Been together for 29 years, married for 24 years, high school sweethearts,have a 9 year old girl and 8 year old boy. Both of us are professionals, I have run my own business for over 20 years, she has been a RN for 15. Me 44 and her 43, both of us are experiencing midlife crisis, and me andropause her perimenapause. 10 years ago prior to having kids we both worked hard at our job and business. We agreed that when we had kids, she would go part time while they were young and then home school together with her taking the majority of time to do it. By the time her post partum went away she was 37 and began having most all the signs of perimenopause but was in denial of it till the last couple years. 5 years ago she decided she could not handle home schooling and we agreed to send them to charter school. When we made that decision I thought she would go from part time 24 hours 2 days to fulltime 36 hours 3 days. Expecting her too in combination with our aproaching midlife and physical issues drove a wedge betweeen us for 3 years. We both have had surgeries and health issues, none of which have handicapped us permanently. Each year when the kids went back to school she would use stress, back pain or exhaustion to justify working part time while kids were in school. In 2008 we had already began loosing our financial footing and faced loosing our modest home we built together to raise our family. 2 years ago I just let it go and accepted when we loose our home it would not matter as long as we were together and that worked out well for both of us as we ignored the elephant in the room. This past spring we were doing so well together she asked me to sell my biz and stay home to play homemaker why she picked up a third 12 hour day and went back to school. A great Idea we both agreed but did not act on it to think about it for a while. During the summer on her own she said she was going to work three days a week in the fall. I have watched her for the last 5 years say that then not do it only to excuse it by spending days sometimes weeks being miserable about my expectation or other things she cannot control. Then like a switch she would come out of it and be fine for a while. She would continue to threaten divorce and say she has no love for me at all to the point I could not reason with her untill she came out of her mood swing. Now in the last few months it has become more likely we will loose our home in the near future. My biz has seen better years but I am still able to make it work despite a loss of income.It appeared as though she was willing to watch us loose our home while just adding a third day to her work schedule would solve our problem and actually help us start to get out of debt. I have also actively worked to cut our expenditures and keep our credit pristine during this time but have had to use credit expansion to keep our home. If I thought for second that she could not handle it physically I would never even entertain the thought. But seeing what she can do when she is feeling mentally happy there is no question in mind she could. It is embarressing enough to have to rely on her to even do this but I fear we will loose our whole family, home and marriage if she does not and she has said we will if I resent her for not doing it. The question is, am I being unreasonable to expect her to work just 3 days a week if it means keeping it all together. Is it wrong to supress the resentment i have for watching her not do it for the last few years and in the future. This is starting to blow up right now because I mentioned half way through september she had only added one day for the month and not scheduled any others until I said something in which she took her ring off and said she wanted divorce. She said I was mistaken and that she was gonna add time when she felt she could but that she could not be with a man that resents her. I beleive things will calm down soon as she was PMSing during this and realizes she is using a nuclear option for a negotiation. Part of my resentment does come from how fickle her attention to homemaking becomes when she gets depressed. For the first three years and when she was pregnant I took care of a good chunk of our inside and all of our outside homecare to help out but since I let go 2 years ago I left all the inside up to her and accepted what she did despite how I felt she had the time and ability to do a different level of what she did. I can never agree to a divorce because in my heart I know we were ment to be together and I have no interest in being complicit in the destruction of all that we have built because we cannot put our midlife issues and challanges in perspective. I dont want to control her at anything and work hard to support every decision she makes no matter what the issue, yet she see's this issue as me trying to control her, I see it as me trying to deal with the fear of loosing everthing. We saw 2 marriage counselors when this started and both said get divorced. Two winters ago I spent several months with a shrink to get a differnt opinion of what was going on, after stating he could not help me anymore without her with us he felt I was doing all I could to make it right. She declined to attend at my request. Looking for some insight

Please use paragraphs in the future. The Great Wall Of Text is tough to read.

But I did manage to get through it, so I'll summarize for others:

married for 24 years, two kids under 10. He runs his own business, his wife works as a nurse part-time. Financial difficulties, he wants her to work more, she says she will but never does. This frustrates him. She sees him as controlling and threatens divorce.

Okay!

To begin with, Dr. Harley actually advocates the husband earn all the money needed to support the family. Are you okay with that?

Have you read the basic concepts yet?

Welcome to MB.

ami, your post is very hard to read. On a computer screen it is just a jumble. It would help you greatly to put this into paragraphs of no more than three lines per paragraph - you will get more responses if people can read it easily.

Als, could you state the issue that you are looking for help with, in no more than three lines? What would you boil the problem down as being?

Are there any financial commitments you can unload to make things easier? Live on a simpler budget?

Or would you say this would make you resentful while she wasnt stepping up?

Would she agree to temporarily work longer for a short while with the clear understanding she is free to return to the old routine once the wolves are driven from the door?

Do you understand that some people have an emotional need for Financial Support?

Going by your old arrangement it sounds like you have a need for Domestic Support and she has a need for Financial Support.

If she is going to sacrifice this need for you it has to be done enthusiastically by her or it wont work. It also can only be short term or her feelings for you will be compromised by her FS needs not being met.

Would you feel the same way if her domestic workload were still as heavy as it was in the past?

Well that would be great if I was able to go back to biz levels I had for the first 15 years. She wanted a career in nursing and I was happy to put her through school as she did for me. But for now she can easily make twice what I can and in much less time.
I do not think she would be happy with only me working, we bult a lifestyle for 15 years with dual full time incomes that both have been cut, hers first five years of kids by need, by choice second five years of kids. My income has been cut almost in half since 2008.

Well, is there a way to increase your income? Would it be beneficial for you to seek employment and sell the business? Or is there some tweak you can make to your current business to increase revenue?