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24048. thoughtful - 5/5/2008 9:29:26 PM IsBs, I'm sorry you're going through all this distress. It's difficult from here as I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the people involved or the situation. However, it sounds to me like she's angry and she's angry with you...whether deserved or not, you're catching the blame for the situation, she's unhappy about it and she's going to fix it. Any attempt on your part to lay out options or provide more information will only be seen as an attempt by you to take control again, whether you are or not. She won't allow it as the last time, "you did take control and look where we ended up!" It sounds to me like she's angry enough that it's no longer about 'we' but about 'me'. Rightly or not, she feels she was being treated unfairly, and now she's getting back. You're being punished.
However, it seems to me also that career situations are critical to marital and financial happiness for both of you. This is a very tough situation and it would be best decided if you both could work together to achieve a common best solution. However, that is not going to happen with just the two of you in the picture. She's way too angry for that. This has gone beyond what's "best for us" to a power play.
My suggestion would be that the two of you need a safe, objective, 3rd party to help mediate and coach you both through this situation. Is there any way the two of you might discuss seeing a career counselor or other kind of counselor (do they have argument counselors???) who can at least keep the situation calm enough to lead to a fruitful discussion of all options involved? I mean, you're both in an unhappy mess, and you don't want to do anything for the wrong reasons that might just again put you both in another unhappy situation. Someone outside the marriage may be able to help both of you cut through and put aside the emotions around this issue and help you deal with the objective options you face.
I'm so sorry you're going through all of this. Life choices are hard, especially when there are two disparate careers and geographies involved. Especially when there's so much at stake and imperfect information with which to make a decision.
Hang tough, kiddo. 24049. judithathome - 5/6/2008 5:29:12 AM Leslie called me around 3pm today on the way to the ER. When I got there, he was checking in and they did chest xray, ECG, and CT scan...the (very buff) ECG guy let it slip that it looked like a myocardial infarction (sp?) and Leslie nearly lost it because he considers his heart about the only thing that works in his body any more.
So three hours later, they decided it was a mild TIA...which makes his 12th one. Those and 2 major strokes...he knows the symptoms and kept telling them it was that...TIA is Trans Ischemic something...not nearly as bad as a stroke and sometimes you can have them and not even know it.
The reason he went on to the ER is because he'd called his neurosurgeon and when the doctor called him back, he said he could tell by Leslie's speech patterns (slurring his words) that he was having something and urged him to go straight to the ER.
So he's fine now and is going to work tomorrow. We were both just so relieved it wasn't his heart! 24050. Ms. No - 5/6/2008 6:34:16 AM Thoughtful, that is excellent advice.
24051. Ms. No - 5/6/2008 6:35:00 AM Glad to hear he's okay, Jude. 24052. alistairconnor - 5/6/2008 8:22:53 AM Hey Stamper, tell Al this :
What the hell happened to Hawaiian solidarity? O's a Polynesian like you and me. 24053. iiibbb - 5/6/2008 3:36:53 PM Thanks for the thoughts and comments.
I think I've managed a breakthrough with my wife on the credibility front. She finally realized that I am honestly behind our exit strategy and her goal of obtaining her own federal position. I told her she should do nothing to jeopardize that opportunity she may have.
In addition, I went to my dept head and my boss and basically told them that P having a good job hear was the part that made the whole deal possible. If she doesn't have a job, then I can make no guarantee about staying. It was literally the first thing out of my mouth when they called me for the interview that if there was no job for her it would be unworkable.
I think she's also getting a taste of the pressure one feels when unemployment looms.
The problem is because this university has a new president who's proposed an unfunded mandate for a university-wide 3% raise. That created a hiring freeze because the money would have to come out of operating budgets. That means the people that were going to hire her may not have the money now. It's basically out of our hands.
The bright side of this is that she has the green light to pursue her other options. She's still going to try and give me a year here, but if she can't find an appropriate job our hands are tied. I will try to stay in this job as long as I can because I want to do something with it, but I no longer feel a moral obligation.
Now that she's seen me take her side in this, I think I gained some of my credibility back. If we both come out of this with federal jobs I guess all is well.
It sure has been a roller coaster. 24054. wonkers2 - 5/6/2008 3:54:10 PM Not a great alternative, but I know of an increasing number of long distance marriages where one spouse works in one city and the other in the other and they get together 2-4 times a month in one place or the other. Not a great option for newly weds, but it could work for a temporary period. 24055. iiibbb - 5/6/2008 4:03:38 PM That is on the table as a stopgap while we establish ourselves, but we would work to rectify that pretty diligently.
I would take virtually any federal opportunity to rejoin her. 24056. judithathome - 5/6/2008 5:03:50 PM Sounds like you two are starting to work together on thus problem, which is much better than a few weeks ago...give it a little more time and you'll both be okay. 24057. thoughtful - 5/6/2008 6:38:01 PM I just heard an interesting talk by a woman who started out as a nurse and is now ceo of a hospital. She had some interesting things to say
...fail, fail often and fail forward. Have the courage to fail but make sure you learn from your failures...you learn more from them than from your successes.
...you haven't won if you've left with someone feeling worse off.
...it's not about winning, it's about getting the job done. If you go in thinking it's about winning, then you've already lost.
...you don't know everything and don't be afraid to reveal that. Instead be open to listening and learning.
and she also talked about determination...that there is nothing you can't do with determination and nothing you can do without it.
24058. wonkers2 - 5/7/2008 4:36:36 PM Great advice. It's nice to hear that it's still possible for someone to start at the bottom (Nurses aren't exactly the bottom so it would be a better story if she had been a cleaning woman!) and make it all the way to the top.
