I fucked up. My wife is very controlled by her surviving family. She can't barely take a shit without phoning for permission. I'm not very close to my family, Im respectful but I had a not-great childhood. My parents were very young and selfish and once they divorced they wanted us kids to just go away. the experiment was over so to speak. But many had much worse so i don't dwell on that. Im respectful for all they did do. But im not very well respected as a leader in my wifes eyes. overall she looks to her family for guidance. Im not sure if i can fix that or if i even have the willing energy at this point. I feel very much like a single parent a lot. i do agree i need to fix it. Its rough when your barely holding on.

^^^ Ok - I understand. Try not to ruminate on this. Sometimes we make uniformed decisions when we are young - or we do not have the real picture of the circumstances. You might have even felt that relationship your wife had with her family was refreshing coming from a less defined family of upbringing. Only now you see it for what it is - a prison.

She is wrong by the way to put them first and be codependent and controlled. I think its a kind of sickness. I am not religious per say but even the Bible talks about how it is supposed to go when we marry. The first step should be that it is ADULTS getting married that are not still functioning in some kind of long line of generational curse that won't allow maturity to come along.

You should grasp the hand of your partner when you wed and basically start your own journey as a couple. This just doesn't happen, and we are not really set up as a culture to nurture that.

Instead you have a big constructed mess of situation - and then we have a culture that now builds a financial trap around us - its a fucking mess.

So - try not to dispare too much now since you allude to being a single parent there are children in this situation. They come first. But there will be a time and years will pass - so in the mean time - escape to those youtube videos and researching options and make a plan like you are leaving the "Old Country" and going to a new land - make plan A and plan B - and chart a course - even if it is dreams and wishful thinking stuff it can plant a seed of hope that gets you through these darker times.