Dear Prudence,
My wife of 20 years has finally turned the corner over the last year and I am too resentful to enjoy it. She’s had pretty high levels of anxiety and depression for all of our marriage. She has very few friendships, and was only close to her parents who recently passed away over the last two years (one year apart). She never tried treatment, or to get help for her illness. For the seven years prior to her parents passing away, she showed me no affection in any way as she cared for them. I clearly communicated that this was an issue, and thought about leaving, but I didn’t at the time because of our young kids, and frankly, I didn’t want to look like the bad guy for leaving her when she was in a tough situation caring for her parents at the end. (Yeah, I should have just manned up.) She refused help from anyone, and I wasn’t a priority—just her parents and the kids. I am a more than involved father, doing bedtime, homework, appointments, all sports, and much of the home’s upkeep.
Now she is happy again for the first time in a decade, and made a career move that was really great for her. However, when my mother and father passed away she didn’t travel with me to their funerals, and didn’t help me with resolving any of their estates. After seven years of no contact, and doing my own thing with the kids, I shut down my desires for her. Now she thinks I must be looking elsewhere, but the reality is that I am so resentful about the last seven years that I can’t enjoy her being what I wanted all along. Do you think I should just leave or try therapy? I can’t ever see my feelings returning so I don’t see the point.
—Too Resentful to Enjoy