One of the smartest and most capable people I ever knew dropped out of school in Georgia in the fifth grade; picked cotton with his father who was a sharecropper; got a job on the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, Michigan; took up golf during a long model change layoff and parred the Flint golf course before he was recalled; became one of the best bridge players in Flint; was noticed for his golfing ability and bridge acumen and given a job in the plant safety department; was noticed by Chevrolet central office in Detroit and was promoted to a job there; soon he was promoted to GM's corporate labor relations staff where he ultimately (early 1970s)became VP. He wasn't a great speller or grammarian, but his writing and speaking were among the best I've ever seen or heard. He was one of the smartest people I've ever known and one of the best bosses I had in a long and checkered career. I can think of only a handful of management people whose trust and respect by the UAW negotiators equaled his. His name was Earl R. Bramblett. He died of a heart attack within a year after retiring. R.I.P. 24059. thoughtful - 5/7/2008 5:52:08 PM Yeah, there are a few magical people in the world who seem to always find a most interesting journey in life.
Don't know if I ever told you the story about a friend of mine. Much older than me, she was out and about during WWII traveling much of the world. She had many fascinating experiences and wonderful anecdotes to tell.
One was she was on a train somewhere and there was a soldier of some sort sitting across the aisle from her working a crossword puzzle. She never knew or paid any attention to uniforms and insignias and such. So when she saw he didn't complete it, she asked if he'd mind if she tried. She finished the puzzle and returned it to him, joshing him about how he couldn't complete it...apparently had a nice little interaction about it. After the soldier left the train her seat mate asked if she knew who she was teasing. She said no. He said, "That was General George Marshall!"
I could ride a train for 1,000 years and never would something like that happen to me. But for her, these kinds of things were common place. Go figure. 24060. wonkers2 - 5/7/2008 11:18:25 PM That's a good one! I don't recall ever sitting next to a celebrity on a plane or train. Once when there was a baggage handler "go slow" at Heathrow airport I waited an hour or so with Henry Ford II and others for our luggage. Ford was completely genial and showed no sign of impatience. He was quite an impressive guy in many ways (from what I read of him in the newspapers and my observation of him on that occasion). 24061. thoughtful - 5/8/2008 1:44:10 PM My favorite story of a brush with fame is about my husband.
His parents were very bipolar? or bi something. They had the apt in NYC and they had the place in the country where we're building our house. When they were in the country they were completely rural people. My MIL even wore jodhpurs early on as they were the only kind of slacks they made in those days for women. My FIL always dressed in his green big yanks and worked in the garden.
However, when they were in the city, they were completely opposite. My MIL never went out of the apt without her hat matching her purse matching her shoes and with 2 pairs of gloves...one to wear on the street and one to change into when you arrived at your destination. My FIL even had 2 different watches he used...one for the city, one for the country. He traded in his greens for suits, shirts, ties, wing tips, and even had garters on his socks!
Well anyway, in the country, there was an old man down the street who always smoked a corn cob pipe...really smelly old thing. When hubby was a baby, he gave him a corn cob pipe. My FIL fitted the end of the thing with rubber so it wouldn't get all messy and hubby used it as a pacifier when he was wee.
My hubby's grandmother was also a NYC person and ran her own furrier business. People outside the family have told me that her customer list read like the NY social register. She would custom make furs out of hand selected pelts. (My MIL used to complain that she never had a cloth coat until she was in her 20s!) In fact, she was the one who could afford the property where we're building. She bought it during the depression if you can imagine. Anyway, as hubby was her first grandchild, there was nothing she didn't want for him, so she bought him a most beautiful wicker perambulator...very fancy thing with curlicues and all. And of course, she made a mink throw for the carriage.
So there's my MIL dressed to the nines in her fancy hat matching her fancy purse matching her fancy shoes, strolling in central park pushing her fabulous perambulator with its elegant mink throw, and who should come along but Greta Garbo! She walks up to the carriage and looks at my MIL and says, "I vant to see the bebe." So my MIL graciously pulls back the mink throw and there's hubby, sucking on his corn cob pipe! Greta took one look, said Oh MY! and walked away. 24062. David Ehrenstein - 5/8/2008 1:54:12 PM A truly remarkable woman has passed. 24063. judithathome - 5/8/2008 3:41:16 PM My MIL even wore jodhpurs early on as they were the only kind of slacks they made in those days for women.
I shuddered when I read this line of your post...but how cool that he had a mink throw!...because when I was in kindergarten, we lived near enough to my school that my daddy walked me to school each day. One morning it was literally freezing out and my mother dressed me in red wool jodhpurs and matching coat and little tam hat. I screamed and yelled and cried and tried to dig my feet into the road all the way to school, with my dad laughing his head off...even at that young age, I knew those things would make a laughing stock with the other kids and sure enough, they did! 24064. thoughtful - 5/8/2008 4:13:29 PM Very good, J@h!
Reminds me so much of the xmas my mother made me this beautiful red velvet dress, fitted on top with a gathered skirt. In the back the red velvet was cut away in a curve up to the waistline to reveal tiers of white ruffles on the underskirt. Mother thought it was beautiful and I'm sure now as an adult I would appreciate it, but back then I was absolutely mortified that my mother would take me to church with what I considered to be my underwear showing!!! I kept my coat on the whole time! My memory of that is still so clear though I was probably only about 4 at the time. 24065. magoseph - 5/8/2008 6:56:18 PM Thank you, David, for Elaine Dundy's link. 24066. arkymalarky - 5/9/2008 2:18:20 AM Eddy Arnold died today. 24067. judithathome - 5/10/2008 7:31:45 PM An early HAppy Mother's Day to all the Motie moms and also, to the muthas.
Keoni got me a book on Maxfield Parrish...all the pictures and posters he's done with a brief history of each. It's a beautiful book. We have ONE Maxfield Parrish print...I think it's called "Dawn". Looking forward to tracing it down in the book!
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