This is my first post at MB. I read and agree most of the basic concepts. That is why I post here and would like to get other's opinions on my issue. English is not my first language so forgive me for any grammar errors.

My wife and I have been married for almost 15 years. We have 2 wonderful kids under 10 years old. I would say our marriage are very good overall. But there is one issue about my career development that came up almost every few months. It caused our relations in trouble.

My current job is a remote job and with a small company. I have this job for a very long time. My wife on the other hand switched major and jobs multiple times. She is currently working for a Fortune 500 company.

She asked me to change job since years ago. She think that this job gets me nowhere in the career and wasted my time and opportunity. I did not agree. I was happy with this job because it paid very well and it was flexible that I could spend more time with my family and took my kids to different activities. Both of them are in swim teams.

It got worse that my company was not doing well in last few years and my income suffered. So I stared job searching. It became my life focus. I got several opportunities but I could not nail them. I could not find anything better that my current one.

She said that I was not trying hard enough. I sort of agreed that I did not give my best. I got frustrated and depressed after year long full time work + part time job searching. I saw individual counselor several times because I could not focus. I just felt I lost steam to keep going.

My company is not doing well but I won't lose my job any time soon. I used to earn more than her but right now we earn roughly same but still in 6 digits range. We have asset well over 1M between house/saving/retirement. Additional income won't help our live in any significant way.

We have another argument last night. She told me that after she saw during the day all her male coworkers working with high energy having bright future, and got off the work and saw me working in my home office alone. She felt sad for me because I should have been much better than where I am now. She said we will always be together because our kids but she is afraid she will lose admiration and then love for me.

I feel really bad and I am confused too. Is her request selfish demanding? Or am I not meeting her emotional need?

Welcome to MB.

What makes a request into a selfish demand is not that a request is unpleasant to hear. It becomes a demand when a spouse uses punishment (anger, sulking, the silent treatment, withholding money), or the threat of punishment, in an attempt to force the other spouse to do what they want.

From what you have written, I have not seen your wife use punishment or threats to force you to change your job. She did say that she is afraid that she will lose admiration and then love for you, but I think that you should see this as her being radically honest about her fears, rather than a threat that she will stop loving you. She is not saying that she will stop loving you on purpose, or deliberately as a punishment. She is telling you how your behaviour is affecting your account in her love bank, and as such, you should be grateful to her for that. It's rather like getting the first overdraft letter from the bank; it is unpleasant to hear, but a valuable warning before things become much worse.

She might be using disrespectful judgements, which she should not do - these affect her account in your love bank. When she says that you should have been much better than where you are now, she is judging you as underachieving, rather than sticking to telling you how your behaviour affects her (i.e. the gradual loss of love).

There is a big problem with your having disregarded her requests for you to change in the past, because you were well paid and happy that you could spend time with your kids. What you were really saying is that, as long as you were happy, you were not going to consider her less-than-happiness with your occupation and achievements. That is not a wise approach to take to a spouse's request for emotional needs to be better met.

It seems that this was not a matter of money for your wife, although she no doubt worries about the problems your company is going through. It is more to do with the way she sees you as a provider; her emotional need for financial support is not fulfilled simply by being comfortably off. Like the average woman that Dr Harley describes in His Needs her Needs, she wants you to be ahead of her in career terms. She does not want to be your equal. She wants you to be the provider for the whole family, without needing her income to maintain your lifestyle, and she wants you to be ambitious and competitive, like the men at her workplace. And it seems that you have been in an occupational field that would have allowed that, but you chose not to exploit that.

It is worrying that she compares you to the men at work, because, as we know, a high proportion of affairs are between co-workers, and she is already comparing you unfavourably to her male co-workers. She should be able to raise her concerns without looking at other men and seeing them as better husband material than you.

You need to decide how your are going to deal with her complaints. You should not try to meet this EN by doing something that makes you unhappy, but, on the other hand, she has told you how your being at home, stable, but not progressing, affects her feelings for you. If you want her to stay in love with you, you need to find a way to meet her EN in a way that is acceptable to you. You need to brainstorm with your wife about solutions that make you both happy. You would be unwise to ignore this issue any longer - you can see already that having done so for so long has cause problems in your marriage.

This statement from her worries me. I think she might be having an affair with a man at work. There is no reason for her to have made this direct comparison.

You need to snoop to see what's going on at work. Do you have easy access to her phone?

Does she work long hours? Does she travel away from home?

Thank you for your insight. I can see them much clear now

No long hours work or travel
we have access to each others phone and email

I would like to add that many of these arguments were triggered by some one we know or she knows switched to a better job or got promoted. So I could understand her comment but I will keep eye on

Thank you again for the reply

So what is your plan?

I will control my frustrations and work hard in the job market. It is not easy and I do not know whether I can succeed or when if so. But it is for the best interest for me, for her, and for my whole family. Even I fail I can still say I try my best.

