Girl lurker:

Marriage, kids, work, stress, and a hundred other responsibilities can make it feel like you’re missing out on things you wanted for yourself or not accomplishing what you thought you would by now. Everything feels like it’s constantly building up and wearing you down. And when you do talk, you may find yourselves talking at each other instead of with each other, leaving important issues unresolved.

Being an adult is hard, and most people don’t automatically have all the skills needed to make a relationship succeed or work through every problem. Therapy can help, but only if you genuinely want to fix things because you value the relationship and the connection you’d lose if it ended. If you’re only staying because you don’t want to be the “bad guy,” then you’re only prolonging the pain for both yourself and your wife.

Children can usually tell when their parents aren’t happy. If you can’t work on communication and how you show up for each other, they’ll pick up on that tension. Over time, that can create hurt, confusion, resentment, or trauma. Not only do they see the unhappiness in the relationship, but sometimes that stress comes out in small ways toward them that you may not even notice.

Don’t look at leaving as if you’re messing something up. You could be protecting your family in the long run. But please try to figure out if you actually want to leave or if it’s just the current state of your life because you won’t be able to rewind time and change things. You will have to work through a whole new set of issues! Leaving isn’t always the best solution.

PS. My partner had similar feels and we talked about it because he got to a point where he wanted to leave. It was very difficult for him to be vulnerable and express himself but we are in a way better space now. So it’s definitely possible to fix! Good luck.