I don't think anything - moving to England, getting diagnosed with Graves', moving back without CB - has been as stressful and existentially challenging as this job hunt (four months and counting, since I'm not about to count that one interlude as a success).
Right now, I'm looking at my options. They include working part-time without benefits (with a serious commute involved); temping full-time and edging that much closer to career Admin Assistant; and accepting the apparent norm in environmental nonprofit land, which means working without pay until the group I'm with decides to hire me. Then, there's the whole challenge of making a two-career couple work. Where are we going to go after CB finishes school? How can we each pursue our dreams while being mindful of the other's, and how on earth do we find a compromise that won't leave either of us feeling like we sacrificed too much? It's a frightening balancing act, but hey: it's only the most important relationship of your life, right? Sometimes, I wish I could be someone who would be happy staying home with the kids, or working wherever I found a job, regardless of what it entails. But then I remember that I wouldn't be who I am if that were the case. And he wouldn't have married me.
CB and I made the decision to marry each other knowing full well that our biggest challenge would be managing to balance work and home in a household headed by two ridiculously driven people with very different career goals. So we work on it, every day, even when we're 8000 miles apart.
But now, on my end, things need to change. When do you decide that your plans need tweaking?
There's a new career I'm considering, but it involves a major shift, a lot of dues-paying, and more grad school. The latter doesn't bother me, but I'm hesitant. I feel like I need to investigate every possible avenue that this new path might lead me down; I thought I'd covered my bases last time, and yet here I am with no real job prospects in sight. Plus, I do need to think about what's best not only for me but also for us. No problem -- what's one more ulcer, right?
So for now, let's just say that I'm planning to either: a) find that elusive environmental job; b) temp full or part-time and research/start on my new career after hours; c) curl up in bed until it all goes away.
I like c) best.
Showing posts with label marriage politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Friday, February 09, 2007
Be calm, be brave, it'll be okay
Fuck. What was I thinking when I thought I could do this?
We haven't even been apart for two months, and there are fissures running the length and breadth of me. I can't touch him, hold him, kiss him, see him. The curse of multiple time zones means we're lucky to talk more than a few hours per week, and we usually can't help but catch each other right before bed or just before dawn.
It's quiet and rainy here tonight, and suddenly I don't know if I can fight hard enough to get through this. Two years? Twenty-four months of this? I feel like my whole world is coming to pieces. I'm just scared that without meaning to, we'll drift apart. We're busy people, busy by nature, most satisifed when we're flying between half a dozen tasks and events, brains chattering at dizzying speeds. When we live together, it's hard enough to "be" together for any amount of time. When we're apart? Like any couple in an LDR, we fill the hours to avoid thinking about the hurt and the loneliness -- but in cramming the waking life full, we don't let ourselves have time to miss each other. It's a double-edged sword: it doesn't hurt as much, and it's probably the only thing that lets us slog through every day without collapsing -- but it almost means we have to detach to survive. And what if we can't stop detaching? What happens when we get to see each other for a whopping two weeks this summer, and then go apart again? And again? And again? What if we grow apart without meaning to? Without realizing the space between us until it's too late?
There aren't any easy answers. It's happening to more and more people we know: if you aren't fortunate enough to share the same career interests (and, sometimes, even if you are), you may be bound for a time apart should you marry young. We knew it, and we knew it, and we knew it...but then it comes down to the wire and you realize that what we knew doesn't compare to what it feels like when it happens. But what are we supposed to do? Is one of us supposed to give it all up, which doesn't do anything but sow seeds of resentment that spring up overnight like dandelions? Is it even possible to find a middle ground where we can both do what we like without going apart for what we love?
Fuck. Sometimes I wish I could just be happy doing anything, and it kills me that I can't. And yet, I get frustrated when people suggest that this is the problem. No one ever asks why he can't give up his path. It's like it all comes down to me, the onus is on me, the problem is me. And the only one who doesn't see it that way -- even when I'm questioning whether they're right -- is him.
In the end, maybe that's why this has to work, even if it hurts in ways I didn't think were possible. Because the only one who understands me is eight thousand miles away. And I'd be a damned fool to let that keep us apart without a fight.
We haven't even been apart for two months, and there are fissures running the length and breadth of me. I can't touch him, hold him, kiss him, see him. The curse of multiple time zones means we're lucky to talk more than a few hours per week, and we usually can't help but catch each other right before bed or just before dawn.
