My wife is constantly threatening separation. I think she is bluffing and just trying to emotionally abuse me into conforming to her desires. The way I try to treat my wife is the way I’d want my daughter’s husbands to treat them, with compassion, empathy and composure, I rarely raise my voice to her even when she is poking and proding me. She admits to acting certain ways to get a reaction out of me. Which is a form of abuse if I’m not mistaken?
What I’ve been dealing with is she goes on Instagram and consistently see’s influencers and their esthetic houses and how they’re stay at home moms or male influencers with mostly female audiences saying men should make enough money for their wives to stay home, I agree.
My dilemma is that right now I make VA Disability I am rated TDIU 100% which is $4500/M which would be the equivalent of working 40hrs a week at like 30/hr. I watch the kids everyday. On my income alone we live paycheck to paycheck having 3 kids
She recently got a job paying 19/hr. And is full of resentment that I should be the one working.
I am fully willing to go to work, in doing so would cut my disability down to 3000/M + whatever my hourly wage would be. She would be a stay at home mom.
Now the complicated part. If my wife does want separation then she would have to get a job and we then both would have to pay for childcare. And the kids would grow up in day care which we both hate the idea of which is why I think she’s bluffing.
Everytime she nags me about something she’s just trying to emotionally abuse me or shame me. But it’s really just a trauma response to her horrible childhood and a fatherless home. I tell her to go to a therapist to resolve her childhood trauma and she takes it as an attack like the relationship is failing because of her, which doesn’t align with her agenda that I am the one to blame.
Requesting advice