I don't want to be under pressure when my DH isn't

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

It was not the place of your family and friends to talk you out of this marriage. You need to own your choices.

What part of me acknowledging I made a huge, life ruining mistake not owning my choices? Giving context is not shirking accountability.

Holy smokes. You married a good man with a decent job, and you have continually referred to the fact that he is satisfied with a comfortable life and does not need to earn big bucks as "ruining your life."

Do you really not understand how that makes people (rational people, anyway) see you?

I really do not care how other people see me, and you are misusing “rational.”
What you really mean is “moral.”

You believe that I am immoral because I value working hard and trying to maximize earnings to have nice things and give opportunities to my children. That’s fine. You can judge my values all you want, but I have examined them at length and attempting to change or deny them has not worked for me thus far. That is how I ended up married to DH!

I might be able to live with DH if he also didn’t mock my priorities. A LOT of people share them, by the way. Whether they openly admit it to themselves or others or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

OP, the problem here is that you don’t like the person you married, not some ridiculous conjecture about how women need an alpha male.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

It was not the place of your family and friends to talk you out of this marriage. You need to own your choices.

What part of me acknowledging I made a huge, life ruining mistake not owning my choices? Giving context is not shirking accountability.

Because you blame other people for why you made that mistake!

I do not blame them. I allowed myself to be influenced by them when I should have been honest with many self about what is important to me. I own it. Can we get off that part now?

Nah. I still think you're an awful person who is selfish and just wants everyone to pity her. You're extremely unlikable

You don’t like me (more than fine lol), and so you want to keep making an inaccurate “point” to stick it to me?
Seems we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black here in the immature, unlikeable department.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To address the several posters who asked about my job and the fact that I picked it:

I picked my job so that I can have a solid financial future and my kids can have opportunities. If I get a lower stress job, we could survive sure but lifestyle would take a massive hit as would savings of all kinds (retirement, college, cash savings, potential to send kids to private schools, etc).

My parents paid for my wedding and gave us house down payment. This helped us massively and call me crazy but I would like to do the same for my kids because it is not easy getting started out there.

DH doesn’t share my feelings. He thinks as long as we don’t die all is well. He has no DRIVE to take care of us in a proactive way.

It is stressful to try to provide for your family. I want to literally take some of that stress off of my shoulders and put it on his.

I actually like my job but I would prefer to coast a little bit, not worry about maximizing bonus and getting promoted. Have good enough be enough.

But I can’t do that while he is so happily laid back with no upward career trajectory. We are just not compatible at all in this regard and the thought of forcing myself to lower my standards makes me feel like I am being snuffed out by him.

But as stated I also suspect, contrary to the prevailing view, that most women strongly prefer a driven man who is motivated to maximize his family’s well being.

This has been a standard male complaint since the dawn of time. OP has figured out a new spin, though - it's OK for her do be cranky because her husband is missing some sort of "primal" need to take care of his family. In effect, she's questioning his manhood.

Two things can be true:

- It is entirely reasonable to want both partners to make significant/roughly equal financial contributions to a relationship. It's even understandable, if not quite as reasonable, to want the lower-earning partner to increase teir contribution, rather than have the higher-earning one downshift, so the standard of living for the entire family doesn't suffer (although "I want to pay for kids' weddings is pretty superficial).

- OP has managed to take a reasonable point and articulate it in the crappiest way possible. That's not easy to do, and speaks volumes about her character.

This is well-said. I think OP has posted a variation of this thread dozens of times, and doesn’t ever take the advice to either (1) get therapy to help her understand why she is so obsessed with living a high-status life with a high earner so she can have all the luxuries she covets; or (2) divorce this handsome, funny man with a solid government job so he can be free to build a good life on his own or with a good woman. I think OP’s kids would be better off with less of her influence in their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

OP, the problem here is that you don’t like the person you married, not some ridiculous conjecture about how women need an alpha male.

Maybe. But do you really not believe that women prefer men who want to work hard for their families? Really? Do you deny that women prefer tall men too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To address the several posters who asked about my job and the fact that I picked it:

I picked my job so that I can have a solid financial future and my kids can have opportunities. If I get a lower stress job, we could survive sure but lifestyle would take a massive hit as would savings of all kinds (retirement, college, cash savings, potential to send kids to private schools, etc).

My parents paid for my wedding and gave us house down payment. This helped us massively and call me crazy but I would like to do the same for my kids because it is not easy getting started out there.

DH doesn’t share my feelings. He thinks as long as we don’t die all is well. He has no DRIVE to take care of us in a proactive way.

It is stressful to try to provide for your family. I want to literally take some of that stress off of my shoulders and put it on his.

I actually like my job but I would prefer to coast a little bit, not worry about maximizing bonus and getting promoted. Have good enough be enough.

But I can’t do that while he is so happily laid back with no upward career trajectory. We are just not compatible at all in this regard and the thought of forcing myself to lower my standards makes me feel like I am being snuffed out by him.

But as stated I also suspect, contrary to the prevailing view, that most women strongly prefer a driven man who is motivated to maximize his family’s well being.