It's quiet and rainy here tonight, and suddenly I don't know if I can fight hard enough to get through this. Two years? Twenty-four months of this? I feel like my whole world is coming to pieces. I'm just scared that without meaning to, we'll drift apart. We're busy people, busy by nature, most satisifed when we're flying between half a dozen tasks and events, brains chattering at dizzying speeds. When we live together, it's hard enough to "be" together for any amount of time. When we're apart? Like any couple in an LDR, we fill the hours to avoid thinking about the hurt and the loneliness -- but in cramming the waking life full, we don't let ourselves have time to miss each other. It's a double-edged sword: it doesn't hurt as much, and it's probably the only thing that lets us slog through every day without collapsing -- but it almost means we have to detach to survive. And what if we can't stop detaching? What happens when we get to see each other for a whopping two weeks this summer, and then go apart again? And again? And again? What if we grow apart without meaning to? Without realizing the space between us until it's too late?
There aren't any easy answers. It's happening to more and more people we know: if you aren't fortunate enough to share the same career interests (and, sometimes, even if you are), you may be bound for a time apart should you marry young. We knew it, and we knew it, and we knew it...but then it comes down to the wire and you realize that what we knew doesn't compare to what it feels like when it happens. But what are we supposed to do? Is one of us supposed to give it all up, which doesn't do anything but sow seeds of resentment that spring up overnight like dandelions? Is it even possible to find a middle ground where we can both do what we like without going apart for what we love?
Fuck. Sometimes I wish I could just be happy doing anything, and it kills me that I can't. And yet, I get frustrated when people suggest that this is the problem. No one ever asks why he can't give up his path. It's like it all comes down to me, the onus is on me, the problem is me. And the only one who doesn't see it that way -- even when I'm questioning whether they're right -- is him.
In the end, maybe that's why this has to work, even if it hurts in ways I didn't think were possible. Because the only one who understands me is eight thousand miles away. And I'd be a damned fool to let that keep us apart without a fight.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
SOTU
You know, listening to the SOTU became easier this year for two reasons:
1. Fewer smart-ass smirks from Dubya
2. The SOTU Drinking Game
After his third or fourth reference to "the American people," I was too entranced by the spinning Senate floor to care. Gotta love the dramatic atmospheric shift this year. No more wild applause or u-rah cheers, and a lot of painful silence when he clearly expected praise. So, what was my favorite part? The long, drawn out praise of Nancy Pelosi, clearly intended to forstall actually embarking on a lame duck speech, or the standard cream filling (in which we praise various random people for random noble acts) which came at the end this time -- because he had not a damned thing to say and didn't want to wrap up with, "Please don't hurt me." Personally, I think it was the Cheney-Pelosi glare wars. Good stuff, people.
But what was up with the near-groping of our new Speaker of the House? Between her and Angela Merkel, I think we have a problem.
1. Fewer smart-ass smirks from Dubya
2. The SOTU Drinking Game
After his third or fourth reference to "the American people," I was too entranced by the spinning Senate floor to care. Gotta love the dramatic atmospheric shift this year. No more wild applause or u-rah cheers, and a lot of painful silence when he clearly expected praise. So, what was my favorite part? The long, drawn out praise of Nancy Pelosi, clearly intended to forstall actually embarking on a lame duck speech, or the standard cream filling (in which we praise various random people for random noble acts) which came at the end this time -- because he had not a damned thing to say and didn't want to wrap up with, "Please don't hurt me." Personally, I think it was the Cheney-Pelosi glare wars. Good stuff, people.
But what was up with the near-groping of our new Speaker of the House? Between her and Angela Merkel, I think we have a problem.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Tell it, sister
Bitch Ph.D. posted some thoughts on feminism, two-career relationships and making choices which resonate so deeply with my own life right now that I can't really summarize them, or the thought-provoking responses which ensued from her readers.
She gets to the core of the monsters in the closet which it seems like all couples face, unless they're both willing to partition the life roles into neat halves (e.g., "you be the breadwinner, and I'll be the homemaker"). Not that I have anything against partitioning -- it works well for some people, and it worked fantastically for my own family -- but it cannot and will never work for me. This has become painfully clear in recent months. I should be perfectly content right now: I have time to write, to think, and I'm liberated from financial worries.
