Anonymous wrote:I might be in the minority, but I think if you’re unhappy and think you can find/create a better life for yourself and your kid after divorcing this guy then, do it. If this is where you are now, you’ll eventually get divorced or cheat on him.

Woman here agreeing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think he is underachieving and incompetent?

He hates his job, talks about hating it all the time, has for years, but won't take any action. He thinks every move is too risky. Meanwhile, I have quadrupled my income during our marriage (his has completely stagnated), so it is difficult to respect someone who complains but doesn't do anything about it.

Same with his weight. He is perpetually in a state of trying to lose weight but never succeeding. How can I respect someone who claims to want to make a simple change yet simply cannot achieve it?

When I married this person he was fit and graduating from a prestigious graduate program. I am not really sure how I got suckered into this bait and switch, but I have a very hard time just accepting it.

If this were a man saying this about his wife and mother of his child, he'd be crucified on this board.

OP you don’t seem like the type of person who can dig in and do the work to have a good, healthy marriage unless you just get lucky your second time.

You can change if you want to, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think he is underachieving and incompetent?

He hates his job, talks about hating it all the time, has for years, but won't take any action. He thinks every move is too risky. Meanwhile, I have quadrupled my income during our marriage (his has completely stagnated), so it is difficult to respect someone who complains but doesn't do anything about it.

Same with his weight. He is perpetually in a state of trying to lose weight but never succeeding. How can I respect someone who claims to want to make a simple change yet simply cannot achieve it?

When I married this person he was fit and graduating from a prestigious graduate program. I am not really sure how I got suckered into this bait and switch, but I have a very hard time just accepting it.

If this were a man saying this about his wife and mother of his child, he'd be crucified on this board.

+100. Absolutely true

Yup

Anonymous wrote:I might be in the minority, but I think if you’re unhappy and think you can find/create a better life for yourself and your kid after divorcing this guy then, do it. If this is where you are now, you’ll eventually get divorced or cheat on him.

This 1000%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm very glad my mom didn't divorce my dad who is in academia. We had a simple life in a small town but they invested well and now get to travel and have nice cars. He was an amazing father and was present growing up- I had many fun afternoons in his office playing with his typewriter or hanging around the college..

They will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this summer. My brother and I are still very close with them- we all vacation together.

OP you don't respect him because you value money, ambition, upward mobility etc. If you read about what makess people happy in the long run- it's not these things. It's family and relationships.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Your dad had a job. You say it is about relationships//she does not feel she has a partner. That equals a lack of a relationship. This is not just about money. Yo can tell from the post that there is no love here…or it is gone. A bad relationship or lack of a relationship is not good. Your post is irrelevant to her situation.

Op here: if he stayed in academia, I would've been so much happier. I encouraged him to stay. But no, he didn't want to play department politics, he didn't want to take &^$# from anyone and be his own boss. Well, he is not his own boss. I don't call "doing whatever I want even though it impacts my family" being "your own boss". Our kids see it and they are starting to ask questions. Why is Mom always on pick up/drop off duty? Why is mom the one booking vacations? Why is mom the one arranging house repairs, take us to a doctor, buying groceries? What does our Dad actually do? Oh, he own his own business. Well, where is it? We don't live in a "small town", we live in DC. It is expensive to live in this area. I offered to move. He declined but his "business" is here.

Wait how many kids do you have OP?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think he is underachieving and incompetent?

He hates his job, talks about hating it all the time, has for years, but won't take any action. He thinks every move is too risky. Meanwhile, I have quadrupled my income during our marriage (his has completely stagnated), so it is difficult to respect someone who complains but doesn't do anything about it.

Same with his weight. He is perpetually in a state of trying to lose weight but never succeeding. How can I respect someone who claims to want to make a simple change yet simply cannot achieve it?

When I married this person he was fit and graduating from a prestigious graduate program. I am not really sure how I got suckered into this bait and switch, but I have a very hard time just accepting it.

If this were a man saying this about his wife and mother of his child, he'd be crucified on this board.

