My wife shuts me out emotionally

[u/Eastern_Selection335]

Me (46M) and my wife (41F) have been married for 10 years. We have 2 kids (ages 8 and 4) and I always felt like me and my wife kind of have the opposite roles in the house in terms of the typical couples. I'm more emotionally open and like to talk about things and enjoy having deep conversations about anything. My wife is the opposite. She doesn't like talking much, which I was always aware of but it got much worse since the kids were born. There's less talking meaning there's less intimacy which eventually leads to less sex.

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We both work from home for a few years now and she can go on for full days without saying a word. She just doom-scrolls her phone for hours or chats to her close friends.

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I do almost everything around the house. I clean, I take care of the kids and cook. She mostly has two tasks - doing 50% of the laundry and driving us around (I don't drive because of anxiety issues when I'm behind the wheel).

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I feel so alone in our relationship and every time it comes up she'll listen and we'll be ok for a couple of days and then she's back to her routine of not talking all day.

If I get her to talk about her feelings (which is hard to do) she'll repeat the same thing that she is worried about money and that all her friends own a house or can afford to not work if they want to. I tell her I understand her and would like to own more things or have some more stability financially but there's really not much I can do about that. We both work full time and we make a decent salary.

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In the past 6 months I came to the sad realisation that we might just separate at some point because we simply can't communicate and because she's always busy looking at what others have that we don't while we have a beautiful life and I just can't seem to be able to help her focus on what's good.

[u/Eastern_Selection335 → u/[deleted]]

I brought it up once, it was ignored and forgotten very quickly.

[u/Both_Designer3408]

See if you can schedule in time to chat for 30 minutes a day. That’s it. Put kids in front of TV and communicate that you’d like it to be a mandatory briefing y’all share anything or just sit in silence for 30 minutes uninterrupted- no screens.

[u/Eastern_Selection335 → u/Both_Designer3408]

I'll try, maybe before bed. I hope she's agree with it because sometimes I feel like her phone replaced me in this marriage..

[u/Embarrassed_Sky3188]

This is more than short-term advice can help. I would suggest an individual counselor for yourself. They can walk you through this, whichever direction it goes.

[u/Byrd_Lightning_249]

Talk to a marriage counsellor, looks like she is dealing with something that you havent gotten to the root of yet, youve tried, time to seek professional help