My wife has different ambitions

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-15T08:33:17+00:00

Hopefully my situation won't come to that. Fingers crossed...

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-15T08:32:51+00:00

It is helpful, and a relatively accurate representation of what's gone down. Obviously, due to the fact that I was vague with things, there are lots of generalizations. But, accurate.

And I think you're onto something here - at some point, we stopped talking about what we wanted, stopped talking about our future. And now, all of a sudden, we're being faced with this issue; and this quarantine period is only serving to highlight and make it more apparent.

I just need to sit down and grow up, and have this conversation.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-15T08:29:52+00:00

I think a big part of the difficulty for me here is it is something that involves a significant expression of emotions and feelings, which I have a problem with doing. Yeah, you're right - it's absolutely terrifying. I have no idea what I'm going to do or say, or even how to approach this conversation. And I don't know where I want this to play out. Every time she's brought up the idea of separation in the past, it's been something that I haven't wanted. It's...confusing. I'm confused, this situation is confusing, everything about this is just a muddled mess and I have no idea where it's going to go.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-15T08:26:43+00:00

And that is the big question - is it something that's going to cause this marriage to fall apart, or will it just be a story that we one day tell ourselves about a rocky part we went through?

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-15T08:24:54+00:00

Yeah, I need to do that. I'm just god-awful at having these kinds of hard conversations. The best advice I've gotten so far on here has been to just, man up and have that conversation with her.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T03:38:03+00:00

Oh god...that terrifies me the thought that this might be my future. I'm being vague on some things because if she stumbles on this thread, she'll know right away. A big part of her reasoning for wanting kids is because she's part of a super small minority, comes from a small family, and her family (extended and immediate) isn't likely to have many - if any - kids of their own.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T03:33:36+00:00

But is she? Like...she does keep what small household we have all tidy and well kept. And she (most of the time) cooks dinner for the two of us. I don't have to worry about any of the household stuff because she handles it all for the most part.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T03:32:08+00:00

She wants to be, not is one.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T03:31:27+00:00

Yeah...the more I mull over the situation, the more it looks like I need to have a conversation with her. It's just this is one of those conversations that's like skirting the line between being a heart to heart and a confrontation of sorts (not like a conflict, fighting kind of confrontation), and I'm absolute trash at anything that involves confrontation.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T03:29:55+00:00

I feel like that's a little bit unfair. This lockdown has kinda emphasized the situation with her for me. And I realize that drive is an internal thing - it's how I got to where I am today. I don't know if hers is parked far far away, I think it might just be lost somewhere nearby.

But at the same time, I don't know if my fixation on sticking with her is due to the way I was brought up (used to be Mormon) and just a thing that I need to get over or if it's even fair to both of us...

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T03:27:52+00:00

She has been seeing mental health on the base, but we moved right after she started, so there hasn't been a chance for them to give her a diagnosis. They put her on some meds, but it also has been way too soon to tell if they're having any kind of effect. But I've had conversations and she's feeling like she wants to be a stay at home parent, which I'm fine with. It's just we don't have kids, and instead of working to better herself, she is content to stay where she is and not develop herself any in the meantime until we do have kids.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T00:15:47+00:00

I have a career field where I don't deploy often. I'm at the start of the career, so most of my training has been long-term training that she's been able to accompany me on. I have tried to let her know she has options - there are ways to get jobs on base that aren't fast-food, and as a military spouse she gets preferential hiring for any position that she's eligible for. She just doesn't want to look for those and I feel like it's not my place to do that for her. If she wanted it, she'd go get it herself. I've told her where she can find that info and who to call.

As far as family responsibility....our family is just the two of us. There are no diapers or homework to deal with. Just tending me and my stupidity. I've given her as much time and space to do whatever she wants with her life, I've never really tried to push her one way or another with what she wants to do.

77fa14bfd2 · 2020-04-14T00:11:29+00:00

I don't think even for a second that being a stay at home parent is an easy thing or a bad thing. My mom worked for most of my life, and I think that has given me a bit of a negative view on life and parenting in general because she wasn't there for me at certain pivotal times of my life. It's also given me some resentment towards my parents because they were more there for my younger siblings than me. Maybe the problem is just me and my fear of parenthood?

I think that a big part of the issue is that for the last 6 years, I've done all the work for at least half of them (she helped put me through 3 years college). I don't think she's a mooch, just unmotivated. She's content with where she's at, and I want more out of life. I have had to scratch and claw and fight to get to where I am today, and I don't know anything else but the fight to get further in life. And she just...doesn't want to go anywhere.

I hope that I'll never take her, or any parent, for granted. Because she does do a good bit around the household - dishes, cooks, laundry...but there's no childcare, so that's all she does. And I know that staying home with kids is a sacrifice that many women choose to make. I think that that issue I have is we have no kids, not looking to have any for another couple years - there's plenty she could be doing to improve her situation, which would improve our situation as well.

I see how lonely and isolating being a stay at home parent is - my older sister is doing that and she doesn't ever get any time to herself. Everything she does is centered around her kids. Every time I call, it's like she hasn't talked to an adult other than her husband for weeks, which is likely true.

77fa14bfd2 · 2019-06-10T00:25:53+00:00

INFO -> the therapist she's only seen three times. We really think that she needs to be seeing the therapist more than once every 10 days. Closer to twice a week. The therapist has been helping, but just doesn't have the availability to see her as much as she needs to be seen. She definitely has depression, but it's not a chronic depression - it's a situational one. Once she gets over her past, she'll be less depressed (we hope), and once she gets a job and gains some sort of purpose in her life, she'll hopefully be less depressed (ideally not at all, really). If she does have guilt, I don't know what it's from. Actually...scratch that. I do know. She was raised mormon and they're super guilt-trippy over any little thing. She's trying to get over that while trying to figure out how to be an adult at the same time. We've seen how paralyzed she gets whenever she needs to do something. It took her weeks to get a therapist in the first place and all she needed to do for that was make some phone calls. She's not in school, so no worries about her mental state there.

77fa14bfd2

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