My wife last night told me she wants to leave. I didn't SEE this coming. We have been married 11 years this past January. We have a lot of debt $20k. She is serious she has been looking at townhouses but they are not cheap. We or I am attempting to refinance our house hopefully this will take some of the strain off of us financially. She tells me she wants $25k and she's gone. We have two young children ages 8 year old boy and 11 year old girl. This past year has been tough on her. In the fall she had a complete hysterectomy. I tried to be supportive. I visited her in the hospital every day. When she came home her mother offered to care for her while she recuperated. I'm being blamed for not doing enough. While she returned home. My job required me to be up late working till ten sometimes past midnight. And I was criticized for sleeping till eleven in the morning. In our marriage my wife did if not all most of basic tasks around the house mow lawn grocery shop etc.. I did these too however due to the nature of our jobs she is a flight attendant. She usually did these while I was working my day job. She is now sick of doing anything around the house. I know she is under a great deal of stress and is on meds to help. I should also point out that after her surgery and recovery she returned to work but lost her flight attendant job in December due to 9-11. She had been with this airline 17 years. She has returned to work working a full schedule. She says she doesn't know "Who she is anymore and needs space and time for me." I should also mention we are Christians me and my wife have been on mission trips which we funded ourselves and have been active in church in fact I have two jobs one of which is working with youth and worship teams at church. My wife doesn't want counseling especially at church "where everyone knows you." I've asked her to stay and I've offered to take on any burden to make her life easier. I've suggested counseling but she has said she's emotionally beyond that. I've told my one boss of my situation at home and he's supportive of me. I'll have to meet with my church supervisor this week and give him the news, as I was scheduled to go on our annual retreat which I cancelled due to our situation at home. If anyone has advice they can offer I could sure use it!

It sounds to me like your W is in the midst of a huge mid-life crisis. She is overhauling and re-evaluating everything and everyone in her life. Due to her medical state and losing her job on top of the usual stuff you can expect her to be confused. I wanted to recommend a few books that have been helping me thru this- "Women in Mid-Life Crisis' by Jim and Sally Conway, and "Divorce Remedy" by Michele Weiner-Davis. These two would be great for both you AND your wife to read as they talk alot about why women feel that they want out of their marriage. For you I would recommend "Hope for the Separated' by Gary Chapman. I found that book to be quite comforting last year when my H was having a huge mid-life crisis and was insisting on a divorce and had moved out for awhile. Take care- lifeismessy

As a flight-attendant, I wonder if 9-11 shook her more deeply than anyone knows...that and a hysterectomy are both life-altering events. Maybe she is depressed?<p>I would help out more at home...the kids, too-they can do the simple things-fold laundry, vacuum, load the dishwasher...I think you should have been doing this all along, quite honestly. <p>I would also start doing whatever I could to get the 'debt monster' off my back. My family has undertaken this in the last year or so and while we haven't made much progress yet, we are still working on it and are in better shape than we were. We try to be very frugal. It takes a lot of strain off us knowing that we are going at least survive, if not thrive.