I am also trying to come up any alternative solutions at the mean time. I could not find any yet. But that is sort of like a back up plan and not for now.

Are you going to snoop?

The first and most important part of your strategy must be to talk to your wife.

You must not approach this by assuming that you understand what she wants, and even worse, that you can tackle it without getting her enthusiastic agreement to your strategy. That would be independent behaviour, and it could cause bigger problems than the one it is trying to solve.

You need thoroughly to understand the problem from her perspective. Then, you need to brainstorm with her about meeting her emotional need in a way that makes you happy, but also in a way that is not detrimental to the marriage. If you were to take up a job that requires you to work long hours, for example, or even worse, to stay away from home, that would not allow you to be available for UA time, and would it lead to very independent lifestyles, and, at worse, an affair.

Dr Harley cautions against increasing financial support by working long hours. From a post about financial support on the private forum (where he posts to people who have done the online course):

And from another post on financial support,

It would be a terrible mistake for you to dismiss the possibility of an affair without taking this step. You might think that you'd be the first to suspect if she really were having an affair, but countless numbers of spouses have come to this forum unable to see what we, perfect strangers, can see right away. Some time later, they find out that we were right.

This is bad news. A huge red flag.

I wished I grossed $100,000. Then if my wife had a 6 figure income as well I do not see where a wife would be complaining there would not be enough income to have a good life style. I am not going to live like Trump though I will be in good neighborhoods, kids in catholic schools, a new car every 5 years so no car is over 10 years old.

On several radioshows, Dr. Harley mentioned ambition seems to be an EN for some women. He didn't put it in the list, because ambition is part of someones character and you cannot (or only poorly) train or practice ambition.

Red flag that she mentions/compares other men.

Sorry for the late response. We had a ski trip this weekend. We had a good time and I was exhausted.

we have been fully transparent with each other from long before we married. we have each other's all passwords. We used each other's phone and email from time to time. we share all financial accounts and can look up every single transactions. We can locate each other's exact location 24/7 through our smartphones.

I did look her phone and email and also the phone records. I do not see any red flags. I will still keep my eye open for any possible signs.

This was what we agreed on already. I just decided to do it with my best effort, which I was reluctant before. Thanks for the reminder. I think I will still need talk with her so we understand where we are each other.

I am not going to accept any new job (assume I can find one) without fully discussed the pros and cons with my wife and my kids.

The first and most important part of your strategy must be to talk to your wife.

You must not approach this by assuming that you understand what she wants, and even worse, that you can tackle it without getting her enthusiastic agreement to your strategy. That would be independent behaviour, and it could cause bigger problems than the one it is trying to solve.

You need thoroughly to understand the problem from her perspective. Then, you need to brainstorm with her about meeting her emotional need in a way that makes you happy, but also in a way that is not detrimental to the marriage. If you were to take up a job that requires you to work long hours, for example, or even worse, to stay away from home, that would not allow you to be available for UA time, and would it lead to very independent lifestyles, and, at worse, an affair.

Dr Harley cautions against increasing financial support by working long hours. From a post about financial support on the private forum (where he posts to people who have done the online course):

And from another post on financial support,

[/quote]

that is exactly my thought process before. I do understand now that the income is really not the concern. What she wants is my career progress and staying ahead her. Also the insecurity for the possibility of, after years from now, that I lose my job and can not maintain the same income ability.

well said. ambition is really one of her main characters, which helped her to move forward her education and career. I wish I could have it.

I was hurt by her comments but I do not really see that as red flags. She compared herself with others all the time. Probably because her ambition or insecurity. I see it as more like motivations which really did counter effect on me.

She is communicating to you how she wants to admire you.

I am wired similar to how you have described her. My drive/ambition is more to meet and succeed at challenges rather than career climbing. Career climbing is a natural side effect of that, but it is not my driver.

If you are meeting and succeeding at challenges at work, have you let her into your career "room" so she can enjoy that with you? Or, are you focusing your conversations on the side benefits of being a quasi-stay at home dad so that is all she knows about your work?

My xH makes 6 figures, but he would talk about the free time he had at work and that he spent much of his working hours on the internet (which I viewed as stealing from an employer). The things he shared with me about his work I didn't respect and thought he was taking an underachieving, lazy career path.

If instead he had come home telling me about the challenges he resolved during the part of his day that he was working (leaving out the rest), I could have had a completely different impression of his work ethic and achievements.

Do you have successes and challenges in your job you can share with her?

Otherwise, I have been home office based for the last 20 years; in no way do you have to accept underachievement in exchange for working from home.

If your job truly has no achievements or challenges to discuss with your wife, you may be very well served to start searching for other options. It is hard for an achiever to respect someone who they perceive as lazy. It would be easier for you to get another job than for her to change her perspective.