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I (31M) was just told by my partner (29F) that she wants to stop working fulltime. (by Sparky)
I (31M) was just told by my partner (29F) that she wants to stop working fulltime.
First let me start off by saying my partner has been through a lot. We had been dating for 2 years and planning a life together when she was disagnosed with cancer. At the time she was in school for a dual graduate degree program and managed to finish it. Treatment was rough on her and she strugled a lot through it, and hasn't done well mentally dealing with the unfairness of it all, how different her body is after surgeries, and the fear of it coming back. All perfectly understandable, and I've been as supportive as I can throughout it all.
Now all that said, she went into the graduate programs after we started dating and one of the degrees was at a very expensive school for something that was only related and not required for the work she planned on doing which would never pay very well. I questioned her about it gently at the time but she was adamant about getting the expensive degree. It was her life, and we agreed it would be fine because we could utilize public service loan forgiveness to pay off her debt that would total ~$100k. This was before cancer.
I earn a considerable amount more than her, when we started dating I made ~4x and even with her degrees I make ~3x what she does. I've always been happy to spend money on her, and after having moved in together over a year ago and proposing shortly after I really went into the mindset of it being "our" money. When we moved in she was finishing her degrees and I covered 100% of our bills, including some tuition costs for an extra semester since she was slightly delayed by her treatment. This was totally fine because school was her job and she'd be able to contribute when she graduated and even though I make much more if we are both working full time jobs it felt fair.
Now that she has graduated and started working, she is miserable at her job mostly because she is incredibly anxious that she isn't doing it well and doesn't feel like her school prepared her. She was already prone towards anxiety and depression (she takes medicine for it) but mentally she is in a very bad spot because of all this. On top of that she feels like she doesn't doing enough for her health (mostly exercise) to keep her healthy to reduce the cancer from coming back but she says she is too tired after work to do much else than occationally go on a walk.
Recently she got the idea in her head to start working half weeks to give her more time to exercise, and stress her out about work less. She says not knowing for sure how long she'll live has changed her priorities about working. Before all this she was a pretty driven type a personality working multiple jobs. But working part time doesn't meet the requirements for public service loan forgiveness.
We've talked about it extensively and she feels it is important for her to work part time, but I am not very comfortable with the idea for many reasons. I get where she is coming from in her needs but feel like she is looking for a quick fix to her problems that puts us in a pretty big hole financially because she is so miserable instead of fully dealing with her problems. I'd be more ok with it if it was short term while she sorted through some things but she says she just wants more time to exercise and be stress free so she doesn't know when that would end.
I just feel like she is taking our relationship which is already unbalanced and asking to make it a lot more so--and soley because she is in a position to do so because of my job. We can financially afford it but I haven't been able to come to terms about the disproportionality it would create in our relationship.
I am just looking for some advice on maybe a better way to think about this that would maybe make me feel more comfortable with it, some opinions on if I'm just being a greedy/selfish *******, and some comiseration if anyone has been in a similar situation.
I probably left out a lot so feel free to ask questions, this post is already very long, and if you read it all thanks for sticking with me! I obviously shared my side but I tried to not be too uneven since I think she has legitimate points but it hasn't changed my uneasiness with it.
tl;dr My long time partner wants to start working half time to relieve her work stress and give her more time to take care of her health but it makes me uncomfortable because she has $100k of debt and it would make our relationship very unbalanced.
Source.
First let me start off by saying my partner has been through a lot. We had been dating for 2 years and planning a life together when she was disagnosed with cancer. At the time she was in school for a dual graduate degree program and managed to finish it. Treatment was rough on her and she strugled a lot through it, and hasn't done well mentally dealing with the unfairness of it all, how different her body is after surgeries, and the fear of it coming back. All perfectly understandable, and I've been as supportive as I can throughout it all.
Now all that said, she went into the graduate programs after we started dating and one of the degrees was at a very expensive school for something that was only related and not required for the work she planned on doing which would never pay very well. I questioned her about it gently at the time but she was adamant about getting the expensive degree. It was her life, and we agreed it would be fine because we could utilize public service loan forgiveness to pay off her debt that would total ~$100k. This was before cancer.
I earn a considerable amount more than her, when we started dating I made ~4x and even with her degrees I make ~3x what she does. I've always been happy to spend money on her, and after having moved in together over a year ago and proposing shortly after I really went into the mindset of it being "our" money. When we moved in she was finishing her degrees and I covered 100% of our bills, including some tuition costs for an extra semester since she was slightly delayed by her treatment. This was totally fine because school was her job and she'd be able to contribute when she graduated and even though I make much more if we are both working full time jobs it felt fair.
Now that she has graduated and started working, she is miserable at her job mostly because she is incredibly anxious that she isn't doing it well and doesn't feel like her school prepared her. She was already prone towards anxiety and depression (she takes medicine for it) but mentally she is in a very bad spot because of all this. On top of that she feels like she doesn't doing enough for her health (mostly exercise) to keep her healthy to reduce the cancer from coming back but she says she is too tired after work to do much else than occationally go on a walk.
Recently she got the idea in her head to start working half weeks to give her more time to exercise, and stress her out about work less. She says not knowing for sure how long she'll live has changed her priorities about working. Before all this she was a pretty driven type a personality working multiple jobs. But working part time doesn't meet the requirements for public service loan forgiveness.
We've talked about it extensively and she feels it is important for her to work part time, but I am not very comfortable with the idea for many reasons. I get where she is coming from in her needs but feel like she is looking for a quick fix to her problems that puts us in a pretty big hole financially because she is so miserable instead of fully dealing with her problems. I'd be more ok with it if it was short term while she sorted through some things but she says she just wants more time to exercise and be stress free so she doesn't know when that would end.
I just feel like she is taking our relationship which is already unbalanced and asking to make it a lot more so--and soley because she is in a position to do so because of my job. We can financially afford it but I haven't been able to come to terms about the disproportionality it would create in our relationship.
I am just looking for some advice on maybe a better way to think about this that would maybe make me feel more comfortable with it, some opinions on if I'm just being a greedy/selfish *******, and some comiseration if anyone has been in a similar situation.
I probably left out a lot so feel free to ask questions, this post is already very long, and if you read it all thanks for sticking with me! I obviously shared my side but I tried to not be too uneven since I think she has legitimate points but it hasn't changed my uneasiness with it.
tl;dr My long time partner wants to start working half time to relieve her work stress and give her more time to take care of her health but it makes me uncomfortable because she has $100k of debt and it would make our relationship very unbalanced.
Source.
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