Regrets And Perspectives

[u/Timbucktwo1230]

[u/Levintry]

Bro, I'm a stay at home dad that gave up climbing the IT career ladder to take care of my autistic son while my wife who makes double what I did, goes to work. I am grateful for her and so happy I get to take care of our son. It isn't a societal norm for a guy to stay home, but I love it and do everything I can to make sure she doesn't lift a finger when she gets home. Your wife isn't entirely right and she isn't entirely wrong either, I would suggest going to a marriage counselor for a bit to get things back on track with your relationship.

[u/Hotplate77 → u/Levintry]

I don't think this is about right or wrong. One parent should never degrade the other parent in front of the kids. For divorced parents the term is "parental disparagement" and is a big rule with possible heavy penalties - even could be enough to change the custody of the children. OP - have you had a discussion with your wife and let her know how you feel?

[u/Maela_Ithring → u/Hotplate77]

OP is at best someone mindlessly reposting this for engagement, and at worst a bad actor looking to sow division.

[u/Garnetheia → u/Levintry]

This is where I land too, creating a family is going to come with regrets and sacrifices. She's not wrong for grieving the life that could have been but does that mean she hates the life that is? That's where some counseling can come into play.

As for your college she'd daughter....it's solid advice. She should be considering what she wants her life to be.

[u/Grundlestorm → u/Garnetheia]

Yeah...

I understand that grief. I have the same thing from me "postponing" my degree to work multiple jobs and provide for myself and my then fiancee.  

We lived together, we were both in school and working full time, but having difficulty balancing it especially as costs kept rising and we started needing labs and things that didn't neatly fall into our normal schedules.   

So, we decided she would drop to working part time and focus on her degree while I temporarily dropped out and worked two jobs and all the OT I could get.  Then, once she could leverage said degree to get something better paying, I'd drop back to 40 hours a week while she also worked and I'd resume pursuing my degree.  

We were both working towards STEM fields, and theoretically should have been in a decent place afterwards. A few years of shit sucking in return for our joint lives being better.

I was never able to resume school, never able to go back to working a single job until nearly 15 years later, and we've been split up for over a decade.

I get it, it really sucks.  I hate that, and I regret my decision.  But, it was my decision.  I can grieve the much better life I never got to have, but I can't blame her for that. I can't hold her responsible for not directly sitting down with me and taking the lead unprompted to make changes so I could get back to it.  This just became life.

[u/Dizzy-Asparagus-5203 → u/Levintry]

Probably a good call. There is no IT career ladder anymore, thanks to AI and this administration. Ya'll would have been destitute.