I have run out of ideas, energy and hope about how to deal with my wife and make progress in our marriage. We have been married 20 years and have six children (all our own). I am a teacher and have risen up the career path to being now a Deputy Head, in a job and a school I really enjoy. To do this, we have moved area three times, from South London to Bristol to North London and we're now just outside Reading. My wife has moved with me, and encouraged me to move, but this latest move she has resented hugely and has not settled at all. We moved in 2011, even though I got the job in 2008, commuting daily by car (about a three hour journey each day in all). However, the commute was killing me (almost literally on occasion) and I was unable to help in the house as much as I would have liked (something she hugely resented). The move to Reading was precipitated by the fact that we decided to have number six. I'd wanted to stop having children after four but my wife was obsessed with having more due to the fact that our first was a girl but the next three (and then four) were all boys. She was desperate for another girl. I resisted for more than two years but ultimately agreed to have another, effectively saying that we would have to move to a (much) bigger house and closer to my work to contemplate it (although this was not flagged up as non-negotiable, which probably it should have been). Anyway, we moved and the house we live in is much more practically suitable and I'm only seven minutes from work. However, my wife hates the area and now almost daily rails against everything to do with it, saying that she misses London and that she wants us to move again, to a big city or somewhere near the sea. This is wholly impractical for all of us, especially as my eldest is now 14 and doing GCSEs. I have applied for another job near Manchester but didn't get it and, frankly, the move to Reading has been so stressful, I can't face going through all of it again. I have encouraged her to get a part-time job, get more help in the house, join a committee, even look on Mumsnet but absolutely nothing is worth it. To be fair to her, she has invited people for coffee but it doesn't go any further than that and I realise it's hard. But nothing is getting any better: we row quite a bit and the kids know she's unhappy. We're in a fortunate position that money for us is not a problem as I inherited quite a bit of money and so we have quite a fortunate existence without financial pressures.
What should I do because I'm fed up with the erosion of our marriage. She has always been someone to think the grass is greener elsewhere and, when we were in London, she often used to moan about the house there and the people we knew. I think so much of this is connected with the fact that she no longer has another pregnancy to look forward to and her father is now ill and so they don't visit as once they did (they live in Lincolnshire). But it still comes back to the fact that I've 'ruined everyone's lives' because of my 'ego' in wanting to move jobs. I'm therefore now working hard at work and home, have no time for myself, but am constantly made to feel guilty about how everything has turned out. We have both been in counselling separately but it would be difficult to organise it together because of childcare (and, she says, what would be the point?). Any comments on our situation would be most gratefully received!
What should I do because I'm fed up with the erosion of our marriage. She has always been someone to think the grass is greener elsewhere and, when we were in London, she often used to moan about the house there and the people we knew. I think so much of this is connected with the fact that she no longer has another pregnancy to look forward to and her father is now ill and so they don't visit as once they did (they live in Lincolnshire). But it still comes back to the fact that I've 'ruined everyone's lives' because of my 'ego' in wanting to move jobs. I'm therefore now working hard at work and home, have no time for myself, but am constantly made to feel guilty about how everything has turned out. We have both been in counselling separately but it would be difficult to organise it together because of childcare (and, she says, what would be the point?). Any comments on our situation would be most gratefully received!
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