8 ms·

It's ironic to me when women choose successful ambitious men to marry and then complain these same keep striving to climb up the corporate ranks.

jeffrallen 5y ago
- dijonman2 5y ago
  This is a negative comment and does not contribute to the conversation.
cheschire 5y ago
Why not also examine the decision of the ambitious spouse to marry someone who may at some point add friction to the progress? Marriage requires compromise on both ends. I don't see the irony.
xyzzyz 5y ago
Marrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person uprooting family’s life a decade or two later and moving to the other side of the world. Family is about shared sacrifice for its well being, and sometimes (in fact, usually) one needs to sacrifice their career for the family. That’s life.
- gamesbrainiac 5y ago
  I can share the converse example. My uncle had a once in a lifetime opportunity to get training in the US and get a promotion at his company. His wife did not want him to leave for 6 months. He did not get the training or the promotion. He fell way behind his colleagues that did. Fast forward 20 years, and he was unable to give his children a good education, whereas his colleagues who got promoted, did. He gets really sad and jaded when he talks about that decision. I put this real-life story in contrast, just to prove that it's not just about "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable". For the trivial stuff like putting away your shoes or your socks, fine. But some decisions make a career and determine the future success of your offspring.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    I agree, of course, but I never meant to imply that the answer here is “always do what your wife tells you to”. My point is simply that one should be prepared to sacrifice career for family. Sometimes, as in your uncle’s example, it might turn out that a better decision for the family would have been to make a different sacrifice instead. But that’s just another life’s lesson: hindsight is always 20/20.
  - filoleg 5y ago
    > "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable" My father gave me one specific piece of advice that stuck with me through the entirety of the time I can remember, and it also helped me out quite a lot in life. The advice wasn't directly related to marriage or anything like that, it was about making major decisions in general. I didn't truly understand what it meant at the time, but once I realized it, it hit me like a truck and put a lot of things in perspective. He said "Always listen to everyone's opinions, but always make your own decision." Being a teenager at the time, I misinterpreted it as "listen to what everyone else says and then do your own different thing." A very typical non-conformist teenager take. But much later on, I realized that it meant something entirely different. What he actually meant: "You should consider others' opinions when making a major decision, as it can let you make a better and more informed one. If you picked a decision that aligned with what someone else advised, that's absolutely fine. But, in the end, you own that decision and the consequences. You cannot hide behind a 'so and so advised that, which is why I made it' excuse. You are responsible for it, and you cannot blame people who provided their perspective for the resulting outcome." Thinking about this piece of advice when making major life decisions helps me a lot. Both with pulling the trigger on it in a more informed way and accepting the eventual outcome.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    > I put this real-life story in contrast, just to prove that it's not just about "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable". For the trivial stuff like putting away your shoes or your socks, fine. But some decisions make a career and determine the future success of your offspring. The advice is good but is lacking. It should have been "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable. But in the end, you have to make the decision yourself and take responsibility for it". I remember reading about this in David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Marrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person uprooting family’s life a decade or two later and moving to the other side of the world. Oh please. The writing was on the wall. If he's playing the "climb the corporate ladder" game nobody should surprised when he draws the "manage the Mongolian division" card. Expecting him to give that up when climbing the corporate ladder is the life he's chosen is somewhere on the spectrum from foolish to selfish. Likewise if your boyfriend is mechanically inclined don't wake up one day complaining about the fleet of project cars and the heavy equipment that are cluttering up your property. You knew that was the life you were signing up for looked like. There's a reason literally every culture has a litany of proverbs for women about not trying to change their men (and there's similiar but different proverbs for men).
  - impjohn 5y ago
    When getting married, women believe their man will change. Men believe their woman won't. Both are mistaken
ksdale 5y ago
Marrying a successful, ambitious man does not, in any way, mean that a woman should defer completely to every single career decision a man makes. I'm sure this executive's schedule was already plenty demanding without the burden of moving to another country.
