My wife is giving up. (Long, boring, bloggy)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
121

You should do the post count, because you will learn you are literally wrong. This should be a learning experience for you.

I went ahead and did it myself. The number of times I brought up my objection to astro is: One. You read that right. I brought it up one single time only. That one time was–the post in which I originally responded to Astro.

Every other time I mentioned my objection to Astro, it was in response to someone else who was already talking about it. In those cases, I did not bring it up, someone else brought it up and I responded.

(One of my responses, though, did stretch out over three posts. [That’s considered bad form around here but not unforgiveable–still I shouldnta done it, I could have edited them all into one post in the time allotted.] Those are posts 100, 98 and 96, for the record.)

Your impressions were wrong. I asked those who shared it to examine the evidence for themselves and re-evaluate their conclusions. You refused to do so, and continued thereby to be wrong about your accusation. I have now proven that your impression was wrong. You should go away having a minor insight into the reliability of “impressions” and the role of actual critical inquiry.

“Should.” But this morning, someone did piss in my Cheerios so I’m going to force myself to withhold judgment.

122

Here’s a different count for you. Astro has posted twice in this thread, both on the first page. By my tally you’ve made ten posts about him, and used his name (not counting quotes) 27 times.

So what? You don’t have to respond to every single thing anyone says, and you certainly don’t have to focus on astro, astro, astro all the time even if the post you’re responding to mentions him. Many of the posts from other Dopers about him have been replying to you, so if you stopped talking about him they probably would too. Several posters have indeed said they agreed with him, but you could have replied to the actual opinions they expressed rather than going on about how they must have misread his posts or something.

If you’d rather talk about astro than your wife that is of course your business, but I don’t think it’s doing anything to help you with the situation you started this thread to discuss, a Mod has already had to tell you to tone it down, and frankly you’re coming across as kind of a psycho. That is why I said I thought it would be best if you just let it go. If you’d rather hijack your own thread you’re certainly free to do so, but I don’t think you’re going to be pleased with the way it turns out.

123

You’re still interested in this topic? I’m happy to discuss it as long as you like.

However I have to admit I think in this case the simple facts speak for themselves, and I have already laid them out. You’ve said nothing of any particular merit in this most recent post. You don’t, frankly, seem to understand the meaning of the terms “bring up,” “focus,” “hijack,” or “rather.” Unfortunately, that is all I have to say at this time. I believe that to say more about these points would probably invite further accusations from you in similar terms–and since I am not confident you understand these terms, to invite such accusations would seem counterproductive.

Having said that, I am happy to elaborate and further discuss this matter if that is your wish. I’ll put in all the effort you need me to, if you are inclined to continue to invite me to do so.

124

Minor, nearly-contentless update for those interested in the actual situation discussed in the OP:

Hopefully I’ll have more to say later, but I do want to note that things seem to be looking up in the “mood and outlook” department, and the assessment that I was overreacting probably (as I noted earlier) had some merit.

125

So, since Tracijo67 is just a n00b who hasn’t absorbed 13 years of board history through some form of dorktastical osmosis, she’s not allowed to offer up her own interpretation of both **Frylock **and Astro’s posts?

And contrarilywise:

Lamia, member since 2000, which incidentally is 8 years longer than you’ve been a member, chum, apparently isn’t allowed to express an opinion you don’t approve of either.

Lamia wasn’t even saying that Astro is right, just that the constant Astro-jacking is turning the focus away from the original point of the thread. Which was Mrs. Frylock’s realization that she wasn’t going to make a career out of photography and that she was feeling low as a result.

Frylock, I hope you’re right about your wife’s mood and outlook getting better, and FWIW a random internet stranger wishes her well.

126

Thanks u.r.t., that’s appreciated.

127

Since you’re not a moderator, BigT, I’ll make it simpler for you – it’s not your role to tell other people what or how to post. That’s junior modding and that’s against the rules.

You too, URT. If you have a problem with another poster, take it to the Pit. (Which is, BTW, where Frylock’s beef with astro goes.)

