Is your business bringing in enough money? Would you get more with a job you're qualified for? Basically, do you feel your wife is partially right in saying that you can realistically do better without killing yourself over it? Nothing put more pressure on a guy than something he suspects might be true.
There are a lot of articles that connect mental state and health. Our state of mind can have a brutal effect on several measurable physiological levels that directly lead to a better or worse health situation. You should take that very seriously.
And there is no difference, for this effect, between perception and reality. If you feel it you suffer the consequences of it.
One at a time: On paper I am not qualified for squat. Sure, I have skills and knowledge and a lot of experience with a number of things, but on paper, I don't fit the profiles and thus, I qualify to flip burgers and hold sandwich boards. Capability and resume are not even close to being the same. However, for most things which I would be fit to do, the "application requirements" eliminate me. So, just a "job" isn't going work. I live in a relatively rural and low population area, so really good paying stuff is rare anyway, and all but impossible to achieve quickly for someone with no degree and an unimpressive resume.
Can I "realistically" do better? Not sure. When I started, I made certain trade-offs... no debt, I bootstrapped, which mean growth was slow and had to be self funded. I could be "ahead" of where I am, had I sought funding and gone into debt. Chose not to.
My business, at times, is very demanding and I put in 12 hour days - sometimes several in a row. But in between, it may demand very little, giving me free time. This was also done so I can be home, spend time with wife and so on. Deliberate choice to NOT open a storefront and be gone 8-10 hours every day. It probably cost me growth.
The answer is "yes I could have been ahead" of where I am, but I do not regret the choices and I would not, even in the shoes I am in, choose to do differently. There are things more important than money. Lots of them.
If I actually thought that some kind of time and effort investment on my part could be translated into immediate growth and signficant income, I'd probably have done it, sometime over the last 3 or 4 years. So, I don't see it as her being critical of what I have done, more along the lines of forcing me to choose between my business and leaving it to get a larger and steady paycheck - IF I can find a way to do that.
And yes, over time, this HAS caught up with me physically, and threatens my life and health. Always it seemed like there had to be a better time to deal with this than the crises we were in, but the consecutive and continual stream of one crisis after another has never actually broken.
The issue here, is that she has a degree, and a professional career. And, is advancing both her education and and her career. In about 2 years or so, she's going to make very seriously good money (she does now, actually, but it will go up 40 to 70% then). With the two of us combined, it will likely put us in better than the top 10%, nationally. What we'll earn when her injury is fixed and she heals will be back well into the top 1/4.
Now, her injury has put us in a terrible temporary bind. The judge ruled just 2 weeks ago in her favor and she'll eventually collect all her back pay and this nightmare will start to go away. but right now, she is working ,and she spends ALL OF IT and demands I add some more, while my part of the household scrimps and scrapes and does without, while she buys computers and toys and whatever she wants and pays the kids school bills we can't afford... while I've robbed my business so badly it's in danger of failing, so I can have food, etc.
There's a LOT going on here, and nothing you can find in this has escaped me, including money management and so on.
But that's not what this is about. It's about me and not being sure that what I see her do, is really what she's doing. If it's wrong.. I need to fix me, not her.