- dijonman2 5y ago
  If the man is providing for the household then I’d argue that the woman should make every reasonable effort to support her husband. Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting used to change serves everyone.
  - JoblessWonder 5y ago
    FWIW, it sounds like she DID move with him and support him (through a non-"reasonable" request of moving to the other side of the world.) The marriage still fell apart.
  - HelloMcFly 5y ago
    Supporting one's spouse does not mean acquiescing to every opportunity afforded the other. Things are a little different when we're talking about matters of shelter/food/health, but in this situation we're talking about an international relocation of an already successful businessman. He was pursuing personal career and experience outcomes, he wasn't trying to drag his family above the poverty line. And besides, it's pretty clear HE regrets the decision. Maybe learn something from the person who lived the experience. > Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting used to change serves everyone. This statement is meaningless. Change in life is constant, but everything doesn't change all the time. You weaponize this statement as if to say we - or at least one spouse - should abdicate their agency in their own or their shared life.
    - the_omegist 5y ago
      I find your comment pretty agressive ("Maybe learn something from the person", "This statement is meaningless")... Which is pretty ironic because if saying "everything changes constantly" is meaningless, what about your advice to "learn" from a comment on the internet about a man he doesn't know at all that "regrets" something neither of us really know about ? One example has zero value as a "life changing lesson" and one can regret objectively awful things (regretting the feeling while high on drugs, etc).
taurath 5y ago
Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives and the relationships the other partner can have. A partnership is not a contract to have the needs of one partner subsumed by whoever happens to be more ambitious. You don't know what they communicated before deciding to get married. Strange to not be able to imagine being on the other side of it
- nobodyandproud 5y ago
  > Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives and the relationships the other partner can have. Not the OP nor GP, but I think the person who sought after an ambitious spouse is equally responsible for understanding the trade-offs. The term “married to their career/job” was an old term when I was a child growing up in the 1970 and 1980s. That ambition comes at a veey well-known cost. I’ve also read and heard more than my fair share of dissolved marriages, because the main provider was always working; but how many spouses are willing to live far beneath their means, to accommodate for a better work life-balance?
  - watwut 5y ago
    This does not sound like trade off for ambitions. More like ignoring her strong preference and then being shocked it turned out to be straw that broke camels back.
    - nobodyandproud 5y ago
      If you mean putting the dishes into the dishwasher, the comment thread morphed past that.
      - watwut 5y ago
        I mean the "ignoring that wife does not want to move to that foreign country, taking the job she is opposed to".
Diesel555 5y ago
People also change and / or realize what they thought they'd like turns out to not be what they like. You can't know you will like a situation until you are living it. I think entering a new job is similar, I may think I'm going to really like the job, but then when I'm actually doing the job I realize there are things I didn't consider and don't like it. Luckily, I can quit a job easily. In a marriage - you have to grow together if you want it to work. There is a book which describes exactly what the author of the article realized too late, it's better to learn it via reading than in hindsight: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
nineplay 5y ago
It's ironic to me when men marry for any reason besides wanting a docile helpmeet and then complain that their partners have real ambitions, opinions, and goals.
- the_omegist 5y ago
  Why is your comment so gender-specific ? In this current example we don't know anything about their couple history or dynamics. And going from "she didn't want us to move abroad" to men not expecting their partner "having any opinion" is a strawman.
beowulfey 5y ago
Believe it or not, some people enter enter into marriage as equals, and view each other as teammates working together and respecting each other’s input into major life decisions.
ngokevin 5y ago
No one said there were any gold digging personalities involved. Might want to check why this assumption came up.
RandomChance 5y ago
People seem to gloss over the fact that while she married an ambitious man, he also married her. If he did not want her to have equal say in their life (note this is his and hers life being impacted!) he should not have married her.
- the_omegist 5y ago
  > If he did not want her to have equal say in their life (note this is his and hers life being impacted!) he should not have married her. Why equal ? Can (s)he have an _equal_ say in the next car purchase when (s)he 1)knows nothing about mechanics 2)doesn't work etc... ? I don't get some people's obsession with equality in every aspects of life...