I would really prefer not to have to keep moderating this thread – could y’all make an effort to stay on-topic and stop with the analyses of each other’s intentions?

Thanks,

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

128

How about: “I love you, I support whatever decisions you make on this, and it makes me sad to see you so sad. I know how important this has been to you, and I just want you to be sure that you are okay with this decision.”

This doesn’t have to be pressure; she doesn’t even have to think about it right away. But it’s a big decision, and if it comes up in this conversation that it was a fairly spontaneous one, I think it’s fair for you to mention that it might be worth some further consideration when the emotions around it are less immediate. Counseling doesn’t NEED to mean “with a mental health professional” right away. It can mean talking to her department head, adviser, favorite teacher, about what her concerns are and getting their perspective on how big a spectre those concerns really are.

As much as this thread has meandered, it’s hard for me to have a sense whether this is even ABOUT photography, or about needing to feel “useful,” her particular definition of “meaningful contribution” (which is not REQUIRED to be defined as “money”), or about figuring out what exactly she is looking for in a more existential sense. Does she want to be an artist (but feeling like she “has” to make money for it to mean something), or does she just want to get out of the house and be productive in a way that’s outside the four walls of your home? These are central questions, it’s fair to consider them, and while I wouldn’t say anything like “This is stuff you have to think about and figure out RIGHT NOW,” it may help if you just bring it up, and essentially give her “permission” to consider these questions. Maybe she’s running from them because she thinks it’s silly, or immature not to know what she wants to be when she grows up. Your saying that these are important things could validate her.

129

I just really think that bringing up the term “counseling,” whatever else is said, will trigger a defensive reaction in this case. There’s something to be said in some situations for just taking the “straight shooter” approach but that doesn’t strike me as appropriate here.

Well sure, this is reasonable of course! But then I would never use the word “counseling.” If this is what you meant originally, then I take back my claim of hesitancy–we’ve already talked about this (and probably will do so in the future as well).

Agreed.

130

I doubt she needs counseling. She just needs to figure out what she needs. If that is making a financial contribution or if that is some time away from kids or if that I’d creating, or all of the above, or something different, and that may mean she needs counseling to figure it out, or time, or to talk to you.

Right now she knows that the path she is on isn’t it. The trick will be for her to figure out really why.

One of my therapists was big on the creation thing, and it seems to resonate with your OP. I don’t have that drive, but I do need two big things, time for myself and to feel like I’m contributing. I also have a huge need for security. Those needs have to be met or I’m unhappy.

131

I’m a lot more interested in a discussion of your wife’s situation and what might be done to help her. Are you? Because while I’ve already offered all the useful information I have, I’m sure there are other Dopers with more advice and suggestions.

132

First, you are a good partner and friend, that you have such empathy for her situation. Good on you.

Second, sympathetically: welcome to the human condition

Third,

I strongly support all of us allowing ourselves to have and experience our feelings. But it’s always good to check in with oneself to make certain one isn’t being foolish about it. Which is my slightly cryptic introduction to this:

Just to say, this seems like one of those things that might have more to do with things outside of herself than really organic to her.

I feel blessed beyond measure to say that none of these are a problem for me, and as a result I don’t get cut too deeply very often. I hope your wife searches her heart and finds that she hasn’t been cheated by life in the slightest bit, that her cup truly runneth over, and that as far as I can tell from what you shared here, there’s not just all kinds of joy in the life she’s actually living that she’s not in touch with, but there’s also tremendous freedom and opportunity to find even more, all she’s gotta do is decide to be happy, be genuine, be grateful and be open. She’s a thousand miles ahead of most people already.

If anyone wants this soapbox, I’m done using it.

:slight_smile:

133

Thanks for the kind words, Stoid.

She has decided she would rather work than go to school, and I think she does not particularly care where she works. Just get out of the house, talk to people who she’s not related to, and just, you know, not be stuck at home all day feeling like a failure and feeling guilty for feeling that way.

We can work out the scheduling however it turns out, I think. If she finds full time employment somewhere, childcare is taken care of. If only part time, my own job is pretty flexible as far as when I need to be there physically, so we can figure it out.

