Here’s the background: I’ve been involved in a serious relationship with this woman for six years now; we’ve been living together for about 3 years. We are both in our 30s, although she is a few years older than I am.
We met at the university which we are still attending–she’s now working on a masters degree, while I am nearing completion of my PhD. I’m planning to finish the dissertation and defend it over this summer.
Since I started writing my dissertation 3 years ago, I’ve also been working full-time at the university library. It doesn’t pay very much–about $20k a year–though it helps ends meet (albeit just barely; most of my paychecks are consumed by rent, car payments, and utilities). She’s currently between jobs, having recently completed an internship abroad.
Additionally, this is only my second ever serious relationship, whereas when we met, she was going through a difficult divorce. Her ex-husband was a fairly wealthy lawyer, but they had grown apart emotionally.
There are many things I love about this woman. Just to name a few: We share a strong interest in art and antiques, and we both like to travel a lot. We also laugh a lot–I love the way her smile lights up her already beautiful face. She is, to me, the most beautiful woman in the world, and utterly charming.
But we also have more than our share of stress. In fact, we had a very serious talk last night, and now I’m aware that our relationship is hanging by a thread.
What’s threatening to sever this thread is our different perspectives on issues like careers and money. She is especially disappointed that I haven’t found a better job over the past three years. She points out that I have a masters degree already, but I’m making less money than a lot of people who only have bachelors degrees. While I contend that my current job is just a way to get by until I get my PhD and can start my “real” career, she’s not much impressed with my idea of a good job: a tenure-track professorial position, probably starting around $35-40k a year, and after tenure and several years of promotions, maybe up to $60-70k.
I feel that such a position, or something comparable in a related field (e.g., museum work), would offer a fairly comfortable life, particularly when complemented by her own salary. However, she’s not convinced. Basically, she believes that she cannot depend upon me to support her lifestyle–what she wants to be our lifestyle. She points out that she was used to having an upscale lifestyle, with a nice car, a house with a garage, and designer clothes. She’s made a lot of sacrifices to be with me–right now we live in a 2-bedroom townhouse, no garage, little closet space for all of her clothes, etc.
Last night, she asked me (somewhat rhetorically) if I could buy her a new car (by “new car,” she means at least a lower-model BMW or Mercedes). When I tried to explain that I couldn’t buy a new car right now, she argued that her ex-husband could. In fact, he could, and did, provide for all of the material things she liked. Sometimes, she admitted, she regrets having left him.
This is, I believe, the crux of the issue: our different perspectives on money and material things. Although I appreciate fine things, particularly antiques and aesthetics, I generally don’t invest a whole lot emotionally in material objects. Indeed, my approach is almost Buddhist–if I accidentally chip a plate or break a glass, I may feel disappointed, but I will quickly get over it. Material things, I feel, don’t last forever, and they aren’t as important as more “spiritual” and emotional issues.
However, she interprets my attitude as carelessness and apathy. Those objects, whether they’re dishes, or clothes, or cars, contain a lot of emotional value for her. They signify that her life is good, and as things currently stand–i.e., me working a low-paying job and living in a smaller place than she’s accustomed to–she only sees herself as going backwards in life. “I’m too old to live as a student anymore,” she told me. “I can’t start my life completely over.”
She feels that the impetus is now on me to make changes in my life–she’s compromised her lifestyle for long enough; now it’s time that I compensate by improving our material existence. I stated that we would be living much better within a few years (considering that my degree is almost completed), but that I also wanted to be happy with my career–I would rather work a job that I love, but which doesn’t offer an incredible salary (basically, the kind of faculty position that I have my sights set on), than work a higher-paying job that makes me miserable and unfulfilled. And I know I would feel fufilled teaching and doing research–it’s what I love most in this world.
Apparently, this means I lack ambition–she says I could get a much better position than a professorship if I really wanted it. By focusing so much on an academic position, my career perspective is too myopic–I need to think “outside of the box,” and I need to remember that there are two people in my life. I should not only be focused on my happiness (which depends mainly on intellectual stimulation), but also on her happiness (which stems largely from those material objects) which together = our relationship’s happiness.
We’ve had similar discussions in the past, but this one was by far the most serious. She stated, with no ambiguity, if I failed to change my perspective on the above issues, and if I failed to nurture some kind of ambition in life, that she would leave me.
So, I’m trying to figure out my course of action right now. I don’t want our relationship to end–I do love her and want her to be happy. But I’m not sure how to instill this ambition for a non-academic job–or, more fundamentally, how I can widen my perspective to value material objects as much as intellectual or spiritual issues. It is clear, however, that I will have to make some effort at seeing things through her eyes, if we are to have any future at all.
Last night, she voiced her fear that we are too “different”–she’s afraid that our value-systems aren’t compatible. I’d rather think that we complement each other, and that our differences are what makes our relationship strong.
I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar relationship–were you able to overcome those differences, to make them complement each other? How were you able to compromise your priorities in the best interest for the relationship? Or did you find those differences really were insurmountable?