Infinite_Loser

1.) Marriage counseling and

2.) Since when is someone being lazy grounds for a divorce? I could see if you didn't love each other anymore, but the fact that she doesn't cook and clean...?

*Shakes head*

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Plan9

Q: "What's the only difference between marriage and suicide?"

A: "Suicide is illegal."

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dirtyrascal7

Off-topic, much?

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"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

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ratbastid

Yeah, I remember that. I didn't know whether to congratulate you or console you. Course, you had Dave at home, so I knew it was more toward congratulate.

I believe I'd take that bet. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the stability of a marriage, in general and all other things being equal, is directly related to the age at which people enter into it. I'm not quite sure how you'd settle such a wager (how do you quantify "stability"? Divorce rate doesn't quite entirely capture it.), but it seems intuitively true.

I think I'd be willing to say that the direct relationship between marriage-age and stability has no boundaries--that a marriage entered into by two 70-year-olds is more stable than a marriage entered into by two 40-year-olds, and that two 19-year-olds would be more stable than two 17-year-olds.

I entirely misread that. My apologies. I really need to post more slowly.

Ustwo

When you have 4 kids, taking care of them and doing the house work is a rather important part of keeping things happy at home.

If you work all day, and come home to find your wife hasn't done anything but watched TV and picked her ass all day, its going to get old in a hurry.

Reverse the situation where the woman works all day and comes home to find her husband did nothing but play video games and watch Springer, expecting her to take care of the kids, shopping, cleaning etc for years.

There isn't a woman on the planet who would say to stay with a guy like that.

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Daniel_

I got togther with my wife at 17, and we split at 34. Based on your tale our lives were similar to yours.

She worked, but only part time, and it was never a partnership of equals.

As for the issue of "if you have a cleaner would that be OK", I'd say it's not the issue.

In my office we COULD hire extra staff, and allow some people to sit on their arses, but we don't - we don't because it's a group of people who all input.

In this marriage, he works, she sits on her arse. That is not equitable, it's not respectful, and it's not fair.

If you can't respect someone, you can't love them.

If you pay, don't move out. Get her out. If you can't get her out, at least move into a different room, or sleep on the couch.

Arrange your finances to protect yourself.

Take legal advice.

Don't fight.

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dirtyrascal7

I think the stability of a marriage is directly related to the maturity-level of the people who enter into it, but not necessarily the ages. I think most everyone knows people who act vastly immature for their age, and also people who act quite mature for their age... so I'm not so sure that the correlation between age and stability is as direct as one might think.

No problem.

__________________
"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

"Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him."

ratbastid

There may be outliers and anecdotal exceptions, but for my money the best correlation with maturity is good old age.

host

I'm posting from the POV of having experienced divorce twice, first after a ten year marriage, and court approval of a separation agreement with a 9 month old child involved, and the second time, after a ten year childless marriage.

In your case, I think you have to consider divorce as a luxury that will cause you more risk and possible grief than you're currently experiencing. I'm guessing you have not had an opportunity to accumulate enough wealth for it to figure conserving it to be a mitigating factor in any divorce proceeding.

My second divorce was ugly and expensive, my ex-wife intiated it, and shortly after we separated, the estranged wife of an employee at the business my wife and I owned/operated, called me to complain that my wife was involved with her husband. After our divorce, my ex married the guy. It was ten year ago, it was a childless marriage, and legal fees ran into 5 figures. If your wife is cooperative in divorce negotiations...and why would she be? She isn't now, maybe the two of you can build on that to work on preserving what remains of your marriage. If she isn't cooperative, you'll probably be bankrupted by the legal expenses, or aftereward, you will live like you have been, anyway.

If I'm wrong, and you are of considerable means, you can afford to hire an expert divorce lawyer, and you can stop reading here. You will have some leverage to preserve some control over you situation.

If you're still reading, consider that every dollar you spend on a divorce lawyer is a dollar unavailable for maintenance of your kids and the household they end up living in.

In addtion to the checks you write to pay your lawyer, you will be putting your access to your kids and the financial details and obligations involved in providing for them in the hands of a stranger in "the system". The economy we all participate in is headed into the shitter, for at least the next few years. If you think you want out now, how will you deal with an economy influenced interruption or reduction in your income, while you scramble to make impossibly large, timely alimony/child support payments, mandated by a family court judge relying on a formula of X number of dollars per month per child, and by default, awarding custody of your children to your wife, because you don't have the heart/resolve/money to direct your lawyer's dismantling of her reputation/fitness to parent, in family court.

