Competing Careers – Can a Man Keep His Sanity?

PREFACE. This is a rant about relationships and careers. It has value (at least to me), but it must be considered as a frustrated moment in time highlighting the challenges of mixed careers and desires in a relationship. These frustrations come and go. My wife is a wonderful woman, but she gets caught up in the excitement of moments. When she does, an awareness of her sphere of influence sometimes vanishes. Her enthusiasm for the goal at hand can become all-encompassing.

I get it; I’ve been there. I love her and I love that she is so involved in her new career. I’m not so enamored with how it impacts my retirement and my schedule. There will be progress. We’ll figure this thing out. In the meantime, you might get a kick out of a man’s frustrations.

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I just got diverted into writing something serious. I wasn’t going to do it. I wanted to write something light, escapist, relatively simple. Now I can’t do it. Instead, I’m going to ramble on about relationships, about the opposite sex, about my lack of understanding, my lack of tolerance.

I’m going to question, like I seemingly nearly always do, why I blame what’s wrong with my relationships with women on myself. I don’t know what’s more useless – blaming myself for parts of me I have no want to improve, or no idea how. I try my very best to give them room to do what they want, when they want. If I can move my golf game for some event or task they have, I do it. If I need to postpone something for something that’s important to them, I do it. I move my schedule to their wants and desires.

But I wonder if I’m really getting much out of it. Patience doesn’t seem to have gotten me much other than not pissing myself off. At least, most of the time. Which is good, of course. But there’s an undercurrent I don’t know how to fight without feeling like the little princess has gotten her feelings hurt. Somehow, I will end up paying for that. There’s just no way to get to level ground without a fight or ignoring the little Primadonna’s pouting and hissy fits.

Why can’t there simply be an acknowledgement, a recognition that I have a list of things I would like to do, to get done on more than a once in a while basis? Like today, for instance. She has a schedule of things she wants to do, and tasks she wants to accomplish on certain days at certain times. There’s no negotiation; this is what she’s going to do. Period. And if that means me accommodating for it, so be it. In the end, she doesn’t care; what she wants comes first. Frankly, I’m pretty tired of it.

I don’t think it’ll do much good to talk about it. Somehow, what she wants is most important. To her credit, now that she’s retired, she has another ambition to chase. Good for her, but why do I have to be cheerleader, backup assistant, and sounding board always at her beck and call? The only way to escape it is to make myself unavailable, to disappear. Look, most times I don’t mind. But there are limits. I don’t want to be accosted about some subject or social post she’s planning at 9 o’clock at night. I don’t want to be bombarded with her latest idea first thing in the morning. Sorry. I don’t.

It’s not my gig. It’s hers. I find it interesting, but I have no real desire to share it. It’s her dream, she should pursue it and I’m all for that, just not at the expense of my time, my hobbies, my desires and ambitions. I know – relationships mean compromise. That’s fine; I just don’t want to be dominated, where my choices come second.

There needs to be a buffer. I haven’t found it yet, but I can tell you I’m getting pretty determined to figure out how to implement one. When we were both working, it was fine. By necessity, we both had our spaces the other more or less had to leave alone. Now, in retirement, it’s like I’ve turned into full-time fair game. My space is not her space. WTF! This can’t last – I’ll go insane.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things I enjoy doing with her. But there are also things I need to have time to do on my own. She has no ability to establish self-imposed boundaries; it’s all open season all the time, from the time you wake to the time you go to sleep. I don’t want to constantly be the one to impose those limits. I don’t want to always be the bad guy. I want her to recognize there need to be limits in what she asks for, how much, and how often. I’m asking for some self-control, self-discipline, self-awareness about the demands she places on others.

I hate to say it, honey, but as much as I love you, the world doesn’t revolve around your latest passion. We need to figure this out, and I need your help to do it.