Hello everyone,

A little background, I hope I don't ramble too much. Just looking for some fresh insights.

I am a 36 year old male, married for 5 years with a 3 (almost 4) year old daughter. My marriage has been struggling for a long time, especially after my daughter was born. Soon after we got married I realized I had made a mistake but I was too scared to rectify it. Our personalities, which always seemed to mesh when we were dating and engaged, began to clash once we started living together. The sex became less and less frequent. My wife suddenly got pregnant without us ever discussing it (I believed she was taking birth control throughout) and communication kept breaking down further and further. I rarely express my anger and we don't fight very often because I am extremely conflict averse. My wife does not communicate well but tends to anger very easily. Every time I bring something up that she doesn't like it leads to a terrible argument where she either stonewalls me or says very hurtful things. I have trouble combating this. She is bossy and extremely domineering - traits she always had but that have gotten worse since our daughter was born.

My daughter has been one of the best things that ever happened to me, so I do not regret the marriage in that regard. I am extremely close with our daughter. Since the pandemic I essentially watch her every day because my work is suspended indefinitely. My wife has a...strange...relationship with our daughter. She clearly loves her very much, but probably TOO much. She still breastfeeds her and my daughter has a lot of trouble sleeping without being breastfed. Our daughter sleeps in our bed even though her bed is right next to ours. We have a 2 bedroom apartment but my daughter does not have her own room because my wife uses the 2nd bedroom as a clothes/shoe walk-in closet with items piled everywhere. She also hoards clothes and toys for my daughter, ordering hundreds of outfits and playthings from Amazon and other stores. It's somewhat disturbing. My wife is never violent or hurtful to our daughter, but she can grow easily irritated and angry under stress and that occasionally comes out toward our daughter. My daughter has told me "mommy is mad" or "mommy is nervous" or "mommy is frustrated" several times.

I've grown more and more frustrated myself and we have had several arguments where divorce was mentioned. My wife seems like she would welcome it and I have very little emotional attachment to her at this point so a divorce would not bother me on that level. However, I am a product of divorce and my mom and dad still don't speak after 30 years, so I definitely want to maintain a good co-parent relationship. Despite not loving her in the marital sense anymore, I still love her as a person and refuse to hate her. But during these arguments I saw some disturbing signs - my wife started insisting that she hates where we live, always hated it, hates our apartment (which I owned prior to marriage) and hates the City we live in. She says she wants to move across the country and take our daughter. She has no family or friends outside the City we live in, so it makes little sense. It seems designed to hurt me or scare me out of beginning the process. And it works...because I start thinking how contentious this could become. She says she is not interested in money, but I could foresee her making this a nightmare both in terms of finances and custody. I am familiar with the law and know my rights, but I know it can drag on a long time if she becomes very difficult. I also know it will be difficult on our daughter and that gives me a lot of pause. I am very close with her family, especially my mother-in-law who is a wonderful person, and that makes it even harder.

I have been in therapy for years but my wife refuses to go. After these arguments blow over she acts as if nothing happened and life goes back to normal (unpleasant for me). I know I would be happier if I wasn't married to her anymore, but I have tremendous tremendous anxiety taking even the first steps in this process. It took me months to research the legal intricacies of divorce law in my state. The laws are favorable toward me in many ways, so that made me optimistic. But now I'm stuck on not wanting to consult with a lawyer - it's like something within me keeps putting it off or holding me back. So I end up sitting and thinking about it all day but doing little.

Has anyone overcome this terrible resistance, this inability to take action even though you know it is the right thing? Do you have any resources that helped? Therapy has helped a bit but not enough it seems.

Thank you for any and all help.