My wife and I have been together 6 years, married for 4. She has a 14yo son from a previous marriage, and I can’t have kids myself. I just retired from the Military after 20 years and I’ve been looking forward to this for awhile, she knows how much I’ve been looking forward to it because we’ve discussed it countless times and I told her after my 20yrs I just wanted to relax for a bit and work on my mental and physical health for awhile, after being on multiple combat deployments and other missions and she said she was fine with me doing that, that I deserved it.
When I met her, I was 14yrs in my career, and she was divorced and working as a server, with an 8yo son. In her previous marriage, she had been a sahm up until the last year of their marriage. When we dated we discussed what we wanted to do and I told her I liked the idea of retiring early (before 50), and she said she wanted that too, but also wanted to build a business selling baked dog cupcakes and treats.
While in the Military, I made enough to support us, but she also worked as a server and her ex-husband ended up becoming disabled(he worked as a day laborer), and she only gets $250/mo of child support for her son and no alimony. While dating she never really complained about her job, but after we married, I noticed her complaining more and more and she finally told me she wanted to quit to become a sahm and work on building her business. I reluctantly agreed, on one hand I wanted her to be happy and build her business, plus she only made like 400/wk serving, but I told her I didn’t want to support our family alone forever because I felt it was too much pressure on me, she said ok that her business should be profitable soon.
Anyway, now we’ve been married for 4 years and she hasn’t worked pretty much that entire time, and it seems she’s given up on her business. She says it’s “too much work” that she has to make an LLC, open a business account, create a logo, get business insurance, pay rent at a location, etc. I’ve asked her if she plans to go back to work since she’s basically given up on her business and she said “yes, i’ve been looking, but the job market sucks right now”. Her routines is to take her son to school in the morning(it’s a 5 min drive), make breakfast, watch netflix or watch the news while eating and scrolling social media, then going to the gym, then running whatever errands like picking up a few groceries, eating lunch, then talking on the phone with family members, then picking up her son from school, coming home, cleaning or doing laundry, and cooking dinner, that’s pretty much it. It might vary a bit like she might go shopping, do her nails, or whatever but that’s basically it.
I’ve been retired from the military for four months now and between my Pension, my VA disability, and if needed, my investments(I have a nice nest egg), I make enough to support us comfortably. But she’s already asking me if there’s “another job I’d like to do” and I told her no, that we had agreed I’d take time off to heal my body and mind and that’s what I was doing. Right now, I do yoga, meditation, go to they gym, go to therapy both group and individual sessions, and do hobbies like hiking, mountain biking, gardening and reading books/listening to podcasts. I also help her cook meals now, clean the house, do laundry, I do the yardwork, do the vehicle maintenance, and do 100% of the finances. But sometimes, when I’m at home she’ll do subtle things that make me think she doesn’t want me home, like sweep under/around me while i’m reading a book. Finally, I asked her what was wrong, if she didn’t want me home to speak to me, and she told me she preferred if I worked because she didn’t want me “underfoot”. I was shocked, because this is what we planned and discussed and now she’s changing the script.
Any advice on what I should do in this situation? We already enrolled in therapy, but I won’t lie, I have considered divorce, because I feel like i’ve been cheated and lied to.