My wife is very controlling and I can’t stand it. What can I do?

I have always had problems talking to people since I was small. I grew up in a family that stifled my freedom and made me feel less about myself and this has affected me in a terrible way. I am a married man and I have been married for 4 years now with two kids. I can say that I am a bit shy but when I met my wife, she seemed to be understanding and I could talk to her freely without fear or any kind of discomfort. This encouraged me to marry her and for some time after marriage, she made me feel like I made the right choice but recently, I can no longer say the same. I love my wife so much but she no longer respects me as the man of the house that I am. She has changed so much and it makes me wonder what will become of me and my kids in the long run. 

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My wife has suddenly become a controlling and a challenging wife. I do not understand what made her change but I must say that it has not really been a great experience. My wife no longer comes back early from work and this has been going on for about two weeks now. The first few times she came home late, I asked her what happened and she said she had work overload thus had to stay back to finish up. Meanwhile, I called her many times to find out why she wasn’t home yet but she did not answer my calls. After she got home, I didn’t make a scene about it, I simply accepted her apology and acted like nothing happened. Two days later she repeated the same thing and when I asked her, she said she was caught up in traffic. My wife closes from work by 4pm on a normal day and when her suspicious behavior started, she comes home by 7pm in the night and sometimes later. So I was wondering the kind of traffic she was caught up in. 

I still called her and as usual she didn’t answer. When she came home and gave me that excuse, of course there was no way I could let that slide again. I confronted her and asked her the kind of traffic that kept her on the road for such a long time. Yes, we live in Lagos but the route she took to work was rarely busy as she always claimed and I had to remind her about that. She got angry and wanted to walk out on me but I refused. We struggled and she made comments about how I was too cold for her and she regrets marrying me. That was heartbreaking for me and I tried to make her understand that I tried my best to make her and my kids happy and comfortable. I have a job and I always walk home straight after work. I never stay out to drink like other men do and I try to spend quality time with my wife and kids but my wife was not appreciating any of that. 

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Often she never cared about if there was food in the house or not. Many times if not because of me, our kids would starve. She always claims she is tired from work but she isn’t the only working class woman in Nigeria. I know families that have very busy wives but they still balance their career and family life. At least they ensure there is always food at home. My wife doesn’t care about that. On weekdays I agree that she may be busy and tired but on weekends, she could at least make various meals and store them in the freezer but she wouldn’t do any of that. She sleeps and later leaves to visit her friends. I cook most of the time and she still comes home to eat. I do not complain but she should at least show concern and try to help. 

Left for her, she wants us to always hang out and eat in restaurants with our kids as her friends do but that won’t work. I don’t like crowds and even if I do, how can we spend so much money regularly? Love is almost dead between my wife and I and I do not know what to do. She no longer cares about me. She concisely returns home late and gets snacks for the kids. How long will this continue? I need to know how to stop this and make peace between us.