[alea]

I'm in my mid-forties, married, and has two kids in primary school.

Lately, the voice in my head telling me that I'm a loser is getting louder and louder. Due to a career choice in my mid thirties that didn't go well, I'm now earning only $4k+ per month, which is way much lower than what my peers are getting. And also lower than my wife's. My wife and I contribute equally to our household expenditure every month. We also share in the household chores.

She made it clear to me on more than one occasion that she resents me for being a low earner. She resents me for denying her dream of being a stay-at-home-mum and that she has to work to bring in money, since my sole salary is not enough for the household expenditure.

Whenever we quarrel, she will always pin the cause to me being a low earner. Recently when we quarreled about our infrequent sex life again (I told her I hope for our sex to be more frequent than our current once-every-two-months), she even brought up my lack of earning power into the topic. She says because of my low salary, she needs to work, so how can I expect her to work in the day and then still expect her to satisfy me at night??! Well, those words hurt me badly, and I've since told myself to give up expecting any more sex from her.

I don't know if any brothers here do the same, but at night I will scroll through Facebook to look at my friends' happy families photos (especially now when a lot of them are on overseas holidays). To be frank, I envy them. They have achieved much in life which I never had - they have cars, careers, houses and happy spouses. I acknowledge that part of it stems from the glamorizing aspect of social media, where people post only the positive aspects of their lives. But even so, when I look at the happy photos of my friends with their spouses, I know that my wife and I don't can't even pretend to pose for such happy photos. That's when the voice in my head reminds me that I'm a loser. And the realistic state of my marriage reinforces the message that the voice is very true. It's not just my imagination, it's a fact that I'm a loser.

Thanks for reading this far. The voice in my head is building up and getting unbearable. If I don't vent, I might just go crazy one day.