job with less hours (8 hours a day with occasional overtime) and even lost some more weight myself. During her pregnancy she had regained nearly all the weight she had lost and she is currently attempting to lose it again which I am hoping will help. Sex is a rarity these days, going 4 to 8 weeks at a time, and I talked to her this past summer on vacation about it hoping to get a real conversation about it however her response was that it will eventually return. Now I am a patient man however to say that I am frustrated would be putting it mildly. I tried confronting her yesterday to get things out in the open, I told her that I love her and desire her and that I love my family however I am unhappy with our current intimacy and sex lives. What she threw back at me is that she is always tired, feels like a walking zombie and that she is unhappy. I asked her what she wants from me, I provide for my family, I do help out with cleaning, dishes, etc. I fix the vehicles when they break and financially we are doing well.
But I digress, at this point I fell like she expects me to be superman and get up at night with my daughter (which I did last night and went to work on 4 hours of sleep), provide for my family, in essence do it all. I feel that providing for my family is my half of doing things, and that although I get the whole deal with my daughter not sleeping well is hard I am not sympathetic about it. I worked my ass off to provide the life I have for my family, what I do is not an easy job (heavy equipment tech) and it is dangerous by nature so being sleep deprived is not a good idea. Am I being selfish or ignorant? Right now I feel like my good nature is being taken advantage of and it is pissing me off. I have given her a very comfortable life in my eyes, and what really worries me is that I see where this is headed as she would rather bury her head in the sand and not deal with things, where as I confront and deal with problems on the spot. When I confronted her about it yesterday all she said was that I was throwing things in her face which I do not believe is a fair assessment. I know that on the current path the marriage is headed right for a divorce once my kids are older. Other women have tried to tempt me but I want my wife, the woman I fell in love with, not other women. I am far from a controlling husband she is free to come and go as she pleases, she has social outings with other moms a few times a week, I insisted that she become more social and go out with the girls at least every second week as I knew she needed it.
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