My wife makes me depressed and angry

Greetings everyone, I've been with my current wife for almost 25 years. Our relationship has always been rocky. I can say I was genuinely in love for only a week and have felt a huge weight of guilt ever since. From my experience, she's always been melancholy sort of person and has passive aggressively tried to guilt me to into loving her by feeling sorry for her. She's always had a sort of "please love me" demeanor about her. After a few months, I tried to break up with her but she begged on her knees for me to stay. I did, and then we got pregnant. I begrudgingly got married to her and was always angry and resentful, as I felt like she had entrapped me through my son. I was always angry with her and did tell her that I hated her and wished we weren't married. I then fell into a heavy meth problem which lead to us getting separated. The separation was a blessing in disguise, as it renewed some romantic passion in me. I cleaned up the meth problem and, we got back together after a year of separation. There I found out through detective work of my own, that she had an affair with a man for 2 years prior to the separation. All this while we stayed at my parents house, paying for her to go to school, and working the night shift at a salt factory. This introduced a new resentment and consequently killed the respect and romantic feelings I had that led us getting back together. Since finding out about the affair in 2002, I haven't ever recovered and went back to feeling sorry for her, resentful, annoyed as all hell when occupies my space, and guilty that I can't generate romantic feelings again. She follows me around like a lost puppy and constantly has a "do you love me?" tone in her voice that just drives me up the wall. I can't stand being around her outside of sex, and the typical marriage/day to day quandaries and issues. I love her like family and like a sister, but I long to be in synch with a woman. She makes me bored, annoyed, and generally miserable to be around. Nothing I love interests her and in feel the same about her interests, but I feel like I'll be betraying and missing my good friend if I leave. At the same time, I have zero interest in trying to patch things up or go to marriage counseling. I wish so bad that she would fall out of love for me so I can finall just be damn free from her. It's so depressing coming home and I feel like crying every time think about these matters. I don't know how to leave and am afraid of being alone. I've tried talking to her about how I feel that she has low self-esteem and how it feels like it she tries to get sympathy and make me love her but feeling sorry for her, but she feels that she has this great self-esteem. She says she's acts this way because I somehow make her feel as such. That if I had valued her more, she wouldn't feel like she wasn't good enough for me. My question is, if you've got such "great" self-esteem, why don't you tell me to go screw myself and that you didn't need MY validation. That it would be MY loss if I didn't see you the way you saw yourself. That would be my attitude. If she did that, things might change for me.

Greetings back at you. Marriage is challenging enough even with the “being in love” component. I agree this would be a and has been a shallow and false life you. It is also a false and empty life for your wife. This may explain her affair. For women, a marriage is much more than sex. I have noted in other posts that romantic (or passionate) love is a temporary experience. It is a wildly emotional state with sexual and intimate feelings. Apparently you had this for a “moment” and had nothing else to support the marriage when this elation subsides. You have mentioned you have zero interest in fixing the marriage. If you genuinely feel this way, be fair to yourself, her, and your son and find the courage to end it. Don’t infect your and their lives any longer with emptiness. Interestingly, however, after your struggle with Meth you fell back in love. This may suggest that there is more to this relationship than you think and may be worth the long and continuous reconciliation or in becoming acquainted, perhaps for the first time. Oh, and by the way, congratulations on kicking one of the most addicting drugs out there. The issues you address in your post are manageable with mutual cooperation, surrender, and love for the other. I can only imagine how beneficial it could be for your son. Past mistakes on the part of both you and your wife do not have to prescribe the future. However, this would be the tough road without guarantees and would demand surrender to her in ways you have not wanted. It will also require your wife to recognize her shortcomings and attempt to change out of love for you. Like I said, this is the tough remedy. It is much easier to walk away. Keep us informed on your decisions and direction. We are interested and thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much for your response! Nothing new to report yet, but I will keep you posted.