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flyingfish
Guest
However his dream is a career in academia. It seems silly to give it up for a non existent wife.
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D
dulcissima
Guest
I work at a university and am responsible for three program budgets. I see things differently. Full time instructors earn from $45k to just shy of $100k. Some of our part time instructors who teach a class or two earn less than $20k, but they do have other jobs.
Many support families on one income or with the wife working part time. The lifestyle offered to those in academia is particularly well suited for family life. Professors spend a considerable amount of their work hours working from home, doing research, writing articles, working on curriculum changes, grading papers, etc. They can schedule their classes around family obligations each semester. Plus most choose to take summers off.
Sure for the amount of education they have, they could be making more working in management, but the lifestyle is ideal for their families. We live on campus. Several professors live on my street and they are constantly there for their kids and involved in their daily lives.
While California is having a severe budget crisis and those of us here at the universities have had to take pay cuts, I don’t think we are in a downward spiral. Higher education has been identified as a priority for the future of our state, something that we need to invest in now.
I wouldn’t steer anyone who has already invested a lot of time and money into pursuing an advanced degree away from their goal. What they are doing is worthwhile.
I would, however, say to the OP that life is about more than work and drudgery. Take some time to enjoy it now. Appreciate the life that God gave you. That’s an important way that you can give him thanks.
K
kage_ar
Guest
My dream career is rock star.
When we grow up, we realize that very few get their “dream career”.
K
kage_ar
Guest
What about the unemployment rate? I know more unemployed teachers/instructors/etc. than I can count!
And if they can haul in 45K a year I am sending them all to California
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flyingfish
Guest
He’s given the impression that it’s a realistic option for him.
He’s not married, he doesn’t even have a girlfriend from the way I read his post. Is he going to take a boring but higher paying job just in case he one day happens to meet a woman who wants to marry him and who wants to stay at home?
What if he never marries? Many men don’t. What if the woman he meets doesn’t want to be a stay at home mom?
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dulcissima
Guest
socalherc.org/c/search_results.cfm?t3409=&t3404=&page=1&t3960=&t733=37860%2C37861%2C40965%2C37862%2C37863%2C37864%2C37865%2C37866%2C37867%2C37868%2C37869&t3402=37786%2C37787&t736=&t732=&keywords=&t3407=42506%2C42686%2C42507%2C42511%2C42508%2C42512%2C42509%2C42513%2C42510%2C42514%2C42515%2C202782%2C42519%2C42520%2C42530%2C42531%2C47787%2C42532%2C193263%2C42533%2C42534%2C198828%2C42566%2C42522%2C42524%2C42528%2C42525%2C42527%2C42526%2C42521%2C42523%2C51725%2C42550%2C42551%2C42552%2C42553%2C42555%2C42556%2C42557%2C42559&sort=date_&str=1&t3961=&max=25&site_id=761What about the unemployment rate? I know more unemployed teachers/instructors/etc. than I can count!
And if they can haul in 45K a year I am sending them all to California
This is a link to the Southern California Higher Education Research Consortium.
H
Humbled1
Guest
I find this whole thing rather absurd. There are many women in society today that would love to be SAHMs. Many of them are well educated and in a career at this point, but that’s because they have to support themselves, not because they want to put a career before all else.
However, I don’t know many traditional women who would want to marry someone just because he was a “good match”. That would basically take a woman who was willing to sell herself to you for the security you feel you might be able to provide… not someone with traditional morals/values.
I think the problem is that many men look for traditional women in all the wrong places. Why not start at bible study at your parish? You’ll probably turn up more there than at singles’ night at the local pub. Or you could try volunteering for a traditional cause-- such as a shelter for humans, not one for animals.
In the meantime, make yourself marketable. Stop trying to turn everything into drudgery, prayerfully enjoy the life God has blessed you with, and stop thinking that women are interested only in sitting at home eating bonbons while you toil away all day, every day.