Except that "liberation"? It feels a lot more like dependency. Like Dr. B says, economic dependence doth not a happy feminista make. Particularly when it's one in a cluster of little things which make you feel like it's just about impossible to balance your life and your career if you happen to be a woman -- and, worse, end up making you feel guilty if you want to try the balancing act anyway.
Here is my very serious disclaimer: none of this is intended to reflect on CB, who has been more supportive and understanding of the situation than I ever imagined anyone could be.
That said, graduate school is one hell of a reality check. It should be easier in this world for two book-loving geeks in different fields to find programs and funding in schools which aren't several hundred miles apart. So, off we went on our separate paths because neither of us ever considered giving up school for the other (having had friends with parents who did that, I'm a bit headshy of the notion). It was absolutely the right thing to do, even if my program wound up being something of a disaster. But, like Dr. B, it's all the things we didn't know to plan for which are revealing just how difficult it is to stick to your own principles in real life.
So now, here we are, unexpectedly: one of us is having a deservedly fantastic experience here, is surrounded and stimulated by a vibrant intellectual environment, and is clearly on his way to the career of his dreams. The other, well, the other enjoys having the time to write, but she spends hours scouring the job ads to no avail, is not liking the housewife-type-role she naturally falls into, as she does indeed have more time to be doing the cooking and such, and avoids going into town because she has *always* made her own money and cannot adjust to the idea that it is somehow okay for her to let him be the breadwinner. (This is different from being ungrateful, trust me -- I'm more than grateful. That doesn't mean I'm not uncomfortable, too.) Try as I might, I'm going stir crazy.
And yet, even though I'm admittedly unhappy, and even though I'm fortunate enough to have a partner who sees this (perhaps even clearer than I do) and who has supported the growing sensation that it is time for me to go home...I don't want to leave him. That part is fine -- I'd be more than a little alarmed if I didn't feel that way! -- but unless I find my work, it is time to go, and here is why I'm so hot under the collar: I am absolutely guilt-wracked, plagued ridiculous Donna Reed ideologies to which I've never subscribed but which suddenly haunt me whenever I seriously contemplate leaving. I don't know where these thoughts came from, but they're inside me hammering on my skull, telling me that a good wife doesn't selfishly abandon her husband for a career, of all things (and this spectre is always wearing an apron and smoking a Virginia Slim). A good wife is content to be with someone she loves because being together is all that matters. A good wife doesn't feel overwhelmed and frustrated in a situation she can't control -- she relinquishes the control, the money and the career, and she finds a job wherever she can get one AND SHE IS HAPPY.
I want to strangle this voice with her own apron strings, but the problem is that part of me wonders if she's right, even though I know better. That unconfident bit of me feeds off the responses we've been getting from well-meaning friends, classmates, family and perfect strangers since we announced that we were getting married and moving to separate cities. "But you're his wife!" I still remember one acquaintance saying with confusion, when I explained that I was thinking about moving home. Another person, who I'm pretty sure had the best intentions, gasped and cried, "Oh, that's just terrible! How awful for you both!" when we came to them with the good news that we'd been accepted into our respective programs. I swear she physically recoiled when I told her that we didn't see anything so bad about it. And now, it's starting all over again. I feel like a selfish bitch because I want to move back to the States, find a place of my own and work in the field where I'm pretty sure I belong, rather than spend two years kicking around a country where I'm not happy, where I've never been happy, and where I didn't really want to be in the first place. I know I could work at a coffee shop or as a receptionist, but *I don't want to.* And why should I feel bad about that? Hell, CB could do that, too: drop out of school and follow me to do what I want. He could work as a lab tech or a programmer and probably feel like I do now. But not one person has ever suggested that option, and people think I'm crazy when I try to draw the analogy.
Don't think I feel good about this. In addition to missing the husband, I'm worried about being a financial drain because we'll have two residences instead of one. I'm terrified that something will happen to CB, and I won't be there to help him. The little things are the worst: who's going to hold his hand when he has a bad day? What about when he has to sleep alone in our double bed? I've explained to him before that I feel like I'm being asked to tear away an essential part of myself, no matter which decision I make. And the only thing that tells me I should leave is that I know this part, this incredible man in the UK, will come back to me. When he does, he'll bring my long-absent heart with him, and maybe then I'll finally stop hurting.
