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Originally Posted by Rose76
Your wife is emotionally disturbed. Your child is seriously neglected and will also wind up emotionally disturbed, if this insanity continues. Someone in this home has to be a responsible adult. That would have to be you. The real question is not whether or not you are crazy for not wanting to keep doing this. You need to get honest because you already know the answer to that question.
The real question is whether you're going to act responsibly, or whether you're going to keep finding excuses for continuing to enable this horror show. Tell us again how your child is your top priority, when you are leaving that 9 year old alone all weekend. Clearly, no one is making that child a priority.
Reading your initial post, I was quite horrified. That will not surprise you because you designed that post to have precisely that effect. That's why I say you already know the answer to your question. After telling us a bunch of stuff portraying your wife as completely nuts, were you hoping we would have a let's-hate-your-wife party? If so, what good would that do? You were also careful to include in your post a rationale for why there's nothing you can do because your wife threatens divorce. That, of course, would be hard on your child. So, gee whiz, you're in a real quandary, aren't you? No. you. are. not.
By all means, come here to talk about where you can go from here. Vent, if you like. But, please - for all your sakes - get honest. This circus needs the plug pulled on it. Dreams and passions and fulfillment are all well and good. However, adults have to take care of their responsibilities first.
Your wife is getting deeper and deeper into chaos mentally as well as in your home environment.
Stop helping her act crazy. This so called "business" of hers would collapse, if you weren't enabling it. It is not uncommon for mentally troubled people to have fantasies of being their own boss in their own business. I've known a few people like that. They always need for others to do a lot of the heavy lifting, while they do all this "dreaming" about their "passion." Not all "dreams" deserve support. Your wife is frantically seeking an escape from something. I don't know from what. But she is pursuing a doomed enterprise.
This cannot be the first time your wife has exhibited bizarre, badly organized, immature, irresponsible behavior. This kind of thing has to be part of a larger pattern. Maybe you'ld like to give us some context. Your post paints a relentlessly negative portrait of your wife. Somewhere behind all of that is a woman who is suffering from some psychological problem. It looks like you've known her for at least 20 years. So you must have some insight into that.
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Thank you for your input.
I spend a lot more time with my daughter than my wife, generally.
I will take her out in the evenings to soccer practice, to the park or walk the dogs.
I have had many conversations with my wife about boundaries between work and our home life, often the response is: I can’t afford to work out of a commercial kitchen.
My wife had a very difficult childhood, and dealt with parental neglect, she was also very poor, and at times homeless.
I think that she is terrified of being poor. And determined to financially “Make it”
This is an admirable level of determination but at the cost of her closest and most important relationships.
She has as times told me that her family has said that I’m not supportive enough, yet when they help her they expect payment for their time.
She usually resents paying them. This is something we have argued about, I’ll tell her that you can’t expect your family to sacrifice their time weekend after weekend for free.
My original post was to figure out if I am selfish for not wanting to spend my free time preparing and serving food. Or 7 hours cleaning dishes every Saturday evening.
My wife has lots of wonderful qualities but has become obsessive about the business and the needs of the business.
As of this time I have set boundaries on my involvement in the business, and let me wife know ahead of time that I made plans to do something myself and my daughter would like to do at the weekend.
Her response is usually ok, but come Friday I will get the silent treatment and the weekend will descend into a panick. Numerous orders posted all over the kitchen, her freaking out because she doesn’t have any help. And how hard it is without help.
I’ll suggest she contacts her family to see if she could pay them to come and help, typically she’ll say they are too slow, or nobody wants to help.
I’ll respond with “why put yourself in this position “
At the end of the day nobody is forcing you to take on enormous order quantities. I believe that she derives a lot of validation from her customers, and as such is seeking out that validation.
She will say things like, we should just separate, you want a women who’s here for your needs. That is not what I want, all I want is a partner.
I started therapy last month and I’m hoping that it will help me with my lack of confidence in my own judgement.
Thank you all.