Don't want to stay, but literally can't leave

[essex23]

So I have been married before...twice before.  When my second marriage ended, I kind of became an extreme introvert, rarely went out, rarely tried looking for someone else.  Then out of curiosity, I thought I would try looking up the girl I dated in high school to see where she was in life, not expecting I would find her anywhere.

I did. And she wasn't in a healthy relationship either at the time.

Well...we started talking again.  JUST talking. Eventually, she had enough of his alcohol and prescription drug abuse and she left him, divorced him, and we started dating again.  Two years later we were married like had told her I wanted in high school.  All was well.

Until it wasn't.  Which didn't take long.

Sex was never a big thing in our relationship when we were dating, but at the same time, it shouldn't have been almost absent.  I think in the 2 years we dated, we only had sex like...7 times?  And on our wedding night...zero. Nothing.  She got sick from mixing vodka martinis with gin martinis at our wedding dinner.

We didn't consummate our marriage until almost a year later.  And that was also the last time she touched me.  Ever.

 

We've been married for 7 years this November, but I am at the point now that I don't want to be with her anymore, and not just because of the complete and total absence of sex in the relationship.  She now claims that one of her previous relationships is to blame for her lack of sex drive because he beat and abused her for years, but then makes comments on how she always wanted kids of her own but knows she won't have one.  Well yeah, you have to have sex for that to happen.  Which doesn't.

But now I am in the situation that due to her numerous and myriad health issues, she literally is almost completely unable to care for herself without me.  She used to have a great career as a buyer for a local university, but she suffers from chronic and extreme migraines, and doctors were either unwilling to put her on FMLA to protect her job or were never able to find a cause or fix for them.  So as a result, from 2016 - 2019, she has lost 3 jobs to migraine attacks.  Pair that with my career hitting dead ends or layoffs all last year and now with this new apocalypse, I am at my wits end with her and my marriage.

I feel less like a husband and more like her chef, her nurse, her driver...anything but her husband.  She spends most of her day in bed from either her migraines or whatever other medical malady she is afflicted with at the time (panic attack, anxiety, too hot, too cold, UTI, back pain, I could go on and on here, and her medical issues could put her doctors kids through college), we sleep in separate rooms, and when we are together (which is mainly at night for dinner) we just put on shows we watch on Netflix and we have our heads buried in our phones playing games or something else...yet she accuses me of always being on my computer all day during the day (which I am...trying to find a new job) and on my phone all night...when she has no room to talk. 

So now my problem is multi-level in nature:

1) Not wanting to be with her anymore

2) Can't leave her because she literally can't survive without me

3) I don't have a stable income of my own now because of the virus to move out if I wanted to

4) Her family loves me because of how good I am to/for her and would actively hunt me down if I left her

 

Even worse, I got on Tinder out of sheer curiosity, and while the vast majority of "women" on there in my area are just little girls basically selling themselves for money, I found someone who makes my heart beat fast just thinking her name to myself.  And for the first time, I honestly feel that she is the woman I was actually meant to be with more than anything.

 

So I am literally in an unwinnable scenario here.  How can I leave a woman I no longer love as I should, who literally can't live without me, and try to begin making a future for myself both on my own and then for the woman I have such strong and intense feelings for and truly want to be with now?  Especially when doing so would mean completely relocating overseas as she has a primary residence in China (purely coincidental and not something I was looking for) with a secondary residence here for when she visits here for the company she owns. 

[kendahke]

My daughter has a saying: How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

First, you need a plan of action.  You leave by planning your leaving.  Get information--don't operate on emotion and speculation.

You find out the cost of getting a divorce. You find out how much of your assets you are willing to part with to support her til she gets on her feet.  You find a couple of app jobs delivering food to amass the money you need to do what you need to do.  No more sitting around watching Netflix and scouring Tinder.  You do what it takes because no one is going to ride to your rescue---you need to start swimming to shore if you don't want to drown.

What you don't do is allow yourself to get carried away by your new savior. This chick from China should not be reason you clean up your life--you need to be doing this for you or else you're going to find yourself in yet another mess it's going to take an act of Congress to get out of.

Your wife can most certainly get on FMLA--I went on it last year to take care of my dying mother and for some time afterwards to grieve. It's a federal program to hold her job while she handles medical problems, so why they're not signing it is a mystery--she's not asking for vacation time or just time off without pay.   It sounds more like she needs to go out on SSI disability if it's like that for her.   FMLA isn't a permanent thing--it's only temporary and you have to have money to survive on because you don't draw a paycheck while on it. Does she generally take care of her health, but let herself go after she got remarried to you?

She will have to downsize her living arrangements considerably, as will you, if she doesn't want to take any responsibility in addressing her health.  And her family will just have to understand that or take her in and support her themselves.

But first things first... put Miss China on ice for the time being. That's only going to serve to frustrate you and cause you to make unforced errors.