These choices, these awful choices. I'm afraid they'll never end, that one of us is always going to be making huge sacrifices for the other instead of both of us finding ways to compromise which still leave us happy. Worse, I'm afraid they'll only end when one of us gives up and opts for something that one person doesn't really want in order to make life easier (historically speaking, that will most likely be me even if both CB and I fight against it with everything we have). Lord, if he gave up his dreams for me, I don't think I'd ever forgive myself. And I am deeply, deeply bitter at a world which provides no support system for couples who share a deep-seated conviction that they will move through this world as equals. Like Dr. B said in her responses to comments:
"...The stuff that both men and women have to deal with--moving a long way, asking your partner to make sacrifices, being broke--*do* affect women more than men. Women are more likely to be told they're "lucky" that their partner supports them, to have partners who make more money, their clothes and grooming cost more, they're more likely to have internalized the expectation to spend more time with the kids and want a cleaner house, etc. etc. etc."
A reader noted some of her situation-specific issues, but they're things I think about, too:
"1. He supports me, but if he is unhappy in an industry job, am I supporting him?
2. In the sciences, men just don't take time off to raise children. There is almost no map to how this would effect his chances for tenure. It is a little itsy bit better for women
3. I chose this completely 'useless' humanities degree, he chose his very 'useful' science degree."
I'll tell you one thing: if we ever have kids, we will both be working parents unless I know in my heart that I want to stay home. (Oh God, see what I just did? I didn't even consider that he might want to stay home instead.)
There's no brilliant conclusion to this, no witty rejoinder or astute observation. I've just noticed lately that an increasing number of women and men I know are going through similar situations as we find the partners who make us willing to struggle through all of this. I don't mean to sound too pessimistic -- plenty of couples get through this and find ways to make it work. I truly believe we are one of those pairs, because I don't think either of us would have gotten into this if we weren't. Nevertheless, Dr. B's post was sobering, and it clearly unleashed a torrent I've been damming up for some time. The last 1.5 years mark the first time I've truly realized how many things in life are unforeseeable and uncontrollable, and it threw me for a loop I wasn't expecting. Growing up can be a real bitch.
She gets to the core of the monsters in the closet which it seems like all couples face, unless they're both willing to partition the life roles into neat halves (e.g., "you be the breadwinner, and I'll be the homemaker"). Not that I have anything against partitioning -- it works well for some people, and it worked fantastically for my own family -- but it cannot and will never work for me. This has become painfully clear in recent months. I should be perfectly content right now: I have time to write, to think, and I'm liberated from financial worries.
Except that "liberation"? It feels a lot more like dependency. Like Dr. B says, economic dependence doth not a happy feminista make. Particularly when it's one in a cluster of little things which make you feel like it's just about impossible to balance your life and your career if you happen to be a woman -- and, worse, end up making you feel guilty if you want to try the balancing act anyway.
Here is my very serious disclaimer: none of this is intended to reflect on CB, who has been more supportive and understanding of the situation than I ever imagined anyone could be.
That said, graduate school is one hell of a reality check. It should be easier in this world for two book-loving geeks in different fields to find programs and funding in schools which aren't several hundred miles apart. So, off we went on our separate paths because neither of us ever considered giving up school for the other (having had friends with parents who did that, I'm a bit headshy of the notion). It was absolutely the right thing to do, even if my program wound up being something of a disaster. But, like Dr. B, it's all the things we didn't know to plan for which are revealing just how difficult it is to stick to your own principles in real life.
So now, here we are, unexpectedly: one of us is having a deservedly fantastic experience here, is surrounded and stimulated by a vibrant intellectual environment, and is clearly on his way to the career of his dreams. The other, well, the other enjoys having the time to write, but she spends hours scouring the job ads to no avail, is not liking the housewife-type-role she naturally falls into, as she does indeed have more time to be doing the cooking and such, and avoids going into town because she has *always* made her own money and cannot adjust to the idea that it is somehow okay for her to let him be the breadwinner. (This is different from being ungrateful, trust me -- I'm more than grateful. That doesn't mean I'm not uncomfortable, too.) Try as I might, I'm going stir crazy.
