My wife and I have been married for 5 years. Our anniversary is next week. We have a beautiful 3 year old daughter, and we are under tremendous stress right now. Within the past year, we have moved twice, my wife has enrolled in graduate school, we've suffered a death in the family, and now we are separated (not in the sense of getting a divorce separated) because my job requires me to be on another continent from where she is right now. We just had a HUGE fight again on the telephone about this (she then called back to make up), and I gave her my consistent line which is that over the long-term if my career is not working for us as a family then I need to find something else to do. In the meantime, I need to stay focused on my career when at work so I can continue to provide the financial support to the family. However, I am never sure that she hears and understands this message. We seem to come back to demands that I quit and come home tomorrow, regardless of the consequences.

I am very serious when I tell her that if my career doesn't work for us in the long-term then I need to do something else, but long-term is more than the one year she needs to finish school. I very much enjoy my career and my field of work. I work for the USG agency that provides disaster and humanitarian assistance around the world. I get to travel (a lot) and I have seen and experienced things that most Americans will not see in a lifetime. Right now, I am in Ethiopia, where 10 million people are facing starvation. How many of you have seen a starving child dying in front of his/her parents? Or seen people driven from their homes by warfare and desparately in need of help. I find much emotional, moral and professional satisfaction in my work. It is at the same time both deadly serious, very interesting and fun! I've travelled to placs where few people have been and travelled back in time (not literally) where the practices of ancient civilizations are still preserved and practiced today. All this I am willing to give up for my wife and daughter, and suffer in quiet frustration at a desk job somewhere, but she needs to understand that I am giving up alot in this (without regrets) and to appreciate it.

Also, from a communication standpoint, I can never tell what are her actual desires. In a moment of anger and rage she says one thing and in a calmer moment another. In a fit of rage, she is never ever coming to Africa, and in a calmer moment it is, well I could come if only for a year. So, which message am I supposed to take seriously. It always seems that she is sending crossed signals and doesn't know what she really wants other than for us to be together. Help!
I am in the procesI feel that this work is very very important and I get great satisfaction from it. When I tell her that I can change if she wants me too, she says "Do not ask me to make your career decisions!" Further, she needs to understand that I will need to find something that will be as morally and professionally satisfying elsewhere and that I will be giving up a lot by changing my career.

Can she put her education on hold to be with you?

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001035

I'm very sorry to see you in this situation.

I don't know if this will help, but I can tell you about my experience. I was in a similar situation with my EH. He had a job that required him to be gone all the time, but he loved his job. In short, everything at home fell to me. I didn't have a life. When I got married, I expected to have a partner, but with this job, I lost my partner. When he was away, he didn't do anything to keep a connection with me; I missed him terribly. I was also very very angry, because I felt like he didn't miss me at all.

He always said the same thing that you did about giving it up to be with me. I didn't want to be the "*****" who made him give up his job. I didn't want to be the cause of his lack of career advancement. When put in the terms of "sacrifice" and "all that I would give up", how could I ask him to do that?

Now here is the real deal. I wanted him to love me and want me more than anything in the world. I wanted to be valued more than a job. By keeping that job, knowing that I was miserable, he showed me on a daily basis that what he was doing was more important than our relationship and that my misery mattered nothing to him. And, by making such a huge deal about the "sacrifice" it would be to put me and our relationship first, he showed me that I meant little to him. This is why he is an EH.

I don't know what you do, but I don't think it has to be an off-the-continent or at-the-desk proposition. Perhaps you could write for a magazine - something that has you traveling less.

Best wishes and good luck,
Luckylady

P.S.- I don't know how your wife feels about Africa, but I wouldn't want to raise my child there, so I think the previous poster was a little off the mark.

I was a stay-at-home dad in your wife's shoes. It was my wife who was always traveling. She was getting her three most important EN's met by her job, not me. She was having an affair with her job. So are you. If you read through the Basic Concepts section of this web site, you will see that the things you absolutely need to be getting from your spouse in order to have a great marriage, you are getting from your job. Normally, one worries about getting them met by one other person, and falling in ove with that person. You are in love with your job, and putting it ahead of your spouse. Don't you think she knows that the financial fall-out from you quitting would be awful? Yet still she asks. That should give you some idea about how serious this is. Furthermore, you have no chance to meet HER EN's on your current schedule, so she is very vulnerable to an affair, even if you are not.

The flip side for us was that our marriage was not very fulfilling, so why would she want to be home? If that is the case for you (and with her demands and your stated desire for appreciation that seems likely), you also need to work on your marriage. This site and "Fall in Love, Stay in Love" are great resources for that. She should also look at whether or not being in Grad School now is serving your long-term interests. You need to POJA these issues together, as a team.

Sorry if this is abrupt, but I gotta go.

<small>[ September 24, 2002, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>

Any relationship is a two way street, and I have to tell you that as far as I feel right now I've been going one way and she has not come back the other. All marriages require negotiation and compromise. However, it always seems that I am doing the compromising. I am always the one who says to her I am willing to give my career. I never hear her say the same - that she would be willing to give up something very important to her as well, if only to stay together.

Frankly, sometimes I think W has more ENs than I can handle. She has a tremendous need to feel loved and wanted (nothing wrong with that, don't we all?) but that need sometimes comes at the expense of my needing some time to myself. Where is the balance? Frankly,it is no fun to talk to her when she is constantly complaining about everything that I do. Example: she complains I do not exercise enough, but God forbid I should go to the gym after work! In her eyes, this is another example of my not wanting to be with her! So, what do I do? I don't go! I swear there must be something in her Slavic genes that makes it impossible for to accept people as they are - warts and all! All I ever get is complaints about my job, complaints that the house/car, etc.are not good enough, that my family and relatives are awful people whom she hates! At the same time, I have to say that she has such a drive for her own success that exceeds everything except,perhaps,her love for our daughter. She needs to prove that she is more than a "housewife." So, loving hubby that I am I've supported her to grad school, and she knows it. When I started my career, she was very supportive and happy for me, now she doesn't want it because we are not in Western Europe! On whether my career is more important than her,it is such crap! Again, it is a two way street. I could say that her refusal to even consider coming out her for the one year shows she doesn't want to be with me! I should simply stop entertaining her delusions of success, editing her papers, etc. because it never results in discussions of her wanting to be with me, but of wanting her own success!

I've had a very frustrating day! W called with the latest problem du jour which I tried to help solve to the best of my ability from 4,000 miles away, and then I get the guilt trip that she is left to solve everything. OK, she has to do the grocery shopping and cut the grass (she cancelled the lawn service!), and manage the nanny, but equally I still handle all the finances and pay all the bills. Before that, I did the house and yardwork, managed the nanny, took care of D, and did finances and bills! In any case, W started on the road that would lead again to another pointless fight that I was too tired to get into, so she hung up the phone. I just cannot (will not) talk to her anymore when she doesn't want to discuss, but wants to fight. Does fighting fulfill some EN of hers?