He would rather lose me than man up at work

[michaelk]

LadyJane, cobra and Lucky.... I know what you mean. I can definitely see how it would come off that way. He is not a "home improvement project" to me in the least and while I understand why you misread my intentions and extrapolated this one situation to me wanting this model with a completely different engine, I can assure you that is not the case. I do a rather impressive "scan" on people I meet and obtain rather accurate data so very little about his qualities or lack of is a surprise or something I saw as a future undertaking.

 

This is not a case of my wanting him to be a world renowed software engineer that writes open source, goes to conferences, interviews on TV and makes buckets of money (not that any of those exist, do they?). This is a case of a situation that upsets him and me both and of him looking at me for direction as to how to deal with it from an emotional point of view and me not being able to efficiently help.

 

Had I read this post from someone other I would think the exact same thing though "overly ambitions demanding b#%"&, poor fellow" so it's okay, I see where you're coming from.

 

I am not of the school claiming that whatever is there in our mate at the time that we meet them needs to remain intact and never change. It changes all the time. Is the lasting change internal? You bet. Which is why I haven't imposed my will and ordered him to get a new job, wrote his work in indignation or locked him in the house.

 

With the theory out of the way....

 

You've gone to a lot of effort to dispel the notion that you're pushing this issue for your own reasons. And if this is indeed a case of him asking for you to help from an "emotional point of view", I think it's great that you want to provide that.

 

But initially you said:

 

Needless to say but all of the above is a problem. Granted it's not an infidelity issue, it's not a severe betrayal situation and yet to me, to us, it's crucial. I've tried to figure out what it is that upsets me most and makes me ponder leaving him (he is aware of this) and the best I can come up with, is how it's a combination between having to powerlessly watch him degrade himself in front of these people for no reason other than not being able to stand up for himself, and the fact that he sees and knows all these things hurt me and make me feel disrespected and insufficiently important and yet he is not correcting them.

You make this sound like something you want fixed for you, not for him. You feel disrespected because he won't "correct" the situation, yet the one who should feel disrespected is him. So why do you feel 'insufficiently important'? Because he won't make this change for you? And you feel powerless, yet it's not your situation to control - it's his. Are you used to being in control, and having difficulty letting him run his own life? Even if that means he's not taking a hard line with his employers the way you would?

 

You can brush all of these observations aside, but you're the one who said you'd been considering leaving him over this, so clearly this is about you - it's making you very unhappy. And it doesn't come across like it's motivated by great empathy for him and a desire for him to be happy.

 

Look beyond your temporary joy at his starting a new job search and make sure there aren't some underlying issues here that will just pop up again.

[EnigmaXOXO]

My partner is in the same field. They’d have him working 60 hours a week and attending pizza parties on his weekends just to shut down and say farewell to an old server. And it’s not that they haven’t tried to guilt-trip him into giving up more of his time than he’s signed on for, but maintaining his original 6:00am to 2:00pm contract requires that he constantly remind them of it. Especially when they try planning meetings late in the afternoon well after he’s already put in his eight hour day. He’s not completely inflexible, but he knows if he doesn’t work hard to maintain his own work agreement, it will quickly be taken for granted and become expectant of him.

 

Of course, standing his ground doesn’t come without some drawbacks. Other employees often make comments about why he gets to dodge a meeting and leave at 2:00 ... or why he gets to work from home (telecommute) two days out of his five day work week. His simple answer is: “That’s the deal I negotiated, and struggle hard to maintain.”

 

While it might be impossible to avoid the occasional overtime where it’s “work related” ... I don’t see how it would jeopardize someone’s job if they chose to forgo all the after hour parties and kibitzing. Most people understand the concept of having a life outside of work, and while they may be disappointed you can’t always be there, I don’t think its something you have to worry about losing your job over.

 

But your “relationship” (if your partner never gets to spend any real time with you) might be a whole different story.

[MrsHellnoFire]

Unfortunately, I've never known one person that hasn't felt degraded in their line of work. In fact, it's all common in the workplace. Taking orders and following them in itself is demeaning to me.

The subordinate personality and laidback character is not going to change just because he gets a new job either. The fact is that he has a boss and at his position, he can't call all the shots, and you just have to live with that.

 

Here we go with the popular "help me change my man" theme. Oh boy. He isn't good enough the way he is, huh? There's always something for women to nitpick. You are creating unnecessary tension in his life and and workplace. It's good to be pushed when one feels they WANT TO or SHOULD be pushed and are excelling for something greater. But it sounds like you are just trying to change your man and that won't work out well without a hell of some resentment and some other ominent problems. If he's at a dead-end job and doesn't want anything more in life, there's not much you can do to change that imo if he's not willing or ambitious enough for YOU.