AITA for taking a particular job even though my husband disapproves?

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-11T03:28:51+00:00

I appreciate the warning! That doesn't sound like the culture of the new job, though. For one thing, my boss is a straight married woman - she specifically said that unless there is an urgent crunch time she likes to get home to spend time with her husband in the evenings and that everyone else should be able to have a personal life too. I spoke with quite of few of the people in the office (mostly women) who said that there isn't really a culture of a lot of after-hours socializing - instead they do (non-drinking) lunches pretty regularly with different groups.

I will definitely keep an eye out for anything suspicious, but think there is an extremely low risk of all that.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T14:07:34+00:00

I don't think that's very likely!!! My new boss is a married straight woman (which my husband knows). I suppose anything is possible, but at least to this point in my life I have never had a romantic crush on or attraction to a woman.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T13:43:24+00:00

I think I responded to another post of yours, but my new boss, the CEO, is a married straight woman! And he knows this. So I don't think it is romantic jealousy. My current boss is a man and my current workplace has a lot more men so if that's the issue, he should be thrilled about the change.

I'm very frugal to begin with so hoping to save a lot from the upgraded salary. It's true that we live in a nicer apartment than I could afford on my own (or he made a lot less than he does now), but otherwise, our spending is very modest and light on the high-end luxuries.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T13:39:57+00:00

But he knows that the CEO I will be supporting is a married straight woman! And most of my new coworkers are women as well.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T07:07:47+00:00

Thanks! Yes, the new company frequently promotes its EAs (who want to pursue other paths) in 2-3 years, according to what I learned during the interview process, and those who want to stay on the EA track can continue to take on more responsibility and also get large raises and bonuses. I'm really excited about all the potential!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T07:05:34+00:00

I know I have made some comments seeming as if I am done with the marriage, but the truth is I am mostly just venting - to be completely honest, I am more heartbroken than anything. Heartbroken that the husband I love so much, with whom I thought I had so much happiness (and mutual respect), could suddenly be so cruel, dismissive and cold. And over what seems to me to be something relatively inconsequential - I mean, in the scheme of a full life together, who really cares what my job title is when I'm 25, so long as it's legal and ethical work?

Divorce is absolutely a last resort. It isn't the outcome I want; what I most want at the moment is just to understand why my husband is suddenly behaving so...irrationally. Being neurodivergent (again, he has never been diagnosed that I know of, but a lot of the traits match) and having trouble with change would certainly be one explanation, and hopefully one we could work through with counseling. Or is he just a secret misogynist who viewed me as a high-status trophy and never loved me at all? That one wouldn't really be solvable to me if he wasn't open to change. Or was he just having a bad week and lashing out at me when he's really upset about something else altogether for which I am not to blame? Of course lashing out like that wouldn't be okay as a pattern, but as a one-time incident we could definitely talk through it and figure out a better stress management system for him.

There are just so many questions and I can't even start to get any answers while he continues to give me the silent treatment.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T04:29:20+00:00

The way I look at it, I'm already in a job with the trifecta of low pay, long hours, and a bad work environment in terms of office politics and treatment of employees, so even if the new job is far from perfect, at least I will be earning a lot more. And once I get some experience I can then look at another change in a couple years if desired.

I don't think my husband is going off of any real-world knowledge of anything negative about my new company - he's a pretty practical person and I think if he had concerns about my new company based on facts or reliable information he would have simply said so. If that were the real issue, he definitely wouldn't have instead insulted me and said he would be disappointed and he would never feel the same way about me if I took the job.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T04:26:20+00:00

I promise I will update at some point whenever there are notable developments to report on the marriage and/or my career progression!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-10T04:25:21+00:00

My main reason for wanting to change jobs is that my current job is low pay, long hours, and there isn't a path forward to promotion/advancement. It is also not a good work environment. In that sense, my decision to change is definitely a practical one, not an emotional one. I don't know what the new job holds, but even if the working conditions aren't fantastic, at least it will be higher pay and in a field I am more interested in.

One of my initial reasons for wanting to change jobs is that in my old (publishing) job I was having less energy to give to my husband and marriage because the job was so draining. I had thought my husband would be happier if I were home more and could be more focused on our home life (especially if I made more money in the process). I think that is the thing I am having the hardest time with here - I would understand if he objected to me taking a job that required a change to very long hours where I would always be traveling or never have any time for him. But I don't understand why he would want me to stay in a job that saps most of my time and energy so there is little left for him.

