You sound like you have your priorities in order. My wife home schooled our youngest and that worked out well, and like you exposed them to different structured activities (some they liked, others not, but at least they were exposed to them). My line of work is stressful, and during the years when things were very lean I could not make many mistakes – thus more time making myself indespensible (sp).
I never promised a rose garden. Your husband sounds like he is a good provider and not in need of additional resources to allow your children all this enrichment. I did the best i could, and since my wife has a very short memory, my recent success has exposed me to open blame that I was not emotionally there for them all. Duh…..I was working while she enriched our son’s lives. Why now the persecution by her and her whole family/ Our oldest son is in trouble and required us to remove him from our home (by force) into a wilderness/boarding school program that has stretched our financies to the limit. Youngest is 16 and oldest 18.

6 years ago I developed seizures which makes commuting by car two hours a day sometime life threatening for myself and the others on the road. She did not skip a beat and three years ago started in a huge way to rescue animals. BTW: we had at one point 60 (yes 60) cats at our home which required her full time. it’s not a question of me providing a living for the family, it became supporting (her words) her hobby. So, our family took a back seat while she did what she “wanted.” In the meantime I fell into her guilt trip and beleived I was in fact an absentee father. She continually told me that everything was about me and that I really didn’t care about their emotional wellbeing. THEN, I heard the nickel drop……All about me? The animal rescue “hobby” does NOTHING to enrich our family and is in fact all about her. She sought counseling to “cope” with her emotions, and now she is a very distant, and self assured assertive person who does not give a rusty “F” what my feelings are. Ah….psycotherapy and “O” Magazine…….Men will always come up way short on expressing our feelings. In fact, it is best if we have none. Go to work. Smile and bury emotions so deep……it’s that easy. No problems.

You sound like a very together person, and i am as sure as i can be about anything you would do whatever you could to help your husband to assure the stress of his health issues and anxiety were addressed. I also hear that you love your husband. I’ll leave you with that.

I’m happy you wrote back. Be well