However, I don’t know many traditional women who would want to marry someone just because he was a “good match”. That would basically take a woman who was willing to sell herself to you for the security you feel you might be able to provide… not someone with traditional morals/values.
I think the problem is that many men look for traditional women in all the wrong places. Why not start at bible study at your parish? You’ll probably turn up more there than at singles’ night at the local pub. Or you could try volunteering for a traditional cause-- such as a shelter for humans, not one for animals.
In the meantime, make yourself marketable. Stop trying to turn everything into drudgery, prayerfully enjoy the life God has blessed you with, and stop thinking that women are interested only in sitting at home eating bonbons while you toil away all day, every day.
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kage_ar
Guest
It is called planning for the future and is what wise people do.
If the woman he meets does not want to be a SAHM and that is the life he wants, then, she would not be someone he would date/court/marry. They have different values and lifegoals.
Should he change his mind, he would have a nice savings built up to support his family if times get bad or to give to charity.
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jmcrae
Guest
I hope you at least kept up with your music studies, since music is still a wonderful part of life, even if you aren’t making a living with it. What a dull world it would be, if only the successful professional musicians were allowed to make music.
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kage_ar
Guest
I was a professional singer until age 25, when I became a mom and had to get a “boring job that paid more”.I hope you at least kept up with your music studies, since music is still a wonderful part of life, even if you aren’t making a living with it. What a dull world it would be, if only the successful professional musicians were allowed to make music.
Our house is filled with music, just not the paid kind.
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flyingfish
Guest
Maybe this kind of thing works if this is a guy desired by many women and who has his pickings of a woman. Not the case for most men. Many men can’t find a woman at all because none will have them (or the ones who will have them are too unattractive/unsuitable for their tastes).
Why throw away something he loves and already has for something that might or might not happen?
If he changes his mind he will have savings from his boring, but higher paying job. But if he never meets that “upper class” girl whose relationships are managed by her daddy and who wants to be a stay at home wife for him he’ll be stuck in a boring job when he could have been doing something he loves.
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Rascalking
Guest
I wanted to be a singer as well…but there’s enough misery in the world. Listening to my voice would triple it!
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DL82
Guest
I guess what it comes down to is the feeling that I may still have a vocation to marriage, but I could never allow myself to ‘fall in love’ in the way I did in the past. I could never put myself in a position of allowing myself to get hurt in that way, and allowing my peace to be disturbed in that way. If you ‘fall in love’, you basically set yourself up for an inevitable disturbing of your peace (either a break-up or the death of your spouse).
Religious understand their vocation as a preparation for death. Marriage should be the same in my view. A husband and wife ought to look to the future (not just planning for retirement or promotion at work, or for their kids’ college) but to their final end, and to ensure that they are leading eachother to heaven, not holding eachother back on earth. Our Lord says that where your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be too. I want the self-giving that goes with marriage, I just can’t bear the thought of ‘falling in love’ as a necessary pre-cursor to that.
I want to have a relationship with a woman that is deep and spirit-filled and fruitful, but I want it to be a relationship in and through Christ in the blessed Sacrament, in and through Our Lady, not an ‘exclusive’, ‘direct’, ‘romantic’ relationship. Marriage is the only Sacrament that ends at death, all the others have an impact on the soul forever. I don’t want to spend my life on a love that can’t be shared in eternity.
Does that make me totally unsuitable for marriage?
Religious understand their vocation as a preparation for death. Marriage should be the same in my view. A husband and wife ought to look to the future (not just planning for retirement or promotion at work, or for their kids’ college) but to their final end, and to ensure that they are leading eachother to heaven, not holding eachother back on earth. Our Lord says that where your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be too. I want the self-giving that goes with marriage, I just can’t bear the thought of ‘falling in love’ as a necessary pre-cursor to that.
I want to have a relationship with a woman that is deep and spirit-filled and fruitful, but I want it to be a relationship in and through Christ in the blessed Sacrament, in and through Our Lady, not an ‘exclusive’, ‘direct’, ‘romantic’ relationship. Marriage is the only Sacrament that ends at death, all the others have an impact on the soul forever. I don’t want to spend my life on a love that can’t be shared in eternity.