This has been a standard male complaint since the dawn of time. OP has figured out a new spin, though - it's OK for her do be cranky because her husband is missing some sort of "primal" need to take care of his family. In effect, she's questioning his manhood.

Two things can be true:

- It is entirely reasonable to want both partners to make significant/roughly equal financial contributions to a relationship. It's even understandable, if not quite as reasonable, to want the lower-earning partner to increase teir contribution, rather than have the higher-earning one downshift, so the standard of living for the entire family doesn't suffer (although "I want to pay for kids' weddings is pretty superficial).

- OP has managed to take a reasonable point and articulate it in the crappiest way possible. That's not easy to do, and speaks volumes about her character.

This is well-said. I think OP has posted a variation of this thread dozens of times, and doesn’t ever take the advice to either (1) get therapy to help her understand why she is so obsessed with living a high-status life with a high earner so she can have all the luxuries she covets; or (2) divorce this handsome, funny man with a solid government job so he can be free to build a good life on his own or with a good woman. I think OP’s kids would be better off with less of her influence in their lives.

First of all, I have not posted dozens of times.

Second of all, I grew up UMC, and I liked it. I prefer it strongly to living MC. Does that really require therapy to understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To address the several posters who asked about my job and the fact that I picked it:

I picked my job so that I can have a solid financial future and my kids can have opportunities. If I get a lower stress job, we could survive sure but lifestyle would take a massive hit as would savings of all kinds (retirement, college, cash savings, potential to send kids to private schools, etc).

My parents paid for my wedding and gave us house down payment. This helped us massively and call me crazy but I would like to do the same for my kids because it is not easy getting started out there.

DH doesn’t share my feelings. He thinks as long as we don’t die all is well. He has no DRIVE to take care of us in a proactive way.

It is stressful to try to provide for your family. I want to literally take some of that stress off of my shoulders and put it on his.

I actually like my job but I would prefer to coast a little bit, not worry about maximizing bonus and getting promoted. Have good enough be enough.

But I can’t do that while he is so happily laid back with no upward career trajectory. We are just not compatible at all in this regard and the thought of forcing myself to lower my standards makes me feel like I am being snuffed out by him.

But as stated I also suspect, contrary to the prevailing view, that most women strongly prefer a driven man who is motivated to maximize his family’s well being.

This has been a standard male complaint since the dawn of time. OP has figured out a new spin, though - it's OK for her do be cranky because her husband is missing some sort of "primal" need to take care of his family. In effect, she's questioning his manhood.

Two things can be true:

- It is entirely reasonable to want both partners to make significant/roughly equal financial contributions to a relationship. It's even understandable, if not quite as reasonable, to want the lower-earning partner to increase teir contribution, rather than have the higher-earning one downshift, so the standard of living for the entire family doesn't suffer (although "I want to pay for kids' weddings is pretty superficial).

- OP has managed to take a reasonable point and articulate it in the crappiest way possible. That's not easy to do, and speaks volumes about her character.

This is well-said. I think OP has posted a variation of this thread dozens of times, and doesn’t ever take the advice to either (1) get therapy to help her understand why she is so obsessed with living a high-status life with a high earner so she can have all the luxuries she covets; or (2) divorce this handsome, funny man with a solid government job so he can be free to build a good life on his own or with a good woman. I think OP’s kids would be better off with less of her influence in their lives.

+1

These are her options. Nothing is ruining her life except her own materialistic values. So either deal with your obsession with money or divorce this guy, enjoy watching your net worth be cut in half (and maybe get to pay child support!) and try to find someone who also wants to work hard and accumulate assets who will also be totally cool with sharing that with his stepkids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

OP, the problem here is that you don’t like the person you married, not some ridiculous conjecture about how women need an alpha male.

Maybe. But do you really not believe that women prefer men who want to work hard for their families? Really? Do you deny that women prefer tall men too?

He has a good government job, presumably with health insurance and retirement plan! Sounds great to me. I’m married to a lower earner with excellent benefits and I’m a teacher. Maybe it’s just that I know I’ll never be wealthy, but I love my husband. Neither of us would work if we could get away with it.

Your values are on you. Own them. Don’t try and comfort yourself by trying to prove they’re not warped by greed and materialism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

OP, the problem here is that you don’t like the person you married, not some ridiculous conjecture about how women need an alpha male.

Maybe. But do you really not believe that women prefer men who want to work hard for their families? Really? Do you deny that women prefer tall men too?

You referred to him as hard working at least twice in other posts, but complained he wasn’t a “striver.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

OP, the problem here is that you don’t like the person you married, not some ridiculous conjecture about how women need an alpha male.

Maybe. But do you really not believe that women prefer men who want to work hard for their families? Really? Do you deny that women prefer tall men too?

OH come on OP. I would choose a comfortable life (which is what your DH says you could have if you took a less stressful job) over a spouse working a stressful job so we could buy our kids houses. I've been in both situations with DH. The comfortable one is a WAY happier life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

It was not the place of your family and friends to talk you out of this marriage. You need to own your choices.

