Desperate for Advice

My wife and I have been together off and on for 10 years. We have been together this time for about 6 years now. Before we had a kid, everything seemed so effortless. We would have a little argument here and there but nothing serious. And then the child…

My daughter is 2.5 years old. Unfortunately, my mom died of a heart attack about a month before my kid was born. It really messed me up and for a little while I was just smoking a bunch of weed and drinking. I never did anything bad but was coping hard. I also struggle with OCD and ADHD. I was suffering really really badly mentally the first year and a half or so of being a parent. I still smoke weed at night to calm down at the end of the day. I also live in Southern California where most people smoke, including 95% of my friends and family. Even my wife’s parents are regular smokers. My wife and I used to do all sorts of drugs together when we weren’t parents. Coke, acid, shrooms, MDMA… all the fun stuff. I’m happy we don’t do that anymore but I do still smoke.

My wife doesn’t smoke weed because it makes her anxious. My wife is just a very anxious person in general and refuses to take medication for her anxiety. I have asked her time and time again to please consider taking an SSRI or SNRI and she refuses because “they make her feel numb”. I use weed to relax after my kid goes to bed and my wife hates that I do it. It’s bizarre to me because she never seemed to care before. But now she’s always making me feel bad for self medicating (even if it’s within moderation). It’s really starting to bother me because I feel like I do most of the work/parenting in our relationship and all I want is just to smoke a joint to calm down my anxious ADHD/ OCD brain.

My wife works 4 days a week from 12-8. Her workplace is only open from 12-8pm so she can’t really move her schedule around. I work 5 days a week and am in charge of my daughter for 4 of them. On my wife’s days off she takes our kid to daycare anyway so she can have time to herself. I work more and take care of the kid more. She gets multiple days off to herself where as I get none. I wake up earlier than her, work more, parent more, earn more money, and I get less time off or time to just chill. I don’t really have any free time except the couple hours between my kid going to be and me going to bed.

My wife nitpicks my parenting and tells me she doesn’t want me smoking because “her abusive ex used to smoke”. I told her that I work more than her, take care of the kid more, sleep less, and have less free time and that I just want to smoke at the end of the day to help wind down. It’s legit the only thing I do all day that doesn’t make me feel like I can finally relax. And she gives me so much flack for it.

I dont feel like fighting with her about it but it comes up a lot. I keep trying to tell her that I’m not hurting anyone, and my daughter doesn’t even know that I do it because I do it after she goes to bed before. It feels so harmless to me but my wife is like convinced that me smoking weed is emblematic that my daughter will grow up in a bad situation. I just wish she didn’t care tbh. The other night she was even telling me that she wants “us to quit drinking” neither one of us even drinks that much but my wife has decided we both need to be sober. I told her that I’d be proud of her if she quit but that I’m not participating because I’m ok with where my alcohol use levels are at. She freaked out because I said I don’t want to do that with her.

I just feel like I’m doing the majority of the hard work in the relationship and I should be allowed to self medicate within reason in an appropriate setting. But my wife acts like I’m like an abusive bad parent because of it and it’s really hard on my self esteem. Like I feel awful but I just can’t handle it. I’ve been thinking about if this never get better I might end up having to get a divorce just because I’m tired of being nitpicked for meaningless stuff. I really want to get along with my wife but she refuses to get herself any help, doesn’t help me, and then nitpicks me for any small little thing she doesn’t like. She’s terrible at picking her battles and instead just makes an issue out of the smallest things.

When I try to talk to her about this, she usually denies responsibility or will act like she doesn’t remember doing the thing I’m telling her hurt me. It’s frustrating because our conversations don’t seem to get anywhere productive. Any advice would be helpful. Wanna keep the family together but this amongst other issues is really starting to get me questioning things which is a terrible feeling.