my wife and I were great together for 14 years. last year, my son started getting into trouble in school. my wife blames me for his behavior. I refuted it. so we would get into heated arguments every time my son got into trouble.

both me and my wife were so concerned about how to raise our son that we fought to do what we each thought was right and this led to us arguing almost daily.

when my wife stopped showing me affection the way she used to, it hit me hard. i tried to be nice to her and show affection to her but she did not reciprocate. this made me feel like she no longer loved me and my whole life came crumbling down. thats when i realized that i needed her more than i thought i did.

thats when i realized that my adamance to raise my son my way could lead me to lose the woman i built my life with. so I apologised to her sincerely and started to listen to her point of view seriously. lucky for me, she still loved me and she listened to my POV as well.

we then started working together on how best to raise our son. in hindsight, the problem probably really was me because she could not overule me while i could overule her. when i didnt take her POV seriously, she felt helpless. when i changed my attitude, and started listening, i realized that yes, she does have a point and I need to take the time to discuss things with her properly to achieve an agreed way forward.

the thing is, when i started listening to her, she reciprocated and started listening to me as well. i was surprised at how much she agreed with my POV after many months of arguing. I guess its human nature to disagree with someone you hate but then change your mind completely when you love them.

Not about my friend there, but I have the same problem now with my kids. More or less the same situation, but not problem at school, mostly house problem. So i blamed my wife because i thought she should be good role model as she is always at home, and same as u, it went to fight almost every day. The thing about us is that we already set the role. I am a father and a provider, so I provided. She is stay at home mum, so she manages home. The problem started when I over achieve, and we started to do well in life. I expect her to over achieve in home management too, and I tend to expect more and more.

Your story made me realized that we are different from each other, and we cant compare our achievement apple to apple. Nothing is as solid as black and white.

We are still trying to adapt, but reading your story made me more realize that we are human after all.