I 28M and my Wife 29F were recently visited Cambodia. I booked the trip for our 4th wedding anniversary.

On our last day there we decided to visit a genocide prison in Phnom Penh called S21.

We were warned by our tour guide that the place wasn’t for the faint of heart. The prison was used by the Khmer Rouge to massacre thousands of innocent civilians who were deemed as “too smart / intellectual” during the rule of Pol Pot.

I remember seeing torture chambers where they would beat people to death with chains. They didn’t hide any of the brutality. The pictures on the walls literally looked like something straight out of live leak.

In one of the prison cells there, there was literally dried up blood on the floor from presumably the captive held there all those years ago.

I remember walking past a tree dubbed the killing tree. They took kids as young as three years old and would bash their heads into it until they died.

Upon reading that I literally just started sobbing. I was visualising everything in my head and I just felt for the kids who had to watch their siblings / friends get massacred in front of them.

My wife saw me crying and instead of comforting me just gave me this weird look. After a while she did come hug me and asked if something was wrong. I just pointed to the exit and we left after that. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

While in our taxi she asked me if I was seriously crying. I just nodded and kept quiet. I was still pretty shaken up by the things I just read/saw.

That was last week and there has been this weird tension between us ever since. She tries to pick fights with me for no reason and just seems dismissive/disrespectful for no reason. A few days ago I came home exhausted from work and she asked me if I could do the laundry that day. I told her that I’d do it tomorrow and just wanted to relax for a bit. She then got mad and told me that she didn’t know she was marrying a woman and then stormed off. She has never acted like this before our trip.

I lost it yesterday night after she tried to pick another fight with me and confronted her about her behaviour over the past week. I asked her if all of this had to do with me crying. She tried denying it at first but after a while she just went silent for a few moments and then started nodding while keeping her head down. I asked her why and she just claimed that “humanity has done worse in the past” and she just feels weird about me crying over kids who have nothing to do with me. She also told me that she isn’t a therapist and she felt uncomfortable and was disappointed in me for shedding tears over something that happens all the time.

She saw me getting mad at her comments and tried backpedaling and apologising but I just couldn’t take it anymore and just went to bed in our guest room.

This was literally the second time she has ever seen me cry. First was when my best friend lost his life to a drunk driver.

To the men out there, have you experienced anything similar with your SO?

I’m just sort of lost for words. I can’t make sense of anything right now.

I don’t know who I can confide in with this so that’s why I’m posting here.

I just need a place to vent.

I’m seriously considering divorce but my brother claims that I should have known better and shouldn’t have let her see me like that. If I divorce her without trying couples counselling, I’m most definitely an asshole.

Could I have done something better to make her feel less uncomfortable?

How would you guys move forward in this situation?