agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: I am a teacher. I have a young son, and I love being off when he is out for school holidays and spending summers together. I feel I have the best of both worlds. I recently married a woman who is 14 years younger than me and is also a teacher. My wife hates the profession. She feels it isn't exciting or respectable enough. Her opinions about teaching hurt my feelings because I believe it is a noble career, plus it gives me quality time with my son.

My wife has decided to join the police force. It didn't happen out of the blue. We have discussed it for the last five years. I have told her it isn't the life I want. I worked hard to reach a point in my life to have a family and take summer vacations with my son. I was honest with her from the beginning. She often says she wants the time with our family too, and that she won't join the police force. Then, days later, she brings it up again.

We have been married only six months, but I regret it already. I didn't get married to be alone all the time and to take vacations without my spouse. I love her, but I feel betrayed and lied to. I also don't think she'll be a good cop -- she is just obsessed with police shows and thinks it's going to be like that. She's throwing away a great career for one I think she'll leave in a year or two. I feel our biggest challenge is her lack of experience. What do I do? -- WORRIED WIFE/MOM IN FLORIDA

DEAR WIFE/MOM: Calm down. There is no guarantee that even if your wife applies she will be accepted into law enforcement in anything more than an administrative capacity. Some sessions with a licensed marriage and family therapist might help the two of you to better communicate.

You each appear to have very different ideas about what a happy marriage consists of. If a compromise can't be reached, and because your marriage has been such a short one, it might be better for the two of you to cordially part ways.

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1. Your wife hates teaching. It is not, therefore, "a great career" - not for her. She's not throwing it away, she's choosing to do something else. (And if she changes her mind, there's no great shortage of teaching positions. She can find another job in education.)

2. Neither did she lie to you or "betray" you. She's told you for five years that she wants to be a cop. Did you plan on spending the rest of your marriage listening to her speak wistfully of the cop life? If you didn't want to marry a police officer then you should have married somebody else.

Dear Worried,

Please try to take your wife's opinions about teaching as her own opinions about her own experience of teaching, not as attacks on the profession you obviously love. You are clearly happy in your career, and it gives you all the excitement and respect you need. And it doesn't sound like your wife is trying to get you to quit and pursue law enforcement! But your wife isn't happy doing this work, and an unhappy teacher isn't going to give students their best experience. Surely you have seen this over your many years as a teacher.

Do we think that Abby would have replied "there is no guarantee that even if your HUSBAND applies HE will be accepted into law enforcement in anything more than an administrative capacity"? Where is this coming from? A lot of places are desperate for cops, and nothing in the letter indicates that LW's wife would be bad at any of the intake tests, just that LW doesn't want her to do it.

LW doesn't want her to do it and is willing to insult her about it. It takes a lot for me to be on Team Cop, but LW is the one being disrespectful to her spouse here.

That's not "team cop", that's "team respecting your spouse's feeings, even if you disagree with them".

Edited 2024-05-12 22:35 (UTC)

My wife has decided to join the police force. It didn't happen out of the blue. We have discussed it for the last five years….I feel betrayed and lied to.
…
I feel our biggest challenge is her lack of experience. What do I do?

LW, the biggest challenge to your relationship is that you don’t respect your wife.

tl;dr you're not a great couple, you want different things, and you sound like you know it ("We have been married only six months, but I regret it already"); maybe the answer is divorce.

And the biggest challenge if you get over that is that your wife wants to be a cop. Police marriages are frequently unhealthy. Also the concerns of a career teacher and the concerns of a police officer are extremely likely to diverge in the U.S., especially in a state where the solution to school shootings is arming public school teachers.

I see you beat me to the draw; the additional big red elephant in the living room is the fact that this is a married queer couple living in a state many of whose residents want them dead for existing, and where plenty of government officials would love any pretext to snatch that kid and bring him up right—-particularly if he’s white and abled.

LW, you say you've been discussing this issue with your wife for five years -- that is, for four and a half years before you married. Why did it take until after you were married for you to clue in that she's not giving up this dream without trying it?

Also, you don't give a timeline on this, but how long has your wife been saying she hates teaching and doesn't consider it that great a career? If since before you were married, why did you marry her when you find her opinions about your career hurtful?

Also also, I'm really wondering your and your wife's ages and how old she was when you first got together, given that you're 14 years older than her but young enough to have a "young son". You sound like you have a "she's immature, she'll grow out of it" script going on.