This is all assuming my own place of employment continues to exist for the next year. Which by the way is not a one hundred percent certain prospect. :smiley: But anyway, you can’t worry about everything at the same time.

134

Yeah, what Stoid said. It may be a matter of giving herself time and space to figure out what she really values. What does “contributing” mean to her? Contributing money, or meaning? Not that she can’t do both, but it can be a more difficult path; our society isn’t really well set up to achieve both in the same vocation. Often you have to focus on just one for a while to establish the foundation that allows the other one to come into the picture. And sometimes, sadly, one has to find money in one vocation and meaning in another one – and there’s nothing wrong with doing it that way either, because that’s what a LOT of people end up doing.

Yeah, you don’t need to use the word “counseling” (and honestly, you wouldn’t need to use THAT WORD even if that’s what you meant to suggest…). I simply mean taking the time to talk to someone she trusts and respects who would have the knowledge to answer her questions, like a professional photographer, the department head, her instructor. Even if I thought mental health counseling was an immediate or pretty-soon need (and I don’t), that too is simply finding someone with expertise who can help her find answers to her questions – it’s just those questions are the bigger, more existential kind.

And while we can’t break down the stigma of “OMG mental health services!!one!1!” in a day, “what do I value, and what do I want?” are REALLY common questions people deal with. She’s not weird or “broken” because she has them. So if this comes up later, this is something worth mentioning to her, too. I don’t know if she feels she “should” be this way or that way, or “should” have everything figured out, but there are no shoulds, and it’s worth reminding her that she doesn’t need to judge herself so harshly.

135

My apologies if this has been addressed, but how is she doing in her other classes?
I am specifically referring to math classes.

I realize right now things are on hold, but how was she able to pass those classes? They typically have far more memorization. If she hasn’t taken them, I would suggest she do so. If math is a complete stopping point, it doesn’t matter how well she does in the photography classes.

Also, has she talked to the school about her learning disability? Assuming you are in America, there are provisions made for students that have learning disabilities. I have had students that had tests given in different manners to accommodate them.

I realize she’s “given up” on photography, but the above is true of any major.

136

She would probably be going for topic-specific training, not a new bachelor’s degree.

As to how she was able to pass her math classes way back when, she only needed one, and she passed it with a D (with much struggle, and with tutoring from me. This was a formative experience in our relationship. She finds math to be so frustrating, by the way, that she got physically violent with me. Every time we met for tutoring. Yep. But I got her to the D, which you have to understand she was utterly ecstatic to earn. Now–not everyone with her (probable) learning disability is that bad at math, don’t get me wrong, but she has had a lot of really negative experiences with the subject throughout her gradeschool education so there’s just a lot going on under the hood with this topic, so to speak.)

137

I promise I will not necro every thread I ever made that mentioned my wife but as a radical update:

We’re getting divorced, and the whole “dyscalculia means I can’t be a photographer”, while probably not intentional excuse-making on her part, was in fact part of a marriage-long pattern of doing the following in sequence:

  1. Wishing to do something big
  2. Finding reasons to decide it’s not possible (where said reasons often weren’t actually that big a deal)
  3. Casting it after the fact as her “making a sacrifice” or as part of an ongoing sacrifice.

In this thread I repeated the myth that she spent many years supporting me in following my dream. That was a lie. She was always free to go to school for herself. She was always free to have no job at all. I highly encouraged her to do so in fact. That’s what school loans etc are for. But she refused, and I acquiesced. The family myth was that this was her “sacrificing” her career for mine but we both got accepted to schools in the same city. She didn’t have to give up anything and I didn’t ask her to. After giving up on her first choice of school and major, she went into teaching, which she alternately liked and hated. She went through many years alternating between characterizing this as her doing someething she doesn’t really like so I could pursue my education, and characterizing it as something she could tolerate as a career–depending on her mood she’d emphasize one or the other.

After giving up on teaching when the twins came, about a year later she “reminded” me about all the “sacrifices” she’d made (that she didn’t have to make, that I never asked her to make, that we could have done fine without, but which she insisted on because of an allergy to the word “loan”) and how I “owed” her time to follow her own dreams. After a little while she gave on that, returned to the workforce–and over time continued to paint herself as making “sacrifices”.