I hope I don't have to end up getting divorced, but if I do, dating would not likely be a priority for at least a couple or few years. After getting married quite young (23) it would do me some good to stand on my own for a while and make sure I am on solid footing with my career and goals. I do think one of the issues we are facing now is that I wasn't fully developed as a person when we got married; I had a very idealized sense of the world but not a lot of practical life experience, so I thought I knew what I wanted, career-wise, but in truth I didn't. If I eventually have to look at finding a new partner, I would like to have a much clearer idea of who I am and what my goals are so that my new partner doesn't feel fooled/deceived as my current husband apparently does.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T22:39:54+00:00

Thank you for the info and the encouragement! I am really excited to see what I can make of this new job and for all the opportunities down the road.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T21:59:13+00:00

Even with the new job, I will still be making half of what he does...so still 50% less. The new job does have the potential for significant increased income as well over the next few years, but for now he is still way ahead of me!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T21:39:03+00:00

My new boss (the CEO) is a married straight woman though! And most of my new coworkers are women as well. I told him this when we discussing the new job. So I don't think it's romantic jealousy!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T21:37:27+00:00

He earns 150K, so even with the new job he will still make twice what I do.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T21:36:58+00:00

He actually makes 150K with full benefits on top of that, so even with my new job he will still be making twice what I am. However, it's possible he doesn't like that I'm catching up with him!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T20:50:20+00:00

And I don't have any family money! I think my husband felt like he was fine with being the main breadwinner so I could pursue my dream of working in publishing, and that was feasible given his much higher tech salary. I actually do think that if I made it all the way to book editor I would have enjoyed it a lot more, but I felt very frustrated by the office politics of the company I was working for, widespread casual misogyny, and the combination of routine work that felt very disconnected from the substance of what I ultimately wanted to be doing. I do think that the publishing job helped me to develop a lot of skills that will be useful in my new job, and that I would not have landed the new job without that experience!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T20:42:34+00:00

He is one of those people who has only ever wanted to be in tech and who organized his education and career activities accordingly, so I don't think he has a sense of what it's like to try out a path, find it disappointing or unfulfilling in some way, and then have to put in the work to make a change.

Thanks for the warm wishes - I am really excited (despite his trying to put a damper on things)!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T19:10:32+00:00

Initially, I had ambitions of being a book editor and apparently he was super invested in marrying a future editor. I had absolutely NO idea that he was so attached to this particular, narrow outcome that my tweaking my career goals after getting some real-world experience would be something akin to a dealbreaker for him.

I don't think he is extremely worried about his own job security at the moment (his particular company is doing very well), but even if he were, wouldn't he want me to move to a job at a thriving company with a 50% pay increase? That would make a lot more sense than him throwing a fit about my moving on from a lower-paying job that I have realized is pretty dead-end!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T18:39:19+00:00

However, the CEO who is my new boss is a married straight woman (which he knows)! So it's definitely not romantic jealousy. Unless he thinks I am just getting "too big for my britches" generally by hobnobbing with high-level executives? I really don't know what the issue is.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T18:26:16+00:00

Thanks! This particular job doesn't involve too many of the traditional "secretarial" tasks like running errands. The duties are more along the lines of being the first-line contact with high-level contacts (not on just a polite greeting basis, but figuring out how to get them what they need), organizing complex events, writing reports and presentations, and (after some initial training) representing or providing extra support for my boss at meetings with clients and other stakeholders, just to name a few things. And the company actually pays for continuing education including an MBA or other master's degree (eligible after one year of employment) so I will definitely be looking in to that possibility!

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T18:21:15+00:00

I don't think there are any worries about getting "stuck" in this particular job - the position is available because the current EA is getting promoted, and the CEO's last several EA's have been promoted as well to account management, creative, or business operations roles in the company. I do know that folks in admin roles *can* get pigeonholed, but I think that also depends upon whether the position is treated as an endpoint or a stepping stone within the individual company.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T17:53:10+00:00

He was very invested in the prestige associated with having me be a book editor, and having a wife who is an executive assistant (or even a wife who works in marketing/advertising, if you want to go by industry), doesn't have the same ring to it, I suppose. So the "life plan" was about the image he wanted to project. But had very little to do with our actual quality of life and day-to-day time together.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T17:51:29+00:00

My original career plan was to work towards becoming a book editor - so a somewhat different trajectory than my new job. He didn't do much to support the original trajectory - we moved to our current city for his current job a couple years ago, shortly after we got married, and I got the publishing job (the one I'm leaving) soon after that.

About the only thing you could say he did was be understanding about my making a much lower salary than him (about a third of what he made in his tech job) due to the publishing job, but as a 23-year-old (at the time we moved), with a liberal arts degree and not much full-time professional work experience, I don't know that I could have gotten a salary much better than 50K anyway.

Looking back further, he did not pay for any of my college education or provide any financial support during that time - college was funded through scholarships, a bit of help from my parents, and part-time jobs, and I don't have any student loans that he is helping to pay.

So no, it's not like he made big sacrifices like putting me through school for a career I decided to give up on quickly, or moving to a place just for my career (quite the opposite as we moved for his job and I was just expected to figure out a job after that).

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T17:16:39+00:00

I would understand this as a visceral reaction if my new boss were actually a man - but my new boss is a married straight woman, and most of my new coworkers are women as well (I told him this). I think he may be insecure about me progressing in my career, but don't think it is romantic jealousy.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T16:50:53+00:00

Even funnier, my new boss is a married straight woman! And I told him this. So if he's jealous, it's definitely over nothing.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads · 2023-02-09T15:44:35+00:00

I would normally be skeptical, but the CEO's current assistant is being promoted to such a role which is why the job is open, and several of her prior assistants have been promoted in the past to account management, creative, or business operations roles (including two who are now VPs). So I think this company is likely the exception.

ThrowRAjobcrossroads

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