When people renew their wedding vows, they should both be on the same page AND they should be happy, right?

Well, that’s the idea…

But this woman just isn’t feeling it right now with her wife and she wants to know if she’s being a jerk.

Read her story below and see what you think.

AITA for not wanting to renew my vows?

“I (40s F) have been married to my wife (40s F) for nine years.

Things are tense…

I would not say we are currently happily married. We’re working on it, but there’s just a lot of accumulated issues and resentments that have built up over time, plus a dead bedroom for honestly longer than we’ve been married.

I’ve been very vocal about my unhappiness in the past few years, we’ve been through one round of couples therapy but my wife thinks we can’t afford another round.

I still think this is fixable and am trying hard to make things work because we have a kid together, and I love her dearly, but at least as of this moment, I don’t think our marriage is doing well and have made that really clear.

Things have changed a lot.

One of the issues I’ve expressed is that before we got married, she put in a lot more effort to the relationship, all focused on convincing me to marry her, and all that stopped after the wedding.

I feel like once I was a “sure thing” and committed, the challenge was over and I turned invisible.

I’ve expressed this feeling to her many, many times, and while she’s argued that’s not true, she’s 100% aware that this is how I feel and have consistently felt for years.

It’s nothing super dramatic like cheating or abuse but still not great. Some examples just for context – if we get a rare moment where we’re both home and kid is at school or occupied, I’ll have to beg for her to come spend time with me and usually she acts like this is annoying.

She voluntarily worked incredibly long hours during some of the worst times in my life (e.g. postpartum, job loss, severe mental health crisis), I ended up getting most of the emotional and practical support I needed from friends.

She’s tried everything.

I have asked her to read books on relationships that once found helpful in lieu of therapy, she does not read them nor does she suggest any other alternative ideas.

Our house is so messy I am ashamed to invite friends over and she knows that’s really hard on me but barely cleans and stuff gets messed up right after over organized it, to the point where the house always looks better when she’s traveling for work and I’m single parenting, than when she’s here.

Last time we talked she told me to make a “honey do” list for her and over the last month she hasn’t done a single thing on that list including stuff that would take five minutes to do. I’m not sure she’s even looked at it.

Before we got married, she was not like this at all, she would prioritize quality time with me, help me out, work on projects around the house without being told to, etc.

She’s not crazy about this idea.

She has said that for our tenth anniversary she wants to go on a vacation (which would be quite expensive, but ok it’s the tenth anniversary) and renew our vows. I haven’t really responded yet but I just do not want to renew our vows.

It’s partly because of my feeling that she took our initial vows as permission to stop really investing in the relationship.

But it’s also partly because I feel like renewals should be reserved for when you’re actually happily married, not when your marriage is currently facing serious problems.

It feels like she’s trying to bypass actually being nicer to me by skipping straight to a vow renewal.

Also kind of bothers me that we “can’t afford” couples therapy but we can afford a big vacation and miniature second wedding.

I’m worried I’m the ******* because I think if I say that I don’t want this, she’ll feel like it means I regret marrying her or don’t want to be married anymore, I’m not at that point I’m just also not happy.

I also think that she thinks of this as a way of showing she does actually care – but I’ve never doubted that she wanted to stay married, that’s never been the problem to be solved.

AITA?”

Reddit users shared their thoughts.

This person chimed in.

Another reader said she’s NTA.

This individual agreed.

Another person spoke up.

And this reader shared their thoughts.

It sounds like these two need couples counseling before they renew their vows.

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