Her instability takes a toll

Dear Amy: My wife and I met when we were 20. We’ve been married for 15 years. We have two wonderful young children. Our issues started four years ago, when my wife accused me of cheating with a co- worker.

She admits she knows there was nothing going on, but she thinks I was emotionally in love with my coworker. My wife and I fought about this for more than a year; she was physically abusive to me and threatened to kill herself — but the drama ended when I got a different job

couple of months ago, she discovered that her father is cheating on her mother. Also, two of her close relatives died of cancer, and she recently started working.

Now she is determined to divorce me, and I’m devastated. I’m trying to prove to her how much I love her.

Is there any chance I can win her back?

Forlorn Husband

Dear Forlorn: Your description of your wife makes her sound unstable and abusive. Marriage counseling for the two of you and therapy for her might have helped when she was acting out, accusing you of adultery and making your life miserable until she got what she wanted and you left your job. But moving on together can’t work unless you’ve resolved your challenges.

At this point, you should accept that a separation might be best for everyone.

Therapy for you, however, would help you to put some of this in perspective.

Dear Amy: I’m writing my résumé, and I am really on the fence about including a job I walked out on. I graduated from college in 2014, and a few months later I got my f irst job as a medical assistant. I worked there for 10 months and missed only one day due to illness.

The office manager was a bully to me, and I was not treated with any respect by the doctors. I was yelled at and cursed if I made a mistake.

One day, after weeks of busting my behind for them, the office manager yelled and threatened me in front of my co- worker over something I did not do.

I had enough and walked out. I have never done that before. Now I am unsure if I should include this job on my résumé because I’m sure I will not get a good reference. This could cause me to lose a job opportunity. You are not supposed to say anything negative when doing interviews.

Please give me some advice on this. I just want another job and don’t want this to hurt my chances.

Worried Worker

Dear Worker: A résumé is essentially a marketing document. Everything listed must be true, but you can omit experiences that aren’t essential or germane to your current search. A job application, however, is another story. If asked to list all previous employment, you should.

If you don’t include this job on your résumé, then how else will you account for your time, post- college?

Even if you don’t list this job, you must still f ind ways to describe it which aren’t uniformly negative. If you could generalize this job as “a learning experience,” or say, “I stuck it out for 10 months but ultimately it was a bad fit,” it might help put a less- than- horrible spin on a horrible experience. Walking off the job ( and disclosing that you’ve done so) won’t make a prospective employer excited to hire you.