I had a total anxiety attack when I received the offer letter, and every time I think about it, I feel nauseous and anxious and want to vomit. I feel like I’m wasting a good thing. This new job will be more difficult, will have to commute, require professional clothes every day and be very visible politically, everything that I currently like not to have in my life.
I am also married and I hope to start a family soon. My spouse also works from home, but at a fairly low-paid job – in a field he likes – and he has not applied for a new job since our meeting. They have progressed in their careers, but are not as motivated as they want. I’m tired of: “Next year, I will get a job that pays well.”
I have a lot of accumulated resentment. I feel like I have to take this job to pay our rent and a child and our lifestyle. On top of all that, I do the vast majority of tasks and emotional work, and I’m just tired of it all.
I guess I ask, is there any other perspective on this? I think from a logistical point of view, I have to accept the job, so how do I overcome anxiety and resentment? It could be a perfect fit, and I might like it too; if i decided not to take it, i would always wonder.
And is it a bad idea to bring a child in there? Everything will get worse, right?
Anonymous: Yes, it is a bad idea to bring a child to this. (If unfair to the child.)
It is also a bad idea to create a job.
Either take the job or not take the job because that’s what you want; don’t take work because you feel stuck by [counting on my fingers] your spouse’s inertia, your lifestyle, your family plans, your rent, your ex-advisor, your education and your experience, your frustration with broken promises, this eye that you continue to receive from your cat.
Just as these reasons are not enough to accept a difficult new job, anxiety attacks are not good reasons do not to take on a difficult new job. Anxiety is a reason to seek treatment for your anxiety.
This, in turn, will help you make better decisions and act better on the decisions you make.
Likewise: your spouse’s inertia – and your frustration, your financial concerns, family planning and imbalances in domestic and emotional work – are all reasons to draw your attention to your marriage. Obviously, you have to renegotiate the division of labor; an arrangement that engenders resentment is not sustainable. And if you improve your job just because your spouse will not do it, it should be publicized.
However, it is unclear what to change, if any. What if you both stay in the lower-paying jobs you love? Does happiness count?
Is it possible that they “talk” as much as because you keep pushing them to trade?
Is earning more your only option? Are your lifestyle costs so negotiable that they decide what you two do for a living? Or is spending less an option?
I see several different problems, pressures, needs, hopes and ambitions too linked for you to be able to respond effectively. This alone could worry you. It would also explain why it is so tempting to hope that the new prestigious position will solve everything.
I hope that you slow down (path), separate the different threads and give all of them your full attention, one at a time, in a logical order. Such as: anxiety, marriage, jobs / career and then, only then, the issue of children. Tease them separately, then get back together.
Dear Carolyn: Unless a guy has more than one wife, using “they” to describe her makes him appear uneducated. It doesn’t matter who says it’s okay, because it’s not. It’s bad grammar, and the feelings of those who don’t care are no more important than the feelings of those who care.
I will immediately stop reading anything that abuses “they” like that. No loss for both of us.
S .: A person using “they” as a singular pronoun does not seem educated, yes. But language is not static, nor is culture, and I think we can both agree that the arc of the moral universe does not bend toward grammatical precision. This is why the person harassing a new use quickly becomes the one who seems uneducated. A result that you precipitate, by the way, by limiting what you read.