My wife (38F) and me (48M) have been having issues lately, probably the worst spot our marriage has ever been in. We have never separated but I did spend a week or two out of the house last month so we can give each other space and reflect on our relationship. All marriages have ups and downs whiich I understand but we’ve been together for almost 2 decades and I have never had to spend more than a night out of the house to let her blow off steam and calm down. So need less to say, this is the worst we’ve ever been as a “team.”

I put “team” into quotation marks because it seems my wife has forgot what being a team is about. We have 4 kids, and she decided to book a family vacation with money I had won, without me. No exaggeration. She literally sat me down before a dinner, and told me that she did it 1. To treat the kids and 2. To get “much needed space from me.” Please keep in mind, she is using MY money, that I had won in a large risk-to-reward gamble I had successfully pulled off, and it was my idea to go on a vacation in the first place. She wasn’t happy I gambled first of all, but then to use the “dirty” money to go on a family vacation without me? Does this not seem absolutely f***** up to do to your partner?

Now is the part where I may have made a mistake. She told me this before we had dinner, and I got pretty angry and it was hard to keep my voice down. I used some expletives that the kids heard (I think) which is what I regret most. I hate myself for being a bad example of how a husband should treat his woman, and I am planning on talking to the kids about how us fighting was wrong (but anyways that’s for a later time, I am just acknowledging my intention to make things right with the kids so they don’t follow this bad example in how to act in a relationship). I was so angry with her that it was hard to talk rationally, and our fight probably lasted only 5 minutes before I left the room and slammed the door.

We go to dinner (which I had bought the groceries for and set the table for) and start eating. The tension was really high and I could tell everyone was uncomfortable so I took my plate, asked my younger son if he wanted to watch basketball and we went downstairs to eat.

Fast forward to bedtime, and my wife is acting like I committed a felony? She was calling me an ahole for how I acted at dinner, saying I ruined it for everyone. I responded that **SHE is the one that thought telling me that the family is going to British Columbia, right before dinner, was a good idea. Yes, I should not have used swear words when yelling but apart from that, I don’t really see how I did anything wrong. Do I really need to stay at the table for dinner is she is going to drop an atomic bomb on me before dinner? Especially with the kids at home? To me, it feels like she set me up to be the bad guy… She does have a history of gas lighting me at times but then again, everyone can unintentionally gaslight from time to time so I don’t like to really use that word. AMITAH for being mad about her taking the family to BC for the weekend (using my earned money)? It feels like she is trying to separate the kids from me. Is there anything legally I can do to stop her from taking them?

P.S. I understand that we are married and all of our money is shared. I agree. I am just saying it is my money because it was my idea initially when I won the money, to use a lot for our kids tuition but also use the remaining amount for a vacation. So this seems unfair to me, because it was my winnings and my idea.