What did you do when you realized you married the wrong person?

Were you able to salvage the marriage? Or was divorce the only option for you?

My wife and I have been married for 6 years, and have a 3 year old child together. I don’t even know how to put all of this into a cohesive thought, but the realization that the person I married has turned into the antithesis of who I want to spend my life with has eaten me alive. She was a selfless person when I met her, but has only grown to care more and more for her own needs.

There’s just been so many things, her fiscal irresponsibility that’s led to me filing bankruptcy, her incessant need to yell at our child for the smallest things, her inability to cook and clean and instead expecting me to be the sole housekeeper of the home, constantly requiring my undivided attention when she talks to me but then immediately tuning out the second I talk to her.

To think that three years ago, she had asked for a trial separation because she grew tired of always having to be the adult in our marriage. I did a complete 180, changed myself to be a proper adult, to be the perfect husband and father. My friends couldn’t believe I had changed, and people I meet now don’t believe I used to be so awful. All of that only for her to decide to take it for granted and expect the most out of me and contribute the least, wherein I’m constantly having to sacrifice and subsidize to maintain an iota of peace in the house.

The only thing that’s kept me from considering divorce now is the fact that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to afford to finish the last two years of my degree, and then my child and I would be even worse off than we are now.