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'WIBTA if I chose my career over my family?' UPDATED 2X

'WIBTA if I chose my career over my family?' UPDATED 2X

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"WIBTA if I chose my career over my family?"

I (32M) have been married to my wife (29F) for 7 years now. I met my wife during college and now she is a stay-at-home mom to our two kids. Our two daughters are 7 and 5 years old.

I work as a marine engineer on rigs and ships for a large part of the year. This leads to me spending a lot of time away from home. The time I'm away from my family isn't very easy on me either, but maritime technology is my passion. I love life at sea.

These are not the ideal circumstances to raise a family in, I realize, but my career choices have always been consensual between husband and wife. For years all was well and good because we found a balance.

However, a new lucrative contract entails me working on board for 3 month stretches, only being able to briefly return home by plane when shore-side at certain ports. My vacation time inbetween is 45 days. It's been like this for almost a year now.

When I told her about this offer she was not very elated, rather disappointed even, but she acquiesced seeing my excitement and when I laid out the numbers. Also, this isn't a permanent arrangement either.

Fast forward to last week. I return home after an assignment, eager to jump into vacation with my family. Instead of a heartwarming welcome, I get sat down by my wife in the kitchen. She took my kids to her parents' house, so they weren't around.

She starts telling me that she has had a long time to think about this, 'literally', seeing as I'm away from home so often and for so long, tells me I never listen to her concerns and she proceeds to issue me an ultimatum. Either I seriously think about changing careers or she moves back to her parents' house (with my kids) and she files for divorce and custody. My eyes almost popped out of my head.

Talking to her about it later, she still wouldn't budge. I proposed getting more help around the house if she needed that (a nanny), but she would have none of it. The only thing that could appease her is hearing out of my mouth that I would quit my current position or that I would go into therapy with her.

So I ended up agreeing with the latter, because I cannot just promise the former. But I have little hope for this interim solution. Why is there no mutual compromise possible? I work my butt off every day I'm out at sea, to provide for this family.

I absolutely LOVE what I do, and I would have a hard time letting it go. But neither do I want to lose my children, which I'm sure I would, with the exception of visitation rights. AITA for seriously doubting my marriage here, and possibly hurting my kids in the process? WIBTA if I chose my career over my family?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

YTA, but not for the reasons you think. I understand your love and passion for your career and it sounds like you have been doing this for awhile. You’re already missing so much, and your wife has already made years worth of compromises for you and for your passion, but you work in maritime logistics. There are other ways of doing this while still coming home every night.

Why I voted YTA is because your wife is lonely, and she has very valid concerns, and you suggested for her to get a nanny. I was gonna say NAH, but that was kind of a naive suggestion and showed that you don’t really understand her concerns. She wants you. She wants her husband. She wants her children to have their father. Yes, money is great in this world, but there’s family.

I would suggest based off of a couple paragraphs I’ve read (so take this with a huge grain of salt), but possibly discuss relocating the family to work at a marine port where you do shift work. It’ll pay well, maybe not as well as your current position, but the kids will have their dad back, and a wife will have her husband. Lastly, it sounds like she’s already made huge compromises. It’s time you made some for her.

said:

YTA. “Why is there no mutual compromise possible?” What exactly are you willing to compromise? It sounds like you want to keep your job and change nothing about what you do and carry on being gone for months at a time. You’re not willing to give anything up and then have the gall to accuse her of not wanting to compromise.

You love your job more than your wife and kids, so take the divorce and go chase your dream. You will almost certainly come to regret your current choice of priorities, but you can’t ask your wife to wait patiently for you to come home from your true love.

And [deleted] said:

Personally YTA or would be. The whole getting a nanny thing is a BS compromise. Your wife is married to YOU not a nanny, your kids father is YOU , and not some random nanny. People crave the physical time, the interaction between lived ones. If the career you have is the life you want, you should just know being single is the best for you.

He later shared this first update to his post in response to the comments:

My expectations were not betrayed in regard to the response. I recognize everyone's concern for my family and believe me (or don't, as is your right), I have their best interests at heart, even if it seems like I don't considering my absence. I have tried a lot in these last few years, to make things easier on them:

I set them up with all the necessary equipment to have some quality Facetime, Skype, ... moments ; I bring little souvenirs from every port city we ever moored, to give them little reminders; I always pick out a nice gift to return home with for my wife;

I pray to God every night that the sh!tty offshore internet would not give out before I got to make my call for the day; I have long chats with my wife, where we (used to) laugh together, talk about our day, where she could tell me anything, share her frustrations (and yes, sometimes she would voice her loneliness, her workload, her envy at other couples.