+100. Absolutely true

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm very glad my mom didn't divorce my dad who is in academia. We had a simple life in a small town but they invested well and now get to travel and have nice cars. He was an amazing father and was present growing up- I had many fun afternoons in his office playing with his typewriter or hanging around the college..

They will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this summer. My brother and I are still very close with them- we all vacation together.

OP you don't respect him because you value money, ambition, upward mobility etc. If you read about what makess people happy in the long run- it's not these things. It's family and relationships.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Your dad had a job. You say it is about relationships//she does not feel she has a partner. That equals a lack of a relationship. This is not just about money. Yo can tell from the post that there is no love here…or it is gone. A bad relationship or lack of a relationship is not good. Your post is irrelevant to her situation.

Op here: if he stayed in academia, I would've been so much happier. I encouraged him to stay. But no, he didn't want to play department politics, he didn't want to take &^$# from anyone and be his own boss. Well, he is not his own boss. I don't call "doing whatever I want even though it impacts my family" being "your own boss". Our kids see it and they are starting to ask questions. Why is Mom always on pick up/drop off duty? Why is mom the one booking vacations? Why is mom the one arranging house repairs, take us to a doctor, buying groceries? What does our Dad actually do? Oh, he own his own business. Well, where is it? We don't live in a "small town", we live in DC. It is expensive to live in this area. I offered to move. He declined but his "business" is here.

.

Didn’t you say you have a 2 y/o?

Whoever that poster is, she has a different story from op.

Perhaps OP is a professional troll and lost track of her threads?

You are going to really dislike him when he gets half your money.

Think long and hard about this decision.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think he is underachieving and incompetent?

He hates his job, talks about hating it all the time, has for years, but won't take any action. He thinks every move is too risky. Meanwhile, I have quadrupled my income during our marriage (his has completely stagnated), so it is difficult to respect someone who complains but doesn't do anything about it.

Same with his weight. He is perpetually in a state of trying to lose weight but never succeeding. How can I respect someone who claims to want to make a simple change yet simply cannot achieve it?

When I married this person he was fit and graduating from a prestigious graduate program. I am not really sure how I got suckered into this bait and switch, but I have a very hard time just accepting it.

If this were a man saying this about his wife and mother of his child, he'd be crucified on this board.

Anonymous wrote:I married the wrong person. I just do not respect my husband. I find him incompetent and underachieving. I have learned over our 7 years of marriage that he is all talk and no action, the type to make excuses instead of take action. However, he is a good father to our young daughter.

I am 37. I am fit, attractive, and I have a good job.

Would it be a terrible mistake to divorce? Would it be possible for me to remarry someone I could respect or did that ship realistically sail?

I suppose my choices are just make peace with my husband or take my chances in a divorce. My goals are to have a happy marriage with mutual love and respect and to model that to my daughter.

WWYD?

I think you should be happy in this life and your daughter needs a happy mom. I am also a mom and I had a great conversation with the stranger today (cute stranger). He invited me to dinner and I said that I spend all my evenings with my little daughter. He asked if we can have a dinner tougher with her (ah?). It was so natural. I told him that in this case we should take my husband too. In that moment he was a bit confused, but the fact of a little child didn't scare him at all! You 37 and attractive, you still have so many ships waiting for you (if you want to of course).

I agree, we have kids who are 7 and 10 and there is no way both me and my husband can have demanding jobs without neglecting the kids. His job happens to be way more time consuming and he also earns 4x my salary. But my job is more flexible so I can do drop off/pick up, doctors visits, meals. When I do get busy at work on occasion my husband actually gets upset.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My SIL ended up divorcing due to a similar situation but she ended up waiting until her kids were in high school. Her ex is a nice guy but she wanted someone super ambitious. What I think she couldn't see was that his lack of ambition made it much easier for her to become successful.

+1 I stated exactly this up thread.

How does OP think this woul play out if she marries a man who is super ambitious? Do you think he will take time off work to do the doctor's appointments, school activities, deal with sick kids, and in the past year, stay home with the kids to help out with zoom learning or if the daycare closes?

