Mismatched ambitions....
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| Mon, 09-03-2007 - 1:35am |
I have been married for six years. I am 29 and he is 28. When we met I was working and going to junior college. He was working as a laborer. When we got married I knew that he was a high school dropout, but I didn't care. After our marriage we quickly started a family and I stayed home and went to college in the evening and online. Today I am really close to receiving my bachelor's degree in Health Care Administration. I work in a Mental Hospital and I can see myself moving up and having a successful career. He is still a laborer and doesn't seem to have any issues with making less money than I do. I tell him that he should think about going to school and pursuing a technical degree in something he finds interesting, but I have a feeling that he doesn't have any desire to do anything other than what he is doing now. Honestly, I feel very frustrated with his lack of ambition. I feel fuel from the inside with a burning desire to have more and make more. I tell him that there are better jobs out there or an education to be gotten, all he has to do is move and get it.
I love him very much but sometimes I feel like he would be content with a cardboard box and a bike. I feel like I could lead him wherever and he would follow. He is so complacent and calm and ....I am soooo frustrated because I know if he tried harder we could be better off.
When we first met I liked him because he seemed to stablize me, he is calm, and content. I am the opposite and sometimes I feel like I have moved to a different stage in my life where I want to go for it, and he is lagging behind.
What can I do to feel less frustrated or should I just accept that he is content with what we have and I am not.

Violet, this is the man you married. Before you had children and had come so far yourself (congratulations on being so close to finishing your bachelor's degree, by the way--I know how hard it is to be a mom, work, and go to school at the same time) you appreciated his stabilizing and centering qualities more than his earning ability. Now you can see possibilities for your children that you had no idea would ever matter to you, and they cost money.
Are his stabilizing and centering characteristics no longer important to you? Does he satisfy you in other areas of your relationship? What is his relationship with his children?
It is probably clear to you by now that your husband and formal education do not get along. He was a drop-out when you married him, and you don't mention that he has earned his GED since then. He may have problems with reading, but it is more likely that he's simply not interested. You are not going to be able to light a fire under your husband if your example hasn't already done so. This is who he is. He's not going to change. If you want to continue to be married to him, you could consider moving to a warmer area, where he could work outside all year (if that's the kind of work he likes); if you don't want to be married to him, you know what you have to do.
(Fixed a typo.)
Edited 9/3/2007 11:59 am ET by geoteo
I agree with geoteo. You did not marry this man under the pretense that he would become an astrophysicist. You dated and married him knowing and accepting who he is. Now your expectations have changed and he's stayed the same - you should not be urging him to live up to your new expectations. He's not entitled to change who he is for you, nor should he - it sounds as though he is content to live a relatively simple frills-free life, and that's okay. It's also okay to be an ambitious person and to always strive for better. They're just two different lifestyles that don't agree.
If you want to stay with your husband and have a happy marriage then it is YOU who has to change. You need to be more accepting of who he is and focus on his characteristics that make you happy. Just because someone is not "higher education material" does not mean he is ont important, people like him are the backbone of society and I'm personally thankful that there are guys out there in his line of work.
If you truly cannot accept and be happy with what he has to offer as an individual, then you really have no choice but to leave the marriage. It's unfair to impose your expectations on him, and you should find someone who makes you happy and is compatible with what you want out of life.
Wow. Poor guy. Whatever happened to accepting the person you love for WHO HE IS, not who you want him to be?
Sheri
OOOkay, I get everyone's point. He is a pretty cool guy. He is a great father, and a great husband, especially, because he puts up with my a**. I know that I can leave when I want and he can do the same, but I don't want to let him go. I really do love him and I should be thankful for what I have.
Thanks, people, I get it.
Violet.