If given an opportunity to further your career - which may be an uphill battle and require time and effort, vs. getting married and continuuing on with your current job line - where you’re making enough for what you need , but maybe your job satisfaction isn’t high…
Which way would you chose?
Keep climbing the corporate ladder which may involve moving around, travels, all of which your fiance can’t manage? Or get married, and stop being ambitious for a while, so you can be with your husband and make a family?
Do you believe he's the one for you? If so, compromise. You're making good money, you're contributing toward society, and maybe with time you'll get a better position? If you plan to have kids, the less demanding job will make it easier to devote more time and attention to children/marriage. If you only have to "stop for a while," then it's not a permanent compromise is it? You can resume your ambitions at a later point. If it were me and I thought the guy was the one, I'd go with this option;career can take a backseat...it's not the top-most priority.
Do you believe you can find a better guy? If so, then compromise the guy and climb the corporate ladder. There's no telling how long u'll have to wait before you find the right guy....and if you're going to allow the wait to stress you out.....you won't be able to concentrate as fully on your corporate conquering. So, if you decide to drop him for ur career....then make peace with the consequences of that decision and focus on the goal.
Do guys make the same sort of decisions or is this more of what women have to decide ?
Why turn it into a competition between the genders as to which one is frequently confronted with a certain decision? How exactly would taking a poll or knowing this help, PCG?
Is the issue about the idea of you having to give up more than him? By marrying you, he's also taking up greater responsibility. He too would have to make sacrifices with his time, money, various goals etc. And even if you forgo the corporate ladder climbing, your current job is demanding enough as it is. So, he would have to make compromises dealing with your job too. You're both gaining and compromising. It's not even farz upon to you work as it is for him. This is not to say you shouldn't work or pursue your ambitions, but not at the expense of the home/family.
Do guys make the same sort of decisions or is this more of what women have to decide ?
Guys do have to make these sorts of decisions. I was trying to convey that in the work blog, *married *people in general have to make compromises. Take me for example, I plan on doing something else but if I were to stay in this career, I can put in reasonable hours and get to a certain position making 200-300k in my 40's. Not a bad lifestyle at all. If I want to get there faster, I would have to move around more, to Frankfurt, Shanghai, Singapore, Rio, etc. Would my wife be okay with that? Would I want to move when my kids are high school aged? To go past that position I described, and getting into executive type roles, *definitely *requires a lot of moving, and probably more stress. But it's prestigious, and pay is anywhere from 500k to a million. But again, career ambition vs family.
Women have to compromise more, but men have to do it too. It's not like we just do whatever we want, whenever we want, our family's opinons be damned.
Like RV said, we have to make decisions. If you want to kick ass and go for your career, great. But there are consequences. How do you feel about this guy? If he's great overall, and you feel good about him, I would choose family. Even as a guy, if I went for my career and ignored my wife's opinions, she might leave me. I would have to come to terms with that. I'm not married by the way, so I have yet to actually face these decisions, but I think I would compromise for family where needed. Do we work to live or do we live to work? I would much rather be pigging out on aam with my wife, in Pakistan in my 60's, than admiring the lakeshore view alone from my million dollar condo in Toronto.
^ You may not be married but your statements are very accurate.
My husband makes plenty of compromises with his job/career now that he has me to consider. Even something as simple as picking up a weekend shift for a co-worker.....he checks with me first. He doesn't make major career decisions without talking with me. In fact, his biggest sacrifice is that he's still in the state we live in! He's desperate to return to the state he grew up in but I'm not ready to live in the same state as his parents.....hence, he has held off on moving/looking for a job there. Without even looking he got an amazing opportunity last year but turned it down b/c I made it clear to him that at this point, there is no chance in hel* I'm moving there. So yea.......its not like men can do whatever they want. If they have the kind of wife who refuses to allow him to walk all over her....they have no choice but to consider her opinion/feelings when making major decisions.
Like the Ghost said. Men have to make these decisions on a day by day basis. I have had to make some decisions which are good in the long term but in the short term make me miserable. There are things I want which I can not have because of my job. It sucks but in the long term it benefits everybody so I put up with it.
Do guys make the same sort of decisions or is this more of what women have to decide ?
I don't think men have it that easy where they can just follow their dreams.
Since they are bread winners and expected to fill that role quite well...they also are faced with decisions and responsibilities.
As far as career is concerned for women...you have the luxury PCG of meeting someone who doesn't want the burden of running the finances on your shoulders. He wants you to focus on one aspect of your lives while he takes care of another...ain't nothin' wrong with that gurl Mashallah.
In such a scenario, my career would take a backseat and I would focus on working on my marriage while keeping balance between my work and relationship with my husband.
My career took a backseat, actually a huge pause when I got married last year. Hubby lives in Europe while I was in North America. I quit my job before getting married and moved here. And I've been unemployed since. Hubby acknowledges that very often. I'm not sure what a super ambitious girl would've done in my place. But I didn't mind quitting my job and being unemployed here because I know this is temporary, but more importantly because I wanted to be with him. I'd pick being unemployed and living with him than working and away from him. We'll be going back soon and then I can resume work again.
As for whether men compromise...well, hubby's got a great offer back in North America and he wants to move back because he's been here for a few years now....but I kinda feel like living a little longer in Europe. So hubby told me he's ready to turn down that offer and stay back for a year if that's what I want. So yes, he'd let that offer go if I tell him today to do so. However, I won't. Because I know how much he wants it and wanting to live in Europe for another year for no solid reason isn't good enough to ask hubby to make that kinda compromise.
If given an opportunity to further your career - which may be an uphill battle and require time and effort, vs. getting married and continuuing on with your current job line - where you're making enough for what you need , but maybe your job satisfaction isn't high....
Which way would you chose?
Keep climbing the corporate ladder which may involve moving around, travels, all of which your fiance can't manage? Or get married, and stop being ambitious for a while, so you can be with your husband and make a family?
PCG, my sister, like you, is doing her residency in the States. She faces similar dilemmas as you with marriage proposals. She would have liked to do a fellowship, but in her case it would have meant another few years of uncertainty as to her whereabouts and difficulty in finding suitable proposals who would be willing to relocate for her sake. In the end, my sis decided family is more important than career advancement. Like ghostie said, what good is a million bucks at the expense of relationships!
I work in the financial sector. I have a stable career where I live now, but if I were to get a potentially great proposal which would entail relocating and minor career setbacks, I would definitely go for the guy. It's harder to find a good guy than it is to find a satisfying job.
