Letters to the Editor
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Even The Best Laid Plans Seem Less Than Perfect,
Well if it is perfection we are looking for, keep looking. It hasn't been bottled or made or able to take in pill formula.For a couple that has put a lot of thought into what they were doing, there is very little to say. A move is not always as easy as what it seems. It shakes everything up, the normal in a sense is made all new all over again. New friends, new houses of worship, new avenues and streets. Until her husband finds someone that he can have something in common with, it will be akward for a period of time. But otherwise, these two have little to worry about. They seem to have made a joint decision, it never seemed like one wanted to do something the other did not. Now, because the husband is not happy, should not have to be the whole equation.
It is a period of adjustment, and will take time to adjust, we try hard to please our perspective spouses, he needs to go someplace where he might see or do something that he couldn't do back where they lived before. Otherwise as the saying goes, don't sweat the small stuff. If it dosen't get better, then maybe it might be wise to reconsider another location.
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It is cool to beat on the man
Even when we reverse the genders around, it's still fashionable to beat on the man, because men are in abundance and thus expendable and women are rare and thus to be prized and treasured, am I right?
Have any of you ever worked in customer service? Getting yelled at all day? You can only tell yourself "don't take it personally" so long and so many times. Doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. The job erodes you and slowly destroys you. Now try managing customer service. You are the point of escalation when your call center reps can't take any more, or simply have to escalate. You are taking the worst brunt of the blows. "Suck it up" is something told to a man, but never to a woman.
Top that off with being in a town where you know nobody, you have no peers at work, work in a dissatisfying job, come home and see your partner doing well, and you wonder what the hell's wrong with *you*, why can't you do likewise. This letter could have been from either a man or a woman. So why beat on the man?
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Is it situational depression?
The question I have is: is he depressed because of the move or was he already depressed?
If he is depressed about the move, then the LW should make an effort to find a place where they can both be happy - as others have said, they should create a plan together. As they do this, maybe he could quit his soul-destroying job and take something that's more interesting and fulfilling, even if it pays less. If she's been promoted three times, they can probably afford it.
If he was just like this anyway, however, the move won't solve it. He'll just have a new reason to be depressed, a new thing he doesn't like and that prevents him from being successful.
I had a dear friend a number of years ago who was *always* unhappy. Her landlords hated her, her jobs were boring, people just didn't understand her, her kids were mean, and so on. It took me longer than I care to admit to realize that this woman had an undiagnosed case of borderline personality disorder - she burned through people's compassion like a buzz saw. It was horrifying to watch.
I am not saying at all that the husband is like this - but if you move without knowing if that is the true cause of his unhappiness, it could be a huge mistake.
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wow, overwritten *and* irrelevent
why does anyone write to this guy? a woman comes in with a question about her husband and gets some rambling, self-satisfied narcissism. she wants to know what to do, and somehow we digress within the span of two paragraphs to the point where the author is congratulating himself for creativity in--once again--embarrassingly overwritten language. (to say nothing of inaccurate--what neighborhood is this in san francisco that was shaking with gunfire in the 1990s? did it not occur to mr. tennis that other san franciscans might read this?) good god, it's like some horrible joke perpetrated on salon readers where irrespective of the question actually asked, the author looks for a way to insert the same stock answers and decidedly uncreative hyperbole. your husband is unhappy? well, good luck all the same, but let's talk about me.
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Thanks for the validation, Cary ...
It's the kind of country we live in. If you are a little marginal, if you are alternative, if you are not a business go-getter, you are in peril. There's no safety net. There's no guaranteed income, no national healthcare. You either play the game, and play hard, or you face true economic chaos and uncertainty.
Can I tell you what a relief it is to see that you, too--a thinking, caring, painfully honest person--recognise that this is life in the USA? Having lived in four other countries and having felt socially, financially, economically and physically safer in all of them (including one, at the time, "developing" economy), I've been saying the same thing for years--but no one in the US seems to get it.
I'm just glad to know I'm not crazy or warped, and that other US natives understand and work towards a different value system. I, however, have been an expat too long and will be heading out to greener pastures for good when this stint in my "country of origin"--because it's certainly not my home--is finished.