My [31M] Wife [29F] and I can't seem to agree on "relationship duties". I consistently feel inadequate, and I have fallen out of love.

Background:

My wife and I have been married for a little over a year now. We luckily squeezed in our wedding before Covid hit (unknowing that it would shut down the world). However, we've been living together for 2.5 years prior, and together for a total of 7.5 years.

Prior to the middle of last year, she never had a full-time job (student and part-time work). After graduating, she finally completed her licensee exams in her specific field that pays handsomely. But for the majority of our relationship, I was the financial provider for the both of us (and our dog).

For the 2.5 years that we lived together, I worked full-time, but had a flexible schedule (self-employed). My daily responsibilities included letting our dog out to potty, feeding the dog, and dropping the dog off to daycare. On the days I get the chance to come home early, I cook and prep dinner. Pick up our dog, walk her, feed her again, and all the hygiene things. (It sounds petty to list small things out, but at this point I'm thinking out-loud).

I never expect her to do anything around the house, besides pick-up after herself and the occasional laundry and dish washing. Occasionally, she makes me breakfast to take with me out the door (which I'm always grateful for).

Now with her working full-time, she leaves early and comes home almost exactly at dinner time. So that means either I'm cooking every dinner, or we'll have take-out. I've also been doing the laundry and dish washing, exclusively. This is all on top of my prior duties.

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Now here's the problem:

I actually don't mind doing all these things. I'm very task-oriented, so knocking things off of a list is not a problem. However, she finds things to complain about, weekly, about "house projects" that only I can complete. I do my best to get to them on the weekend. Last week, I had to take a day off of work just to re-do our closet system (took all day).

Recently, I've been networking more (maybe once or twice a week for happy hour) to add investors to my portfolio and grow my business. So I haven't been making dinner as much. However, all the other duties are still being taken care of.

A few days ago, she said that I'm wildly unavailable. And something about that really pushed me over the ledge. I fell into a mental and emotional hole that I haven't felt in 10+ years. (I was diagnosed with manic depression then, but haven't really had major episodes since). Granted, I am going through a lot of mental stress from work, family issues (unrelated to our problems), and COVID. After hours of talking, we realized that we are just roommates now. We've had sex once in 6 months.

I told her that her expectations of me are a little too heavy for me to handle. But she says it's because I'm not putting in the effort and I'm not available. I truly believe that I am putting in the effort, though. I realized that I don't have the "intimate feelings" for her anymore because I'm afraid of "letting her down".

I suggested counseling, but she doesn't want to. I needed a third person's perspective.

I do understand that story is only coming from my perspective, so maybe I'm missing something? Feel free to ask any questions that there may be confusion about.

Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate any feedback.

TL;DR: I've fallen out of love with my wife because she makes me feel like I'm not enough, (or not doing enough) to make her happy. However, I believe I'm doing as much as I can.

Submitted April 20, 2021 at 07:20PM by throwaway-nyd https://ift.tt/3atUEYV