jeffrallen 5y ago

dijonman2 5y ago
This is a negative comment and does not contribute to the conversation.

cheschire 5y ago

Why not also examine the decision of the ambitious spouse to marry someone who may at some point add friction to the progress? Marriage requires compromise on both ends. I don't see the irony.

xyzzyz 5y ago

Marrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person uprooting family’s life a decade or two later and moving to the other side of the world. Family is about shared sacrifice for its well being, and sometimes (in fact, usually) one needs to sacrifice their career for the family. That’s life.

gamesbrainiac 5y ago
I can share the converse example. My uncle had a once in a lifetime opportunity to get training in the US and get a promotion at his company. His wife did not want him to leave for 6 months. He did not get the training or the promotion. He fell way behind his colleagues that did. Fast forward 20 years, and he was unable to give his children a good education, whereas his colleagues who got promoted, did. He gets really sad and jaded when he talks about that decision. I put this real-life story in contrast, just to prove that it's not just about "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable". For the trivial stuff like putting away your shoes or your socks, fine. But some decisions make a career and determine the future success of your offspring.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  I agree, of course, but I never meant to imply that the answer here is “always do what your wife tells you to”. My point is simply that one should be prepared to sacrifice career for family. Sometimes, as in your uncle’s example, it might turn out that a better decision for the family would have been to make a different sacrifice instead. But that’s just another life’s lesson: hindsight is always 20/20.
- filoleg 5y ago
  > "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable" My father gave me one specific piece of advice that stuck with me through the entirety of the time I can remember, and it also helped me out quite a lot in life. The advice wasn't directly related to marriage or anything like that, it was about making major decisions in general. I didn't truly understand what it meant at the time, but once I realized it, it hit me like a truck and put a lot of things in perspective. He said "Always listen to everyone's opinions, but always make your own decision." Being a teenager at the time, I misinterpreted it as "listen to what everyone else says and then do your own different thing." A very typical non-conformist teenager take. But much later on, I realized that it meant something entirely different. What he actually meant: "You should consider others' opinions when making a major decision, as it can let you make a better and more informed one. If you picked a decision that aligned with what someone else advised, that's absolutely fine. But, in the end, you own that decision and the consequences. You cannot hide behind a 'so and so advised that, which is why I made it' excuse. You are responsible for it, and you cannot blame people who provided their perspective for the resulting outcome." Thinking about this piece of advice when making major life decisions helps me a lot. Both with pulling the trigger on it in a more informed way and accepting the eventual outcome.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  > I put this real-life story in contrast, just to prove that it's not just about "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable". For the trivial stuff like putting away your shoes or your socks, fine. But some decisions make a career and determine the future success of your offspring. The advice is good but is lacking. It should have been "Always listen to your wife, she is always reasonable. But in the end, you have to make the decision yourself and take responsibility for it". I remember reading about this in David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Marrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person uprooting family’s life a decade or two later and moving to the other side of the world. Oh please. The writing was on the wall. If he's playing the "climb the corporate ladder" game nobody should surprised when he draws the "manage the Mongolian division" card. Expecting him to give that up when climbing the corporate ladder is the life he's chosen is somewhere on the spectrum from foolish to selfish. Likewise if your boyfriend is mechanically inclined don't wake up one day complaining about the fleet of project cars and the heavy equipment that are cluttering up your property. You knew that was the life you were signing up for looked like. There's a reason literally every culture has a litany of proverbs for women about not trying to change their men (and there's similiar but different proverbs for men).
- impjohn 5y ago
  When getting married, women believe their man will change. Men believe their woman won't. Both are mistaken

ksdale 5y ago

Marrying a successful, ambitious man does not, in any way, mean that a woman should defer completely to every single career decision a man makes. I'm sure this executive's schedule was already plenty demanding without the burden of moving to another country.