As would I, but we always came to a mutual understanding, knowing that this would not be permanent, would only be until I safely secured my position with my employer - I guess I did indeed push my luck and now have to face the fallout), I try to play games with the kids over video chat which they always seem to enjoy and have them tell me about their day, their friends, about scouting and soccer games.

It saddens me that I don't get to attend all their games and events, but when I can I'm their fiercest supporter on the sidelines. But that's the only thing I'll ever be, won't I? A dad on the sidelines...

I know I am largely at fault here. And sadly, I cannot deny that I do carry around some resentment towards my wife, because of the events of the last weeks, and that I should work on this, seeing as she has every right to call our current game plan into question if it doesn't work for her anymore. But I NEED room to transition.

This work schedule is very recent (I'm not even a full year in) and the previous arrangement was much more in favor of family life, with more frequent and longer home visits. Also much less paid of course. I am already in the process of negotiating with my employer, looking at prospects of reappointment.

Seeing as my work on the drillship is not compatible with my wife's plans, they might agree with relocating me to another offshore platform, closer to home, maybe in the Gulf of Mexico, lending itself to more time at home. It happens that contracts can be revised in face of family troubles and there are provisions that take this into account, but it'll always come down to time.

And I'm not sure how much more time she is willing to give me. If I come to an agreement, I will bring this to the table as my 'compromise'. If she refuses, then I can propose a stationary position at the port of Miami, which would entail me moving there. This isn't a given either, knowing she would like to stay close to her family, them being local to the area we live in, as a few commenters aptly pointed out.

I have written down all my thought these last few hours. I've got a clear strategy. I'll use this as a backdrop the coming days and weeks. The final say will be hers. If she still wants a divorce, she'll get one, and I won't make it hard on her. I do recognize the sacrifices she has made these last years, after all.

Two weeks later, he shared this second update:

These last two weeks have gone by extremely fast. I'm writing this as a show of appreciation for this sub. Also, a couple of you asked for an update. It's been one huge life upheaval so far.

A quick overview:

- My wife and I started seeing a therapist (had three long sessions already), who is a true miracle worker. She's been pretty neutral, which I initially found odd, concerning the response I got from a few mutual friends of ours and online. She does allow her a lot of room to lay out her troubles and concerns. She helps translate these in a way that has offered me a fresh perspective on this troubled relationship.

It really comes down to creating a level playing field, where my wife has an opportunity to be heard. Communications gone haywire. Our therapist also signalled that I sometimes seem a bit overbearing. My wife has never put it this succinctly, but she could certainly agree with that statement.

She reached a boiling point and could no longer play along with my 'fantasies', while she had to take the brunt of child rearing. That sounds more than fair. I now wish A. she would have told me much sooner and clearer and B. I wasn't so emotionally detached that it disallowed me coming to this fairly simple conclusion myself.

- I also ended up listening to Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin. While I had heard the song before, I never dwelled on its true meaning. It hit home. It really reminded me of my relation with my own father. Hopefully I'll be the one to break the vicious cycle.

- She told me that she still loves me and that she would like me to remain part of family life with the kids.

- The deployments remained the dealbreaker and she made it clear that if I left on another three month assignment two weeks from now, I would have lost my final chance. I ended up conceding to her on that point. Mutual compromise is indeed something that requires both parties to give something up, and I hadn't really done much of that lately.

She nevertheless agreed to me getting a job shoreside at a local port, even if it entails us moving.

- I started negotiations with my employer and ended up offering them something of an ultimatum myself.

This did not go over well. I won't get into details because of the character count of this sub, but I'm currently somewhat out of a job and probably have a lawsuit coming my way. The terms weren't as lenient as I had expected. Goodbye oil industry. Hello dredging... I've set my sights on a career in GA and hopefully get to be part of the Savannah Harbor expansion project.

It seems like things are going in the right direction for now. Maybe not financially, but at least emotionally. There is hope for my marriage and my capacity as a father.

Finally, I'd like to thank this sub for showing me some 'tough love' and helping me find the right attitude to go into therapy with.

Sources: Reddit,Reddit
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