Originally Posted by killbilly  This is half true. Jobs don't lead to divorce. Bad marriages do.
Ray, I was divorced before I decided to become a pilot. There's no need to go into details, but I can tell you that I once upon a time I floated the idea of flight training to her and she was less than supportive of even talking about it. The unwillingness to even talk about it was a symptom, y'know? That was a LONG time ago, and aviation had NOTHING to do with the divorce, but the kind of people we were certainly did.
I think 50% of marriages end because people go into it for the wrong reasons. I think the percentage of marriages which SHOULD end is considerably higher, though. Some people just can't hack the thought of divroce and spend decades being polite and miserable. If they have children, it's worse, because kids know. They may not be able to articulate it, but they know.
I'm a hell of a lot wiser and smarter about relationships than I used to be. Present one has had some rocky moments, but we manage to fight things out by talking. Sometimes it takes months going over the same ground until we meet somewhere in the middle, but it does work out.
What you and your bride need to figure out is, (and this is JUST my opinion) a) how honest you're being with yourselves about your issues. You have to be extremely honest with yourselves and each other - anything short of that will breed resentment. Once you establish that, then you move to b) which is establishing the boundaries - where are you willing to compromise on things like away time, schedules, time with kids, family, salary - and you make your choices from there. But being absolutely honest, and absolutely gentle with each other's feelings will ensure that you do it the "right" way. And if it STILL doesn't work out in the long run, you will at least have a clear conscience about things, knowing that you both did what you could.
Make sense?
I hope this helps. It may not work for everyone, but it's a little gleaning I've picked up over the last couple of years. Scar tissue is so instructional, y'know? |