Suck it up, at least until your 13 year old is 18, or surrender your life to a costly, third party process that will take your financial future and your access and relationship with your kids, out of your hands.

When my son was born, the result of an accidental pregnancy after nine years of marriage, I asked myself, can you continue in this marriage until your son is in his late teens? I doubted that I could, and I resolved to end my marriage before my son ever got used to me living with him and his mother. I changed my work schedule so I could spend every morning with him, right through dropping him off to afternoon kindergarten sessions. I attended his little league games, spent weekends with him, welcomed him when he decided to come and live with my second wife and I when he turned 12. in 1984, the family court judge approved our separation agreement stipulating $75 per week for child support, I always paid at least $100.

You won't be fortunate enough to get terms or access like I got. It wasn't easy, even with those terms and no trauma in my son's experience of a marriage ending and a household breaking up.

Unless there are grounds more dire than you have described, I don't think you have fully considered how much of your own autonomy you would be turning over to others, in the process of divorce, and the impact it will have on our kids. Stick it out for five more years, and when you are down to two children under 18, and none under 10, take another look at it.

Merlocke

it's irrelevant at this point as to what age they were married because he's not asking for the beginning of the problem, but a window with which to find an answer to the issues of now. Granted information from the past does help, but it's time to find out what to do in the now to make things move for the future.

Protect, Save, Build, Preserve.

It's the four building blocks for financial planning. However in this case, I will use it towards your current situation.

Protect your assets - Using corporations or structures to seperate yourself and your earnings from your wife to ensure that you will have sufficient funds to survive alongside provide for your children.

Save - Fix what can be fixed, save what can be saved - now that you're protected, check yourself to see if you are truly communicating properly. Are you communicating to her, or with her? And check the same from her side.

Build - Your relationship with your children. Build good behaviours to change unwanted results. Good intentions are one thing, but without behavioural changes, the result will always remain the same. Build your relationship back up again if possible - see if she is able to agree to being accountable for performing certain behaviours. Reward or punish the behaviour accordingly. Sell the TV if it's what's getting in the way. If nothing's left to build upon, build the case against her with recorded unbiased proof that she is not fit to raise the children on her own. Build the case that shows that your marriage should be either annulled or end in divorce.

Preserve - Your rights to keep custody of the children if she's truly not pulling her own weight. The "going on strike" idea is a good one, but ensure that you don't damage your children's understanding of right and wrong in the meantime.

Good luck whichever way things end up.

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-=[ Merlocke ]=-

ticket

What it all comes down to is what is going to make you happy, or less unhappy.
If you continue in the marriage, you will come home to a lazy wife and a dirty house. If you divorce, you will come home to a clean, and very lonely home. Getting a divorce has very wide spread implications on the lives of you, your wife, and your kids. You did not touch on anything other than her laziness. In my case (divorced after 25 years), she had already "checked out" on the marriage, and on our family. Your wife is just lazy, and from what you say she always has been. Your level of tolerance has changed. Do you still love her? Does she still love you? These are very relevant questions you did not address. You have lots of things to consider. Do your children think you have a happy home? Are they tired of hearing you come home and fight with her about being lazy and not cleaning the house. What does your wife think about the two of you getting divorced? Would she agree to an uncontested divorce? Would she allow you to have custody? The financial implications are an entirely different and painful subject, but you did not mention any concern about that.

For me personally, my ex's behavior justified the divorce, and I tried everything I could to help her get herself together, and my kids know I tried, and they tried to help her as well. It was very important to me that my kids understood that I did all I could to preserve the marriage. Two of my kids were over 18, and I knew with her lifestyle, it would only be a matter of time before she allowed me to have custody of my 15 year old without fighting me in court, and it only took 5 months for her to realize that. So in a matter of 6 months, she was out on her own (granted, with a big pile of money...), I still had my house, and my kids, and there is no alimony in my state if she makes any money at all.

All that being said....it still sucks. There are many things to think about before completely giving up, and a clean house isn't everything. Do you two still love each other?