Does that make me totally unsuitable for marriage?
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flyingfish
Guest
It seems like you want to stay away from romantic relationships out of fear that you would be hurt when you lost it either through breakup or death?
Personally I think it’s sad that you’d deny yourself what is probably the best thing in all human existence out of fear.
S
siena_avila
Guest
DL, I’m praying for you!
If you’re afraid of the consequences of falling in love (hurt or inevitable death), then you’re just not ready for marriage, not necessarily unsuitable. Think about our Lord these next two days and how much pain and the death He endured - out of love! - for us. It’s a challenge to emulate Christ, yet it’s what we’re called to do.
Have a blessed Holy Thursday and may you find comfort in the most blessed sacrament.
If you’re afraid of the consequences of falling in love (hurt or inevitable death), then you’re just not ready for marriage, not necessarily unsuitable. Think about our Lord these next two days and how much pain and the death He endured - out of love! - for us. It’s a challenge to emulate Christ, yet it’s what we’re called to do.
You can have both. It IS possible. In fact, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many women who are seeking a marriage that models the sacramental relationship and are okay without romance or being “in love.”
Talk to a spiritual director about this. To me, it sounds as if the only love acceptable for you to commit to is that for God. But I believe it’s possible that through loving a spouse in a self-giving way, you are participating in a different love for God that will continue beyond death.
If thinking about eros (read C.S. lewis’ The Four Loves) is unbearable, definitely talk to someone about what’s led to this.
Have a blessed Holy Thursday and may you find comfort in the most blessed sacrament.
J
jmcrae
Guest
Our society lost a lot of our quality of life when we stopped singing to our children, and started playing recorded music for them. I’m glad that your house is full of “unpaid” music.
Your years in the music industry were “time well-wasted” as the saying goes.
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former_Catholic
Guest
You loved.
You got hurt.
You now ponder ways to somehow guarantee that you will be loved and secure without the possibility of ever getting hurt like that again.
Does this make you totally unsuitable for marriage?
Of course it does.
Love requires vulnerability.
You loved that woman and she just didn’t love you back and that hurts like hell…
so the solution you have come up with is to never risk loving and hurting like that again!
I’m sure that seems perfectly reasonable and rational to you, but I would suggest telling your story to the woman in blue who watched them nail her son to a tree… and ask her opinion.
In my opinion, if you think that you can build a neatly controlled life that will somehow get you to heaven without your peace being disturbed, without your having to endure repeated agonizing rejections and betrayals, agonizing dark nights of the soul in gardens of Gesthemene, fasting praying and wandering around in physical, mental, and spiritual deserts, abuses from the ignorant, fearful, and powerful, facing your own crosses, and being the agonized witness to all your loved ones likewise facing their own crosses in this world…
you have absolutely no idea what living, loving, and the word “sacrament” signify at all.
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FanChan
Guest
You can’t really escape love, either. On the one hand, you’ll wind up falling in love with this ‘good match’, because of the time you’ve spent dedicated to her well-being and happiness, and she might just come to feel the same way about you. Honestly I don’t know how you can expect to find a wife these days without romance. Those high-class women who married out of duty did so because they didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. A woman isn’t going to feel blessed or that she’s ‘married up’ if she doesn’t love the guy. It’s just not going to happen.
Even if it did, the lack of romance in the marriage will likely lead to you or her discovering romance elsewhere, and either breaking up the marriage or leading you both to a miserable life, which is never good for the children. Our kids need to see our parents loving and cherishing each other, not just going through the motions.
Even if it did, the lack of romance in the marriage will likely lead to you or her discovering romance elsewhere, and either breaking up the marriage or leading you both to a miserable life, which is never good for the children. Our kids need to see our parents loving and cherishing each other, not just going through the motions.
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