Eventually did get full time employment in a boring but very stable job, got on meds for extreme social anxiety, (I also was now on meds for anxiety, and ironically I think this helped each of us individually but hurt the relationship because both of us were now a little less scared to say what we really think) and started hanging out a lot more with her friends and going and doing things with them that I wasn’t particularly interested in. I was very happy to see her starting to lead what seemed to me to seem to her a much more fulfilling and fun life.

But she was home less and less.

And her time at home was less and less happy.

She started talking about how I was holding her back–despite my lifelong dedication, every time she tried to do anything for herself like pursue a dream or go on adventures with friends etc, to encouraging her and helping her with those pursuits.

I was not the one who had ever held her back. She held herself back, at the request of absolutely no one. And generally did not take responsibility for those decisions but instead made excuses or laid it on me.

Along the way she became more and more critical of how I was doing things around the house–the house she was at so rarely anymore. She wanted to be out there and free but couldn’t relinquish control of the day to day business of running a household.

And she became critical of my personal appearance – though a therapist told her, point blank, that her criticisms here were exaggerated to say the least. (Is there such a thing as body dismorphia by proxy? She would seem to honestly think my skin looked diseased when checking with neutral parties like anonymous fora or a therapist or a doctor, absolutely nothing could be found to be unusual.)

Just as I now think she was lying (to herself possibly) about the whole dyscalculia excuse, it became clear she was lying (possibly to herself? I don’t know anymore) about the things she would adduce to back up these kinds of criticisms.

One day she told me she had found eight (exact number) dirty dishes put away in the cabinet. I told her I simply didn’t believe it, and I characterized what she said as a lie. Too often she had made critical claims then said the perfect thing to back up the claim, where the back-up simply was. not. true. This happened too often. It was a pattern. And I told her that.

The next day she told me she wanted a divorce.

We had done couples therapy for about a year prior to this. During which I worked. Hard. On myself. Made many, many changes as dictated by my wife. Changes I remain happy about to this day. I also was diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, which quantifiably (I quantified it) reduced a number of annoying habits I’d had w.r.t. losing keys–a kind of mishap which bothered her to no end–etc to practically zero.

Meanwhile, though the therapist was sure my wife was working “internally”, there was to be frank no sign that she was doing any work whatsoever, or that she even believed herself to have any role in the dissolution of our relationship. She would insist she was working on the relationship–but the examples she would give amounted to throwing up obstacles and finding new things to criticize.

I’m honestly happy for her in the sense I think she did in fact need to get out, for her own sake. I’m extremely bitter towards her because she basically toyed with me for as long as she could manage, then threw me away when I had outlived my usefulness.

And I will never get an honest word from her about how the whole thing went down, because she doesn’t know how to be honest with herself, much less with others. I suspect that minds, including hers, are kind of a blank to her. She doesn’t know why she (or anyone else) does things–so she just makes shit up.

So here we are.

138

I’m sorry. Sounds like you’ve had a long row to hoe. Keep your head on straight about the children. I’m not sure how old your kids are. It doesn’t matter, divorce affects adult children as well. I wish you peace.

139

I’m not buying the idea that she needs to know all the numbers associated with a good picture. If you look at the famous photographers at work you’ll see them drill through hundreds of shots to get ONE good picture. If they’re so F!#%ing great then they should have done it in a few shots.

A great deal of the work behind film photography was done in the dark room. Now it’s done on a computer. BFD.

What makes a good photograph is someone with a good eye using good equipment. I personally suck at it and it isn’t because I don’t know how to set up a camera. I don’t have an eye for it.

Jimi Hendrix could not read sheet music. His ear for music far exceeds the vast majority of those who can read sheet music. He is not alone. Eric Clapton, ALL of the Beatles…

If your wife can put together a portfolio that is judged well on it’s merits then it is within her capacity to pursue it as a career.

140

I’m thinking that you might have wanted to read the whole thread first.