dijonman2 5y ago
If the man is providing for the household then I’d argue that the woman should make every reasonable effort to support her husband. Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting used to change serves everyone.
- JoblessWonder 5y ago
  FWIW, it sounds like she DID move with him and support him (through a non-"reasonable" request of moving to the other side of the world.) The marriage still fell apart.
- HelloMcFly 5y ago
  Supporting one's spouse does not mean acquiescing to every opportunity afforded the other. Things are a little different when we're talking about matters of shelter/food/health, but in this situation we're talking about an international relocation of an already successful businessman. He was pursuing personal career and experience outcomes, he wasn't trying to drag his family above the poverty line. And besides, it's pretty clear HE regrets the decision. Maybe learn something from the person who lived the experience. > Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting used to change serves everyone. This statement is meaningless. Change in life is constant, but everything doesn't change all the time. You weaponize this statement as if to say we - or at least one spouse - should abdicate their agency in their own or their shared life.
  - the_omegist 5y ago
    I find your comment pretty agressive ("Maybe learn something from the person", "This statement is meaningless")... Which is pretty ironic because if saying "everything changes constantly" is meaningless, what about your advice to "learn" from a comment on the internet about a man he doesn't know at all that "regrets" something neither of us really know about ? One example has zero value as a "life changing lesson" and one can regret objectively awful things (regretting the feeling while high on drugs, etc).

taurath 5y ago

Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives and the relationships the other partner can have. A partnership is not a contract to have the needs of one partner subsumed by whoever happens to be more ambitious. You don't know what they communicated before deciding to get married. Strange to not be able to imagine being on the other side of it

nobodyandproud 5y ago
> Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives and the relationships the other partner can have. Not the OP nor GP, but I think the person who sought after an ambitious spouse is equally responsible for understanding the trade-offs. The term “married to their career/job” was an old term when I was a child growing up in the 1970 and 1980s. That ambition comes at a veey well-known cost. I’ve also read and heard more than my fair share of dissolved marriages, because the main provider was always working; but how many spouses are willing to live far beneath their means, to accommodate for a better work life-balance?
- watwut 5y ago
  This does not sound like trade off for ambitions. More like ignoring her strong preference and then being shocked it turned out to be straw that broke camels back.
  - nobodyandproud 5y ago
    If you mean putting the dishes into the dishwasher, the comment thread morphed past that.
    - watwut 5y ago
      I mean the "ignoring that wife does not want to move to that foreign country, taking the job she is opposed to".

Diesel555 5y ago

People also change and / or realize what they thought they'd like turns out to not be what they like. You can't know you will like a situation until you are living it. I think entering a new job is similar, I may think I'm going to really like the job, but then when I'm actually doing the job I realize there are things I didn't consider and don't like it. Luckily, I can quit a job easily. In a marriage - you have to grow together if you want it to work. There is a book which describes exactly what the author of the article realized too late, it's better to learn it via reading than in hindsight: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

nineplay 5y ago

It's ironic to me when men marry for any reason besides wanting a docile helpmeet and then complain that their partners have real ambitions, opinions, and goals.

the_omegist 5y ago
Why is your comment so gender-specific ? In this current example we don't know anything about their couple history or dynamics. And going from "she didn't want us to move abroad" to men not expecting their partner "having any opinion" is a strawman.

beowulfey 5y ago

Believe it or not, some people enter enter into marriage as equals, and view each other as teammates working together and respecting each other’s input into major life decisions.

ngokevin 5y ago

No one said there were any gold digging personalities involved. Might want to check why this assumption came up.

RandomChance 5y ago

People seem to gloss over the fact that while she married an ambitious man, he also married her. If he did not want her to have equal say in their life (note this is his and hers life being impacted!) he should not have married her.

the_omegist 5y ago
> If he did not want her to have equal say in their life (note this is his and hers life being impacted!) he should not have married her. Why equal ? Can (s)he have an _equal_ say in the next car purchase when (s)he 1)knows nothing about mechanics 2)doesn't work etc... ? I don't get some people's obsession with equality in every aspects of life...