Your Questions About Marriage Counseling Advice Questions

I”ve been married for almost 3 years now. I’m a pretty attractive guy and I stay physically active. My wife is not a physically active person, but when we were dating, she kept her weight lower. My wife also worked full time. She is also a dog lover who had indoor/outdoor dogs. I moved into her house in 2006 and married her about two months later. Within six months, she quit her job because she wanted “to help me run my business” and moved her brother in (who is mentally challenged). My business was barely earning enough to support myself much less two people. Because of her leaving her job, we had racked up more than $30,000 of credit card debt. A few months after my wife left her job, she put on 40 pounds. Also, during this time, the indoor/outdoor dogs became just indoor dogs. I am not a dog lover and detest dogs on the furniture. The dogs have been on the couch and the bed. After about a month of helping me with my business, she soon got depressed because the money wasn’t coming in like she expected, so she starting loafing around and just surfing the internet. She finally started working again midway through 2007, but she still hasn’t gotten a full time job. Her stepdad recently passed away and she is now in more of a depression. My father passed away this year as well. We went to one marriage counseling session and we were supposed to go to another but that got cancelled due to the passing of her stepdad. I told her that I would be willling to set aside our differences until she is done mourning, but I don’t know how. I find myself snapping at my wife and brother-in-law a lot. My brother-in-law constantly asks me questions just to ask me questions. I feel like I am trapped in this marriage and am forced to live in a life of misery. I am more unhappy being married than I ever was being single. This is actually my first real relationship as well. She constantly brings up going our separate ways, but never wants to follow through on her statements. In addtion, she picked up smoking again because of the stress with her stepdad and the troubles between her and me. This is her third marriage. We live in a two bedroom, one bathroom house, Everywhere I turn, there’s always someone in my face. There’s no privacy in my home. Call me a little sick, but I’m to the point where I feel like punching my brother-in-law in the face and punting the dogs because I’m so agitated. I feel like the walls are caving in on me. Also, I work out of the home as well. I just moved my office back into the home in hopes of saving some money, but my productivity has been shot because of all the distractions. I think about being with other women because my wife chose to let herself go. I know that sounds a little superficial, but I feel like I make the effort to keep myself looking, so my wife should at least take a little pride in how she looks as well. Perhaps someone can give me some helpful advice.
I had confronted her about everything that was bothering me: her leaving her job, the dogs, her brother, her rapid weight gain, and her smoking. I’m trying to objective as possible, but I know that is not so. She said the reason why she left her full time job was because she went to the same business seminars as myself and she got just as pumped up about the seminars as I did and she wanted what I had. My defense for that is I had already had a business up and running and when I first started it, I had some money saved up to where I could live for a while without any business. The reason she said she moved the dogs in was because they could get under the chain link fence in the backyard and her previous dog was killed because of that. She said she gained the weight because she got depressed when the income didn’t turn out as she expected and turned to eating.
Although I had my own business. I had a few thousand saved up to where I could go a couple of months without any income. She just put in her two months notice and quit without any money saved. We had our money separate before she quit her job and all of sudden she wanted to join our money together. I felt this was a mistake but I agreed to do it because I felt like I would have been the bad guy if I didn’t. Boy, did I hurt myself by agreeing for her to leave her job. She asked me if it was ok for her to leave her job, but I feel like she wanted me to feel like if I said no, I was being the bad guy by saying she was miserable at her job and she couldn’t take it any more, so I said yes. I feel like when the money ran low, she didn’t take any initiative to go back to work, all she did was get depressed and gained some weight. Then she starting buying more clothes (which is her weak spot) because she gained some weight.
She also had problems with me putting any business expenses on my credit card because she felt like they weren’t necessary, but she wanted to use my credit card to take a $2000 vacation. This is all happening while were living off of my income which was only enough to support me. She told me recently that she had made a mistake and that she thought being in business was going to be a piece of cake even though I told her otherwise before she left. About the dogs, I feel like she has made them a priority over me. She didn’t have them in the house nowhere near as much before I moved in, chain link fence and all. I have brought up getting the electrical fence in, and she gently brushes that solution aside by saying “We could do that……..”, then changes the subject. I recently found out from my sister that I was allergic to dogs. I told my wife about that and she seems to not really care about that fact.
She also complained about not having a nice couch. I got tired of her complaining all of the time, so I got a nice Italian leather couch worth about $5000 from my sister. My sister was nice enough to give it to me. As soon as I got the couch, she lets the dogs on the couch. She started putting a sheet on the couch to protect, but I feel the she doesn’t help. The dogs are filthy disgusting animals and the sheet falls off all of the time. I don’t even want to sit on the couch anymore. She thinks by putting an extra sheet on the furniture or the bed, that will keep them clean. Our hardwood floor feel really really dirty because the dogs are always in the house. As far as the brother, I don’t blame her for moving him because he cannot take himself and we found out a year ago that he has seizures. He’s now taking regular pills for that. But, she didn’t have the brother in the house before I moved in and the mom wouldn’t take the brother in her own house.
Why should I have to pay the consequences? What really raised a red flag with me was that my dad was practically a vegetable in his final years of his life and my sister was taking care of him when she wasn’t working her full time job. She was going to take a much needed vacation and asked me at the last minute if I could help my dad because one of my other brothers flaked out on her. I had a business which allowed me to work away from the home and I was going to do it. I told my wife about it and she had a problem and asked me if my sister was going to compensate me for the two weeks I’m going to be there. This really broke my trust with her. I felt like she didn’t care one iota about my family and would do anything for hers. I guess you gotta take care of your own first, right? Then when my dad died, she happened to be really supportive for a little bit.
As soon as I told her that my dad had some life insurance and I was going to get some of the money, her face lit up and that’s all she asked me about regularly for the next couple of months. She even asked me for half of the money directly. When the money wasn’t coming as quickly as my wife hoped for, she asked me if my sister was keeping the money for herself. I trust my sister with my life, and I felt like this was a slap in the face. When we got the money, I gave her half of it after I tithed 10 percent because I’m not a greedy person although I did feel a little resentment because of her asking. Within one month, she got news that her stepdad was getting real sick. She decided to leave her part time jobs for a whole month to take care of him. I didn’t have a problem with her doing that, but I felt like when the tables were turned, she didn’t give me any kindness. I confronted her about this, and she says she feels like a toad about what she did to me.
She didn’t feel that way about the money though. She felt like we needed the money to pay the bills. I told her that what I did with my father’s life insurance money was my business. She did take her half and pay some of the bills with it. I don’t know if I know how to forgive her for this or if I want to forgive her for this. To me, that was a value issue. Values don’t change throughout your life. I think I want to get a divorce, but a very very small part in my head wants to really make it work since this is my first marriage and I think I’m not supposed to give up so easily. That is another thing. When we were fighting, she would bring up divorce repeatedly to the point that it is now subconsciously in my head. Now that I’m the one saying I want to split up, she wants to keep our marriage together, so she called a marriage counselor. I’ve been to two counseling sessions so far.
We took an assessment test and the counselor showed us how different we are in some areas. His advice at this point was to stay away from each other as much as possible until the next counseling session. This is the last resort before we get a divorce. The counselor mentioned to me that this was not going to be a quick fix, but I wonder how many sessions is it going to take? The sessions are $75 a pop and if we have to go to one session a week for a whole year, that’s $3900. I guess I still do care for her, but I do think about what it would feel like to be single again. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you for your understanding.
I do have to mention that I started reading marriage books to see if it was me being the problem. I do know that everything is not her fault and I have shortcoming of my own, but it feels like I am the one bending here and not her.

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