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I'm surprised by this. In every couple I have known that ended up getting divorced, it was the wife who was putting in more effort in order to try and repair the relationship. Now that is only perhaps 5 or 6 couples, and of course I am an outsider, so it's possible things looked different from inside the marriage, but from the outside this was the appearance at least. It was pretty evenly split as to which partner was the one I was talking to, but pretty unilaterally the wife was the one pushing for counselling etc. As far as I know none of them were ended by cheating, but form the "grown apart" perspective. Of those, I think the wife was the one who filed for divorce in one and the husband in another and I am not sure on the rest.
In every experience I have personally had, the woman has always been the one doing the most to maintain the relationship, though, so I think it's likely from the repair perspective as well, which makes sense. Maintaining and repairing a relationship is emotional work which is much more likely to be feminine coded.
Where the wife is having an affair I can see this changing however as the emotional target of their work may well be the other guy. But where the wife maintains an emotional attachment to the husband it seems highly likely she will be the one working most to fix it.
I keep trying to write a thoughtful and well-balanced post recounting my own experiences on this matter, but it always turns into me venting about the wife. So I'll not post anything substantial, but I do have to make a post to stop myself from constantly writing more text only to scrap it again.
Sorry.
No need to be sorry! Sometimes things hit too close, and sometimes a rant is what is needed. Not even high decouplers can generally decouple from everything.
Don't tempt me, lest I spill tens of thousands of words on the subject, to nobody's benefit and everyone's detriment.
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Describe this effort. Was she sucking his dick more? Giving him more space for his hobbies? Encouraging him to spend more time with his friends? Noticing he needed another beer? Offered to watch his favorite show with him and not ask a million questions because she wasn't paying attention on her phone?
Or was she dragging him to couples therapy so she and the therapist could harangue him that he needs to whittle away even further at the 15 minutes he gets to himself in the shower to hear his own thoughts to fulfill her needs more.
In every relationship/marriage I know of, the man is working more hours doing 50% of the housework, watching the kids, keeping the budget and investing. Their wives are consistently reducing their hours or quitting entirely to be stay at home moms, while still expecting their husbands to go 50/50 on housework and childcare, and still complaining that their "needs" aren't being met.
The number of things their husbands do that "don't count" is astronomical. Only female coded housework like cooking, cleaning and laundry goes on their mental tally. Yardwork, repair, maintenance is all invisible. I rebuilt the wall of our garage that was rotting out and my wife complained that I didn't do anything that weekend. It's a ubiquitous experience among the men I know.
My wife got chickens. She tells everyone she does all the work. I let them out, I feed them, I top off their water, I get their eggs, I put them up at night. I even built their coup and set up the fence for their pen. Lately she's been wanting them to free range, but I've gotten stuck with letting them out, putting them back up, and checking on them from time to time.
Once or twice a month she cleans the chicken crap out of the coup. Now she wants a dog and promises she'll do all the work. My reticence is causing her to invoke a lot of therapy language about her "needs".
A buddy of mine's wife constantly complains that he's not doing enough, when he changed jobs out of his dream career so she could be a stay at home mom, with the house she wanted, and the new car she wants. He moved across the country like she wanted so they could be closer to her family. He sucked it up and had more kids than he wanted because of how she felt. And it all amounts to zilch to her. It's just expected. The bare minimum.
The only world where a man isn't putting in enough effort is a world in which all his contributions are profoundly devalued or ignored. As is often the case I see around me.
Jesus, dude, the marriages you say represent every relationship/marriage you know of sound positively miserable.
I have known of relationships like those you describe, even been in at least one with a woman who would probably fit your personal model of all women (i.e., unreasonable, harrowing, emasculating Void) but I have personally been in, and seen many other, relationships that do not follow that model at all. And yes, I've also seen relationships that fell apart because the woman was putting in the effort and the man had checked out.
That you think "Putting in the effort" means "sucking his dick more and bringing him beer" tells me the problem may not be exactly what you think it is.
If your couples therapist is ganging up with your wife to tell you to cut down on your shower time, you have a truly crappy therapist.
This is kinda antagonistic and unworthy of you.
This whole series of exchanges reminds me that everyone, myself included, is reasoning from first principles that we derive from our own lives and relationships. Check, as it were, our privilege; and set aside our resentments.
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Then you are in a very different bubble to me. Someone joked up above about how given she does all the households paperwork she would have to file a divorce for him as well, and that rings true to me. My brother's wife is the one who organizes the bills, and the bank accounts, same with my cousins wife and so on and so forth. I don't know a single relationship where I am familiar enough with it, to see those things where the woman is still not doing the bulk of the housework/child rearing and working.
If the work you do is not being valued then you need to make sure your wife understands it and values it. If she doesn't then that is a shortcoming of hers. If she says you didn't do anything, tell her you spent 8 hours fixing the garage. Tell her you spent 2 hours cleaning up and feeding her chickens.
I've been married twice. My 1st wife was a stem cell scientist , my 2nd wife is a lawyer, from different backgrounds and continents. Both of them value (or in the case of my first wife valued before she passed) the work I did for the household and vice versa. I have never ever in my life in any serious relationship not felt valued or that they did not have my back. But part of that is setting and enforcing your own boundaries early on. Your wife doesn't need to give you space for hobbies. You're a grown man. You certainly have to be cognizant of how much time you are spending gaming or whatever, but she doesn't get to tell you no on that. My wife came out the other day while I was raking up the leaves. She told me I had been working for too long, she had made some hot chocolate, that I should come in warm my feet in front of the fire and then go play "your barrel game" (otherwise known as Baldur's Gate 3), so I could relax for part of the weekend. But even if she hadn't it is up to me to make time and space for the things I want to do. You are not responsible for fulfilling ALL of your wife's needs and she is not responsible for fulfilling ALL of yours.
What you are describing are unhealthy relationships where your input and work is not being seen or valued. But that is in my own experience not the norm, either in my own relationships or the majority of those I see around me. If your wife isn't doing her share of looking after the animals she wanted, then tell her she has to. Create, lay down and enforce your own boundaries. Because no-one else will do it for you. Now ideally you should have been doing this from day one. You're complaining essentially about being walked all over, but you are the only one that can change that. Say no when you need to do so. You have to value your own time and work before anyone else will. You are not a martyr. You're the head of your household. In my experience almost every woman responds well to having control taken in a protective and confident way. Draw up a rota and tell her, tomorrow is her turn to feed and clean the chickens and stick to it. You don't take a turn until she does. When she minimizes your work, correct her. In private at first, but if she keeps doing it, simply state the truth to whomever you are talking to. People wanting pets and then not wanting to spend time looking after them is a cliche, everyone knows someone like that. Don't let her make you smaller than you are. You're a fucking rockstar and she is lucky to have you!
For whatever it is worth, I am sorry your work is not noticed and valued in your relationship. I am sorry your wife doesn't have your back in that way. That sounds like it must be a miserable and isolating experience. You sound like you work hard to look after and provide for your family, and to improve their living conditions. I know that takes a lot of work and dedication, and I applaud you for it, even if no-one else does.
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