I had a different take-away -- agree heartbreaking, but to me FD seemed controlling, and much less involved than she. In fact, I was surprised by the retro-ness of the marriage given her education and abilities. Yes hindsight is everything, but she seemed anxious to please him and desperate for time out from under his controlling thumb. She was not allowed to want her own bathroom, not allowed to choose the movie they went to on date night (and he chose some superhero thing knowing she'd hate it), afraid to wake him while he had no compunction waking her at 4:30 am even though she clearly was the one up all night with the kids - to me he came off as a controlling nightmare at best, remote at worst, with zero interest in who she was and what she was interested in. Even her desire to take the kids to Disneyworld - nope, up to him, he decided the age and clearly dismissed every opinion she had. And ALL the heavy and even light lifting was in HER hands while he was off working on the houses funded by her father. Truly I thought he came off as absolutely horrid and she came off as anxious about his approval and timidly desperate to carve out a tiny room of her own out from under him.