I am a husband and a father of four little girls, married to my wife 15 years. In the early years of our marriage, we were affectionate and spent time together.

After two years I reluctantly, to put it mildly, agreed to move to my wife’s home state so she could be closer to her family. This was hard as I left my family, friends, job and church, but I ultimately decided she was more important to me than where I lived.

My wife is one of five kids. They are a close-knit family. Dinner get-togethers after church on Sundays and other family functions were a frequent part of our new lives. At the same time, her family began an entertainment farming business on the family farm.

It seemed innocent enough, but I noticed the time spent with her family seemed too frequent, and I began to feel a little annoyed. Her parents seemed to be more intertwined in our personal lives all the time. Our marriage decisions were becoming her family’s decisions, and I regularly found myself on the defensive.

Once children came along, things got worse. What I didn’t see coming was my wife spending more and more time away from home at the family farm. She took on a manager’s role and had the kids with her every day. Efforts I made to discuss making our marriage and family more of a priority were met with indifference on a good day, and an ugly fight on a bad day.

Eventually, she abandoned any sense of boundaries, and the new normal began. We constantly have other kids from the family sleeping over, without consultation from me. Her family walks into our house like they own the place. I often have to dive for cover for a towel after being walked in on.

As a small business owner, I work long hours. The house is overrun with dirty clothes, stacks of dirty dishes piled high throughout the kitchen, and toys everywhere. Not one square inch of floor space in my home could be called a haven from a crazy day.

My wife uses our house as a staging area to get the kids to the farm. She sleeps as late as she can every morning, then gets up and whisks the kids off, leaving milk out, dirty dishes piled high, all the lights on, and litter everywhere. This is what I come home to every night, and she is normally nowhere to be found.

I feel she dragged me here and abandoned me once she got the life she wanted. I’ve tried countless times to talk to her, but I rarely even see her for more than a few minutes. All I ever wanted was a family of my own.

Gabe

Gabe, in ancient Greek tragedies an honorable person falls from fortune to ruin through a miscalculation. If there is one flaw in your character it is this: you loved your wife so much you let her have what she wanted, and your goodness lost you your family.

If her parents walk into your house as if they own it, they are the highest ranking people in the household. If your children are constantly with cousins, they don’t have cousins. They have extra siblings.

This passes the bounds of family helping family in a farming community. It is more like a tribe or cult based on blood, and the condition of your house is the perfect reflection of your marriage: avoided, disheveled and neglected.

There are two options. Succumb to the will of the tribe, or move on. If you yield, you must bury who you are and what you wanted to be. Or, accept that she has chosen a life which doesn’t include you, and do the same.

The harsh truth is you can be the victim of this tragedy, or you can say I still have time. I can make a new life for myself.

Wayne & Tamara