And yet, even though I'm admittedly unhappy, and even though I'm fortunate enough to have a partner who sees this (perhaps even clearer than I do) and who has supported the growing sensation that it is time for me to go home...I don't want to leave him. That part is fine -- I'd be more than a little alarmed if I didn't feel that way! -- but unless I find my work, it is time to go, and here is why I'm so hot under the collar: I am absolutely guilt-wracked, plagued ridiculous Donna Reed ideologies to which I've never subscribed but which suddenly haunt me whenever I seriously contemplate leaving. I don't know where these thoughts came from, but they're inside me hammering on my skull, telling me that a good wife doesn't selfishly abandon her husband for a career, of all things (and this spectre is always wearing an apron and smoking a Virginia Slim). A good wife is content to be with someone she loves because being together is all that matters. A good wife doesn't feel overwhelmed and frustrated in a situation she can't control -- she relinquishes the control, the money and the career, and she finds a job wherever she can get one AND SHE IS HAPPY.
I want to strangle this voice with her own apron strings, but the problem is that part of me wonders if she's right, even though I know better. That unconfident bit of me feeds off the responses we've been getting from well-meaning friends, classmates, family and perfect strangers since we announced that we were getting married and moving to separate cities. "But you're his wife!" I still remember one acquaintance saying with confusion, when I explained that I was thinking about moving home. Another person, who I'm pretty sure had the best intentions, gasped and cried, "Oh, that's just terrible! How awful for you both!" when we came to them with the good news that we'd been accepted into our respective programs. I swear she physically recoiled when I told her that we didn't see anything so bad about it. And now, it's starting all over again. I feel like a selfish bitch because I want to move back to the States, find a place of my own and work in the field where I'm pretty sure I belong, rather than spend two years kicking around a country where I'm not happy, where I've never been happy, and where I didn't really want to be in the first place. I know I could work at a coffee shop or as a receptionist, but *I don't want to.* And why should I feel bad about that? Hell, CB could do that, too: drop out of school and follow me to do what I want. He could work as a lab tech or a programmer and probably feel like I do now. But not one person has ever suggested that option, and people think I'm crazy when I try to draw the analogy.
Don't think I feel good about this. In addition to missing the husband, I'm worried about being a financial drain because we'll have two residences instead of one. I'm terrified that something will happen to CB, and I won't be there to help him. The little things are the worst: who's going to hold his hand when he has a bad day? What about when he has to sleep alone in our double bed? I've explained to him before that I feel like I'm being asked to tear away an essential part of myself, no matter which decision I make. And the only thing that tells me I should leave is that I know this part, this incredible man in the UK, will come back to me. When he does, he'll bring my long-absent heart with him, and maybe then I'll finally stop hurting.
These choices, these awful choices. I'm afraid they'll never end, that one of us is always going to be making huge sacrifices for the other instead of both of us finding ways to compromise which still leave us happy. Worse, I'm afraid they'll only end when one of us gives up and opts for something that one person doesn't really want in order to make life easier (historically speaking, that will most likely be me even if both CB and I fight against it with everything we have). Lord, if he gave up his dreams for me, I don't think I'd ever forgive myself. And I am deeply, deeply bitter at a world which provides no support system for couples who share a deep-seated conviction that they will move through this world as equals. Like Dr. B said in her responses to comments:
"...The stuff that both men and women have to deal with--moving a long way, asking your partner to make sacrifices, being broke--*do* affect women more than men. Women are more likely to be told they're "lucky" that their partner supports them, to have partners who make more money, their clothes and grooming cost more, they're more likely to have internalized the expectation to spend more time with the kids and want a cleaner house, etc. etc. etc."
A reader noted some of her situation-specific issues, but they're things I think about, too:
"1. He supports me, but if he is unhappy in an industry job, am I supporting him?
2. In the sciences, men just don't take time off to raise children. There is almost no map to how this would effect his chances for tenure. It is a little itsy bit better for women
3. I chose this completely 'useless' humanities degree, he chose his very 'useful' science degree."
I'll tell you one thing: if we ever have kids, we will both be working parents unless I know in my heart that I want to stay home. (Oh God, see what I just did? I didn't even consider that he might want to stay home instead.)
There's no brilliant conclusion to this, no witty rejoinder or astute observation. I've just noticed lately that an increasing number of women and men I know are going through similar situations as we find the partners who make us willing to struggle through all of this. I don't mean to sound too pessimistic -- plenty of couples get through this and find ways to make it work. I truly believe we are one of those pairs, because I don't think either of us would have gotten into this if we weren't. Nevertheless, Dr. B's post was sobering, and it clearly unleashed a torrent I've been damming up for some time. The last 1.5 years mark the first time I've truly realized how many things in life are unforeseeable and uncontrollable, and it threw me for a loop I wasn't expecting. Growing up can be a real bitch.
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