My sister is a litigator and did much the same. She is (we come from) a tenaciously argumentative person, which is good, because her IT husband is a know-it-all-jack-hole, and she can go to the mat with him (and win). However, her being tenaciously argumentative (and logical) is how she is (and the rest of our family is) by nature - it made her suited for law, being a lawyer did not make her into that kind of person. The point here is: some people are sociopathic or narcissistic assholes by nature; that may make them well suited to be a politician or a lawyer, but being a lawyer does not turn them into this kind of person, and you find those people in all walks of life.

She too checked out of full-time litigation in order to be able to have a better work/life balance when her kids weren't yet in school. Once they were in school, she went back full time.

I think this is the only generalization you can make about being married to a lawyer: they are often married to their jobs; their work/life balance sucks.

I am a STEM guy, and I have a decent work/life balance; DW is a physician and does not (and I am the primary parent).

Most women I know who are married to a man are miserable at least sometimes.

My gay friends have the best husbands and my lesbian friends have the happiest wives.

my DH is an in house counsel. he is a quiet, bookish type but it took me YEARS before i realized that he was lawyering me. meaning, if i asked him a question, he constantly hedged his bets and answered with middle of the road responses with a at least one or two caveats. i finally woke up and realized that i know little about how my DH truly feels about himself, me, and his preferences. it has taken a year of couples therapy for him to stop lawyering me and use stronger language that clues me in as to what he really thinks/feels.

Anonymous wrote:Lawyers are manipulative, are usually conditioned to be void of conscience, are overly confident and often charming. Bad combination.

Fits one of the profiles I read about in an Abnormal Psychology class I had some years ago.

19:46 nailed the experience I had with the last lawyer I dated: "Lawyers are manipulative, are usually conditioned to be void of conscience, are overly confident and often charming. Bad combination." But not all lawyers are like that. My sister is a lawyer and a very devoted wife and mom. She did much of her big law career before having children and down-sized her hours after having kids. She isn't a courtroom lawyer though. She works in contracts-- time consuming, detail work.

Yes! My lawyer ex-h was awful. Zero self reflection, everything was an argument. No thanks.

Anonymous wrote:For as much money as they make in big law, I am not envious at all of their spouses for what they have to put up with.

I'll take my STEM guy who is faithful, honest, and introverted any day.

I'm married to a big law partner who is an absolute gem and an amazing father. I'm sure your husband is too. No need to generalize about entire professions. Absolutes are rarely true or helpful.

Anonymous wrote:No, just argumentative ones.

This.

Lawyers are manipulative, are usually conditioned to be void of conscience, are overly confident and often charming. Bad combination.

For as much money as they make in big law, I am not envious at all of their spouses for what they have to put up with.

I'll take my STEM guy who is faithful, honest, and introverted any day.

the job of a lawyer is to lie and convince people their lies are truths, same with politicians

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dude, I'm in a relationship, we have a child together. He is a blue collar guy. Don't worry about me.

classy

Thanks for clarifying.

This is why I love lawyers.

Having kids out of wedlock may be common but it's not classy.

NP. As a woman, if I insisted on doing everything the "classy" way, I'd still be wearing white gloves, never daring to wear pants or work outside the home and insisting people call me Mrs. Husband's Name.

Classy is a polite way of keeping a woman in a box. I'll marry and have my kids in wedlock when I feel marriage is a fair and reliable economic and social contract for me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I are both lawyers and we have a good marriage, but maybe it's because (according to this thread) we are equally bad spouses and it all evens out cosmically.

Ha! Same here.

Me too

I am probably one of the unlucky ones. I will never get involved with another lawyer romantically.

I was married to the worse Type A personality lawyer ever. In fact, I’ve never met anyone as high strung as him in my life. 6 months into the marriage, he stopped showing interests intimately and I found out he was looking at same-sex porn on the internet.

He would raise his voice at. He would come home late for planned date nights, and when I would tell him that I was upset about it, he would raise his voice at me.

He knew I had G6PD deficiency, but he still brought moth balls into the apartment (his room), but he lied about it. He disposed of the receipt. He disposed of the box. He hid all the evidence. However, he claimed that he could show me the box at the store. That means nothing. He was being really sneaky that night and I knew something was going on.

He knows that could kill someone with G6PD, but claims he forgot. He had accompanied me to numerous doctor appointments when G6PD was discussed. In our first apartment, there was a box of mothballs and I threw them out and I discussed with him why. He claims to not remember that either. However, he claims to remember every detail about his client’s cases, hmmm.


Some do treat their marriage as a courtroom. If you try to mention how they’ve hurt you, they ask for dates and specific times. Or, my ex-husbands favourite phrase was, “ I don’t remember saying that.” However, they are the first ones to act like huge passive aggressive babies when they are hurt.

I danced (ballet) with a girl that was married to an attorney and she was almost in tears one day, because she constantly felt belittled by him.

No, just argumentative ones.