What part of me acknowledging I made a huge, life ruining mistake not owning my choices? Giving context is not shirking accountability.

Holy smokes. You married a good man with a decent job, and you have continually referred to the fact that he is satisfied with a comfortable life and does not need to earn big bucks as "ruining your life."

Do you really not understand how that makes people (rational people, anyway) see you?

I really do not care how other people see me, and you are misusing “rational.”
What you really mean is “moral.”

You believe that I am immoral because I value working hard and trying to maximize earnings to have nice things and give opportunities to my children. That’s fine. You can judge my values all you want, but I have examined them at length and attempting to change or deny them has not worked for me thus far. That is how I ended up married to DH!

I might be able to live with DH if he also didn’t mock my priorities. A LOT of people share them, by the way. Whether they openly admit it to themselves or others or not.

No, I mean rational. I don't think working hard and maximizing earnings is immoral; I do it too. But thinking marriage to someone who has a good, comfortable job has ruined your life is irrational. Is it exactly what you expected? Obviously not. But life throws twists and turns at everyone, and "my husband makes good but not great money" doesn't come close to life-ruining level. And thinking it does shows the maturity level of a middle-schooler, not a grown-up.

[Anonymous]

I am OP, and I am willing to bet that 80+% of the people responding here attacking my “materialistic” values share the exact same values.

Any intellectually honest person who frequents this board knows that is true!!

It’s just a taboo to talk about it openly, which is why I’ve chosen an anonymous forum.

Listen, I’m going to bow out because I am now a target for people’s misplaced hypocritical rage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To address the several posters who asked about my job and the fact that I picked it:

I picked my job so that I can have a solid financial future and my kids can have opportunities. If I get a lower stress job, we could survive sure but lifestyle would take a massive hit as would savings of all kinds (retirement, college, cash savings, potential to send kids to private schools, etc).

My parents paid for my wedding and gave us house down payment. This helped us massively and call me crazy but I would like to do the same for my kids because it is not easy getting started out there.

DH doesn’t share my feelings. He thinks as long as we don’t die all is well. He has no DRIVE to take care of us in a proactive way.

It is stressful to try to provide for your family. I want to literally take some of that stress off of my shoulders and put it on his.

I actually like my job but I would prefer to coast a little bit, not worry about maximizing bonus and getting promoted. Have good enough be enough.

But I can’t do that while he is so happily laid back with no upward career trajectory. We are just not compatible at all in this regard and the thought of forcing myself to lower my standards makes me feel like I am being snuffed out by him.

But as stated I also suspect, contrary to the prevailing view, that most women strongly prefer a driven man who is motivated to maximize his family’s well being.

This has been a standard male complaint since the dawn of time. OP has figured out a new spin, though - it's OK for her do be cranky because her husband is missing some sort of "primal" need to take care of his family. In effect, she's questioning his manhood.

Two things can be true:

- It is entirely reasonable to want both partners to make significant/roughly equal financial contributions to a relationship. It's even understandable, if not quite as reasonable, to want the lower-earning partner to increase teir contribution, rather than have the higher-earning one downshift, so the standard of living for the entire family doesn't suffer (although "I want to pay for kids' weddings is pretty superficial).

- OP has managed to take a reasonable point and articulate it in the crappiest way possible. That's not easy to do, and speaks volumes about her character.

This is well-said. I think OP has posted a variation of this thread dozens of times, and doesn’t ever take the advice to either (1) get therapy to help her understand why she is so obsessed with living a high-status life with a high earner so she can have all the luxuries she covets; or (2) divorce this handsome, funny man with a solid government job so he can be free to build a good life on his own or with a good woman. I think OP’s kids would be better off with less of her influence in their lives.

First of all, I have not posted dozens of times.

Second of all, I grew up UMC, and I liked it. I prefer it strongly to living MC. Does that really require therapy to understand?

Seems like you have a UMC life now. Your problem is that you want someone else to provide it, you don't want to be responsible for it yourself. And apparently you feel entitled to this because you are a woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol you're a morin. Ask your kids what they would prefer.... You to pay for their wedding and a house but you get divorced and are still miserable. OR you don't provide those things but get a less stressful job and don't completely ruin their lives with a divorce.

I'm with your DH. It seems like you guys could still have a nice life if you took a lower stress job. It's not like he's forcing you to stay in your job. I also don't get why you married him.

Because he is handsome and funny, and when I expressed reservations to friends or family about his earning potential everyone called me shallow. The people calling me shallow are all married to high earners, btw. I was dumb not to level with myself about my values. Huge, life ruining mistake.

It was not the place of your family and friends to talk you out of this marriage. You need to own your choices.

It seems pretty obvious OP has zero self accountability. Everything is the fault of someone else. Can pretty much guarantee OPs parents are the cause of all this

+1000. This is the root of all of OPs complaints

Please please get therapy!

[Anonymous]

My DH has a high stress job - surgeon - and I have a low stress job. He doesn’t complain about me and we don’t have any children FWIW.