I guess you could just hire an au pair if you both are ambitious and make a lot, and just let your au pair raise your child. I'm not saying it's bad to get an au pair or nanny (we had one when the kids were little), but it would be really difficult for two ambitious people to spend much time with a child.

I'm betting you were able to achieve what you did in part due to your DH being a great father.

I'm 51, and my kids are teens now. The time commitment from parents actually varies by the kid's age. At 2, the needs of the child are mostly physical, but as your kids get older, there is a lot more time commitment for planning and scheduling.

I guess if you marry a more ambitious man your DH will have partial custody, and you will rely on him to take half the load of that time commitment, much like he's probably done throughout your marriage. I would not plan on relying on your super ambitious new husband to help out that much. You'll be a partial single parent. How do you see that playing out with your career?

This. Op will have to outsource so much and she won't be able to go full force at her job. Post kids,, after some point, many women take the less demanding job to make parenting possible or easier. She'll find that the driven super successful career focused guy she can respect will put his career first at every decision and she'll have to take on so, so much more duties and tasks. I'm LMAO what posts we'll read then.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm very glad my mom didn't divorce my dad who is in academia. We had a simple life in a small town but they invested well and now get to travel and have nice cars. He was an amazing father and was present growing up- I had many fun afternoons in his office playing with his typewriter or hanging around the college..

They will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this summer. My brother and I are still very close with them- we all vacation together.

OP you don't respect him because you value money, ambition, upward mobility etc. If you read about what makess people happy in the long run- it's not these things. It's family and relationships.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Your dad had a job. You say it is about relationships//she does not feel she has a partner. That equals a lack of a relationship. This is not just about money. Yo can tell from the post that there is no love here…or it is gone. A bad relationship or lack of a relationship is not good. Your post is irrelevant to her situation.

Op here: if he stayed in academia, I would've been so much happier. I encouraged him to stay. But no, he didn't want to play department politics, he didn't want to take &^$# from anyone and be his own boss. Well, he is not his own boss. I don't call "doing whatever I want even though it impacts my family" being "your own boss". Our kids see it and they are starting to ask questions. Why is Mom always on pick up/drop off duty? Why is mom the one booking vacations? Why is mom the one arranging house repairs, take us to a doctor, buying groceries? What does our Dad actually do? Oh, he own his own business. Well, where is it? We don't live in a "small town", we live in DC. It is expensive to live in this area. I offered to move. He declined but his "business" is here.

.

Didn’t you say you have a 2 y/o?

Ikr - I thought OP’s child is 2. Meanwhile I do almost all the household things noted in the post above, and my high school ages kids have no concern about which parent does what. Those things just magically get done. They only way they’d be aware that mom does the repairs or heavy lifting on planning vacations is if I made a production out of it. Just give your husband a hammer and to do list (maybe divvy the list up with your kids too if they are old enough to help) rather than feeling resentful.

2 year olds are some of the hardest times in a marriage. There just isn’t enough time, unless you have the luxury to have one person home with kid full time and even then it’s rough as both people need a break each day. I hope you have already brainstormed ideas like getting bi-weekly housecleaning, ect…to make it easier.
Try this for 2 years only, don’t have another kid and separate by age 4 if still miserable.

OP: If you can afford to make him a house husband and it allows YOU to make to millions ….you may be much happier.
Bonus, your husband will likely relax, start exercising, and eat better if he say has two hours to go exercising/ peaceful grocery shopping/make a meal while daughter is in pre-school a few hours a week, and that can easily start at age 2-1/2 to 3.
You have STEM PHD for a Dad. If you have a smart daughter, he’s a good Dad, and a million bonus points if he is a half-way good teacher…..Do you know how much money you save in him tutoring your own kids? Plus, he’s right there when they need it. Your kids have a huge advantage if you can allow yourself to be happy being the main bread-winner. Why not YOU making the millions?
For extra cash, in upper level STEM subjects, he could work part time for $120-200/hour tutoring in this area.
Get therapy those two years as well. If it still doesn’t work out, the individual and couples therapy would be a good investment in a peaceful co-parenting situation.