Reflections on The Big Career Change - Part 2

One of the good things about marriage is the opportunity to go through life's ups and downs in partnership with someone else.  It beats going through them alone.  But.  What if you have been seriously thinking about up and changing your entire career, and that change will have lasting impacts on someone else?  Someone who is your partner and strives to create a life with you, and your decision will affect the quality of that life, of their life?

Enter the spouse.

Escuse me, sir, is that a rabbit on your lap?

Without exaggeration, my career change has caused nothing but sacrifice for G.  He doesn't get the new sense of fulfillment that I do.  He doesn't experience the puzzle piece gently fitting into place.  He doesn't get the exhilaration of acing a class, or, just as significantly, helping my students ace their classes.  Instead, he gets the budget restrictions and the budget talks.  He gets the 12-page papers to proof read and the hysterical wife who got a B+ on a paper.  He gets the harried roommate, donned in pj's, hair unbrushed, with her face crammed in a book day and night.  Life has not been all that fun and exciting for G lately.  And yet he has been the support that has allowed me to step out, over the edge, and start a new life.

He has been the one who, starting long ago, suggested I leave the old job and do something new.  When I started brainstorming, he always listened to me and then grilled me, Devil's Advocate style (that was so fun, let me tell you).  How many hikes and walks did we take in the mountains, bantering back and forth (out of breath) about possible things for me to do?  I don't even know.

But then!  I figured it out!  And we went around and around about how much our lives would change, and he was like, I think you have to do this.

Excuse me, sir, but you're sitting in front of my airplane propeller.

And then I started applying for some of my current positions and getting job offers and had to make the hard choice to submit a letter of resignation.  To make this thing real.  And he was like, Yeah, I think you have to do this.

It's not all cute bunnies and rainbows over here at dawrighthouse, but I have to say that knowing that G has my back has made all the difference the last few months.  The transition has not been an easy one, but it hasn't been a hard one either.  There have been some shifts in roommate responsibilities and there have been some teasing words here and there about my almost complete and total lack of a contribution to the household income.  Then there have been the I'm-really-proud-of-you talks, and the You're-really-knocking-this-out-of-the-park comments that have affirmed me deeply.

Simply put, with a dose of cheesiness because we recently celebrated our 13th anniversary (dear God, I can NOT be this old), none of this would have happened if G were a different kind of man.  He's on my home team.  As Papa would say, I wouldn't trade him for a wooden nickel.

(But I would trade all of his nerd crap in a New York minute.)