Hi. I've been married for seven years. We are each other's first. We have four children which is awesome.

Over the last several years things have been getting strange between us. She cries a lot and seems very fragile. I, on the other hand, have been getting stronger and more independent.

Now, I started down this path because I recognized that I needed to be more of a man and it would be good for our marriage. Yet, now it seems like I have enormous power that I had better not use because she can't handle it.

Her mother is not an intelligent person and neither is her grandmother on her mom's side. My wife makes fun of her mom but I'm seeing more and more of her, especially her reluctance to make a choice that cuts off another choice even if it gets her what she wants.

To be fair, I'm seeing a bit of my dad in myself, but not too much. My efforts to be a less passive person have in part been to avoid some mistakes and omissions my dad made.

So, I'm asking for advice. Here are a few examples of problems in case you'd like to keep reading:

I find myself feeling as though I need to slow down to her pace of being able to solve problems and get through things. It feels very slow. For example, we are a little tight financially until the end of the year, and it has taken me about four months to get her to understand that we have expenses. I just had to take out a short-term loan because she paid bills in the wrong order and some much too early. She insists that this is a new concept, but we've been going over the budget together closely since April. I know that what she really thinks is that if she uses up all the money now, it will inspire us to live frugally. Watching her dance all around that is painfully obvious, but if I suggest it she becomes upset.

Another example is that she insists on teaching our children, who are young, to do five minute chores that take an hour of exhausting supervision from her. Things like moving chairs around to sweep the floor, while nice to see a five-year-old doing, are hardly worth the effort. I've tried to get her to see that she could just clean the kitchen in 10 minutes and spend the time and and the energy teaching something a lot more interesting like piano or baseball, but she gets upset because she seems to believe they'll grow up without a work ethic if she doesn't get them over their laziness right now.

Another example is that she believes she is failing as a wife/mother and so gets upset and makes our home unpleasant. I counter by being extra chill, speaking in a low, firm voice to her and the children, focusing on the work I want to do and not rewarding her, etc. This upsets her because she sees it as passive, but later she wants to go through a little routine where she smiles and says sorry, we have a long talk about it, etc. I found that enjoyable half a decade ago but now I see that it's a cycle and I would rather keep doing what I'm doing than reward the earlier crying. This leads her to suggest I'm angry with her, send me passive texts from a different room in the house, etc. She doesn't seem to understand that if she just calms down, time will take care of her fears and stop her from acting out and making them come true.

So, again, what is a good way to handle this? I'm open to just about any kind of idea/approach except having sex with someone else.