Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    I believe that BOTH careers are important. The career of the person
    that elect to stay home and bring up the children is far more important
    than if both decide that their respective careers are important.
    I guess my personal experience was my parents.
    
    Dad was a soldier from WW II. Mom a nurse. Mom was able to get a
    job in Canada after for $8000 a year while Dad did his bit in being
    a garbage collector, insurance salesman, and finally, manager of
    a Government liquor store. As dad got into the management and felt
    good about his new career. Mom "retired" when my sister and I found
    work and support ourselves through college.
                                
    Her career became secondary and it allowed her to teach home nursing
    at a Jr College until grand children came last year. She now shuttles
    between Dad and my sister with her new career as grand ma.
    
    Her philosphy is that dad will not be successful unless she supported
    him when he was struggling to establish his career. 
    
    I don't think that this is an exception.
    
    /cal hoe

    re:  .0 
    
    	Thanks for entering this one...  It's one I relate to more than
    the note I started about "Who gets paid more!?" 
    
    	Five years ago I had an SO who didn't want to move to Atlanta
    not because of his job but because of relatives that he has living
    here.  Needless to say this caused a lot of problems, as I wanted
    the job I have here now, and he didnt' want to move.  Also needless
    to say, I took the promotion and he stayed behind.  Kinda told me
    what he *really* thought of me!  
    
    	This is a situation I hope to avoid in the future but probably
    won't be able to.  All I can hope for is someone who is willing
    to discuss it -- my ex-SO was not.  
    
    	Myra
    

    re: .-1
    
    That strikes a cord in me, I'd say.
    
    I personally don't feel that one person's career is more important than
    another person's career.  What's far more important is where you live,
    and what you (and your SO) feel about your surroundings. Give me the
    best job in the world; if it's in a place I don't like, I'll be mighty
    unhappy.
    
    For me, it all comes down to priorities.  If I had an SO that I REALLY
    cared about (one that I felt that I would marry) - or if I was married,
    of course - I'd discuss a move with my SO.  Regardless of careers, if
    my SO didn't want to move, an SO is far more important to me than a
    job, and I wouldn't move.  If, on the other hand, I wasn't terribly
    committed to the SO, then I'd simply do what I wanted or what I felt
    was best.
    
    	-- Jeff

        I won't move for a job. My family is in this area. Stability is
        more important to me and my family than any particular job or
        bump in pay. Family is more important than both of our careers.
        
        JimB. 

    
    RE: .3
    
    > "Kinda told me what he *really* thought of me!
    
    Or on the other side of the coin : what you really thought of him!
    
    As others correctly stated : Family is the most important place
    to be. Without it we become self centered.
    
    

RE: .5

By your family, do you mean your wife and kids, or parents, uncles, and
grandparents?

Is stability really important to a family?  I don't think that it is as
important as some people make it out to be...

Is a move necessarily a bad thing for a family, something to be endured?

Jim.

    RE: Commitment to others (family/SO) being most important
    
    Even given a clear sense of where one's priorities lie, having made
    such a sacrifice willingly for the good of the relationship, etc,
    I wonder if there isn't always the nagging "what if..." left in
    your mind later.  And that "what if" strikes me as ample fodder
    for strong feelings of resentment.
    
    "I sacrificed something I may have _really_ enjoyed for this.  While
    I still enjoy the relationship, and think it was sorth the sacrifice,
    why did it have to be _my_ sacrifice, and not _his_?"
    
    Scares _me_ ...
    
    Lee

    re: .7
    
    	Family??  More important than a job??  Maybe yours.  The only
    family that is important to me is my daughters as my parents and
    I have never had close ties.... but that is an issue for another
    note.  The man I *left* in Houston was not the father of my children
    so I didn't really consider him family!  Besides the relationship
    had other problems -- what irritated me about the move was his adamant
    refusal to even discuss it because he didn't want to live in Atlanta.
    
    
    re. 10
    
    	I agree, Lee....  Why should _I_ give up my career advancement
    instead of _him_....??  At the time I was probably making more money
    than he was anyway... He was in a position that would have been
    easy for him to find a job in Atlanta...  Possibly *if* he had been
    willing to discuss it, things might have been different.  
    
    	Myra_who_doesn't_play_"what_if"_games!

    You are going to have "what-ifs" no matter what decision you make.
    
    I'm with Jim -- family has to be more important to me.  I may not
    turn down a promotion (or ask my spouse to do so) based on family
    needs, but when I'm weighing my alternatives, the potential effect
    on my family and my marriage carries a hell of a lot more weight
    than the potential effect on my career.
    
    I am not my career.  It is part of my definition of self, but my
    family is a larger part of that definition.  I was associated with
    them first, and will be with them longer.    
    
    My spouse and I did consider a career move (for him) that would
    have involved a cross-country move, and agreed that I would change
    jobs for it with the caveat that it would be a limited move from
    New England (approx. five years).  The offer fell through, but this
    was the only decision that would have made us both happy

        Yes, there are at least three aspects and each couple can and
        must set their relative priorities. I have merely stated my own.
        Family, in the broader sense, is more important than career.
        Family is my own nuclear family, the nuclear family I grew up in
        and then the layers beyond that in that order of importance.
        
        I do feel that any marriage that includes priorities such as
        "It's MY money--I earned it," or "He may be my SO, but he's not
        family," is doomed to failure. Feel free to prive me wrong--I've
        been wrong before--but that is my prognosis.
        
        JimB. 

RE: -.1  "It's my money"

Seeing as that's possibly in response to me, I'd like to make it clear that in
my case, 'It's my money', does not mean that I spend the money on myself. I
don't take cruises in the Bahamas every year! :-}  But, because my previous SO
wasted money easily, and did not contribute what she could have to the marriage,
I felt that I had to retain control of the money that I earned. 

Jim.

    I'm not sure what to make of all this.  I was offered a job far
    away from where I live, but decided not to take it.  My fiancee
    and I discussed it and she was agreeable to a move, but I decided
    not to take it because both of us would be far away from our
    "families".  On the other hand, when I was younger, my own family
    moved 8 times in 10 years for career advancements for my father.
    He took them each time because it was an advance in pay.  I think
    it worked out well because each move meant living more comfortably.
    And family ?  Well, we adjusted.  Sometimes it was hard leaving
    relatives and friends behind, but we always made new friends, and
    our old ones were only a phone call away.
    
    Darrell