Second child

My wife's pregnant again. The night she got pregnant (it's not hard to figure out the date because of how little we have sex), the last thing she did when we were done was push me and say, "Could you get off me?"

At the same time, in the past six months, I was considering getting a secret vasectomy between droughts of sex, because I knew she wouldn't notice. Now it's too late, and I'm going to be a glorified slave for the next 19 years. After my wife told her mother and sister, they got immediately angry. My sister-in-law said that she was quitting her job soon, and had to move back in with her mother, and my mother-in-law got mad because she was expecting more money because of it. It's not like I can't afford everything; they're just worried about losing their free money.

Now this is entirely conjecture, but on the same day that my wife told her family the news, she alluded to having an abortion while we were in bed that night, like her family either inferred or outright asked her to do it. I asked very clearly, "You want to kill our child?" She got silent, waited a few seconds, then changed the subject. I didn't let that go, though, and eventually got a "No" out of her.

So basically, it seems that her family would choose having new clothes, restaurant trips, and the ability to not work for years or decades on end (my wife's sister and mother, respectively), over the life of my child. I swear on all that's holy, that if my wife does indeed get an abortion for this, I will divorce her the next day. I can't trust her if she murders our child, whether or not our son is still with us. Maybe it's just me rationalizing, but I think he'll be ok if his mother and I divorce. I didn't have any support growing up, emotional, financial or otherwise, but he will.

For right now, I'm still in this marriage for the long haul, just because the chance my son will succeed as a child of married parents is higher than if my wife and I split up, simply for the stability he gets now. But an abortion will change everything. I don't have the ability to force my wife not to do it, but I can control what happens afterwards.

I started thinking about how a discussion about this would go, and took stock over who really has the power in this relationship. Right now, my wife runs everything, because she steams or gets silent if I disobey any of her commands, but really, it's me who has all the leverage:

- I work 7 days a week from four to fourteen hours a day.
- I give all but fifty dollars of my monthly salary to my wife, our son, her mother, and sometimes her sister.
- My wife uses this money to buy herself purses, shoes, clothes, massages and other luxuries (just a few times a month, but still), while I still haven't bought anything for myself in three and a half years.
- I do all the chores every Monday to Friday night while she's working.
- I do all the chores every Saturday and Sunday night while she sits in front of the computer or TV, and she doesn't lift a finger to help me, even if I just worked for twelve straight hours or thirty straight days.
- She starts the majority of drama between us.
- She lets her mother run wild in our lives, despite me having asked her to do something about it dozens of times.
- I spend vastly more time with our son than she does.
- She hardly lets me go anywhere or do anything with him because of the weather, time, her feelings, or what have you.
- She talks to me and orders me around like a dog.
- She spends 90% of her free time, every day without fail, either on her butt in front of the computer or TV, or on her back while she's napping or sleeping; I can't count the number of times I've come home from work to see my son playing cars by himself while she was sitting on the computer.
- She uses the computer every day for hours while my son and I are awake, the same thing she called me out for a year and a half ago.
- She's gained about seventy pounds in the last four years and kept it all, while I've lost over twenty of the fourty I gained.
- I give her perfect advice on how to fix her problems almost every month, and she ignores me every time.
- I do all this without complaint.

She, on the other hand, cooks lunch for me, and dribbles sex my way once or twice a month. For the former, I can go to the convenience store; wouldn't bother me. For the latter, her slothful lifestyle has ballooned her weight from 115 when we were dating, to almost about 180 now. I just don't find her attractive anymore, so the lack of sex is bothering me less and less.

She has absolutely no power over me anymore, except for when she flips out over something minor and puts our son in the middle of it. Hopefully I can use this leverage to keep her from considering killing our second child, but even more, I hope she was just speaking from fear at being pregnant again.

When she first broke the news, I wondered how this pregnancy would change my life, and almost immediately knew that it wouldn't do much. Other than having another good kid to raise, everything else remains the same. I'm still going to do all the chores in the house. There's not much more I can give than the 98% of my money that everyone takes from me. I still won't travel or have many, if any, friends, and my sex life will still be in the gutter.

The first time she told me she was pregnant, I watched the entire world turn grey when I realized how I had just ruined my life. This time, I was so underwhelmed by the potential change to my life, that all I can remember was using Gangas to beat up Reni in Dragon Force 2 while my wife told me the news.

At least I know for sure when my married life will be done, but honestly, almost 7000 days of this is difficult to wrap my mind around. How many more bouts of drama, sexless months because I lack a good and willing partner, hours of chores, and seven day work weeks are in my future?