Dear Abby: couple with different educations

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been dating for two years. He is in grad school. I failed out of community college. My lack of education stresses me out emotionally. I love him very much, and I see a future with him. But the idea of an architect and a community college dropout makes my heart ache. He deserves someone more on his intellectual level. He is originally from another state and this is one of the reasons why I haven't met his family.

I have thought about trying to get a degree to become a certified nursing assistant, but again there would be a gap in our professional levels. I'm afraid that when he does introduce me to his family they will convince him he's better off without me. Part of me believes it's true.

Please give me advice about what to do. I don't want to lose him, but at the same time, I want him to be happy. -- UNEQUAL IN WISCONSIN

DEAR UNEQUAL: I can't help but wonder if you have ever spoken with someone who does career counseling. Some universities and community colleges have extension divisions that offer it. Part of the counseling involves aptitude testing, which could help you determine what you would be good at.

Being a nursing assistant is a respectable career that involves responsibility and people skills. If you feel drawn to it, then that's what you should pursue, and you should not feel embarrassed or have a need to apologize for it.

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

Where is her boyfriend in all of this? Has he said anything about his family's attitudes (or demonstrated anything about his own) to make her this worried? Or is she catastrophizing without data? Neither situation is good, but the remedies are completely different.

And in neither case is the remedy career counseling; that's just going to make LW more nervous without addressing the actual problem, which is either boyfriend's willingness to go to bat for her or her own anxiety. (Or both. Both is also a possibility.)

[cereta]

Yeah, I would really like to know what the boyfriend's perceptions are of both this (supposed) inequality in intellect* and status, and of his family's likely reaction.

*Her writing is solid if a little choppy, so I'm kind of curious as to the reasons she failed out. There are many, many reasons people don't succeed at higher ed, especially at CCs, and intellect is not the only or even most common one.

[havocthecat]

To be fair, the letter writer has said nothing about her boyfriend nor about his attitude or his family. She's written all about her own internal feelings. I don't really blame Dear Abby for responding solely based on the LW's insecurities and feelings since that's what the LW was writing about.

[cereta]

First, I hope she takes advantage of what her CC can offer just for her own pursuit of a career she enjoys. We are, as a colleague said, schools of second chances (among other things).

That said: sometimes differing levels of education can be an issue because it leads to difficulties in common interests and conversations. However, the LW doesn't mention that except as "intellectual equal," and seems much more concerned with her own and (possibly others') perceptions of educational status. Being a CNA is a tough, necessary job (they're a godsend when one is hospitalized), and I would hope his family wouldn't be that status-obsessed.

That said (tangent alert), one of the things I've noticed, particularly living in a university town, is a general perception that a woman's social status is raised by her husband's profession (being the wife of a lawyer or professor confers a certain social status), but the husband's is not raised by the wife's profession. I mean, duh, patriarchy with a really good, solid dose of classism, but I'm sort of wondering how her worries are fed by/indicate a change in that dynamic.

[ellen_fremedon]

Re: your tangent--my experience has been that a man's status can be perceived as being lowered by his wife's profession, but not as raised by it--the male architect married to a CNA might be seen as having married down, but the male CNA married to a female architect won't necessarily be seen as having married up.

[recessional]

Oh gods I want this LW to go to counselling. Not career counselling, like, therapy counselling. There is so much fucked up with their sense of self-worth here. I hope they are catastrophizing without data, and that the boyfriend's response to this would be "??????" (if not he needs a kick in the pants)

There is nothing a priori about different levels of education and different status levels of employment that means anything in a couple. There's lots of circumstantial stuff and specific-to-the-couple-stuff which will of course interact with that context, as with every context, but in and of itself: nah.

Is there an indication I'm missing making it clear the LW is a woman? As if it were same-gender pairing you add yet ANOTHER area of fraught, I note.

(This kind of stuff drives me wild. I had something in my sink fixed the other week and an apprentice came with the plumber who was fixing it, which I highly approve of, and he had a little haha-nervous moment, looking at my bookshelves, of "man now I feel undereducated".

I restrained myself from ranting about stupid human status markers and instead just pointed out that I literally didn't know what to call what was wrong with my sink and he was able to fix it very competently, at 17, with minimal supervision from his senior? So seriously here. SKILL IS CONTEXTUAL.)

[cereta]

Seriously, I am frequently in the overeducated idiot category when it comes to things like home repair and car maintenance. I have the greatest respect for those who can do those things, and I really wish society didn't have these weird strata of status.

[havocthecat]

My cousin the union plumber (who is 10 or 15 years younger than me) makes six figures. Already. When I think about him, I definitely wish I'd learned a trade.

[recessional]

From observing the patterns play out in my family and acquaintances tho, it only sort of works out if the trade is something you like enough to be good at and not to hate doing all day every day. Sort of like any other job.

[recessional]

Skill is skill, man. And since humans nowadays need to know how to do far too many things and those things take far too much time/training for everyone to have every skill, each of us brings skills to the table to supplement other people. I can deconstruct a narrative in ten minutes flat, someone else can hang a door. Which of these skills is more valuable depends ENTIRELY on what you need done in that circumstance, you know? /agreeing with you vehemently

Like I could understand if LW were just coming from "he's really good at his field and I don't even have one" - that part in and of itself can be difficult! But the hesitation in re nursing assistant part makes it clear that at least MOST of what's going on is stupid human-ape status crap. And that just, flames, side of my face. Argh.