[ksdale]

Marrying a successful, ambitious man does not, in any way, mean that a woman should defer completely to every single career decision a man makes. I'm sure this executive's schedule was already plenty demanding without the burden of moving to another country.

[DwnVoteHoneyPot]

> a woman should defer completely to every single career decision a man makes

You're making a straw man argument here... none of the comments above say "defer completely" or "every single decision".

[ksdale]

Haha the parent post literally said that it was ironic that a woman would marry an ambitious man and then complain about said ambition. The ambition, implicitly, being wanting to move to Asia for a job. It seems to me if a woman isn't allowed to complain about moving continents for a job, she's not allowed to complain about anything, and this is, therefore, not a strawman.

[DwnVoteHoneyPot]

So with that logic... if he gets a huge opportunity to run the Asian division which he feels compelled to take despite her objections, then she is not allowed to ask for smaller concessions such as "hey, can you turn off the work phone on Saturdays"? You linking those together doesn't make sense.

[ksdale]

I don't see any problem with that, I'm not the one who said it was ironic that a woman would marry an ambitious man and then have problems with moving to Asia. I don't see any conflict at all between loving someone's ambition and also wanting other things from the relationship.

[AussieWog93]

Yeah, I don't see the straw man there. Signing up for 55-hour workweeks does not mean signing up for a life in Asia.

[dijonman2]

If the man is providing for the household then I’d argue that the woman should make every reasonable effort to support her husband.

Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting used to change serves everyone.

[HelloMcFly]

Supporting one's spouse does not mean acquiescing to every opportunity afforded the other. Things are a little different when we're talking about matters of shelter/food/health, but in this situation we're talking about an international relocation of an already successful businessman. He was pursuing personal career and experience outcomes, he wasn't trying to drag his family above the poverty line.

And besides, it's pretty clear HE regrets the decision. Maybe learn something from the person who lived the experience.

> Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting used to change serves everyone.

This statement is meaningless. Change in life is constant, but everything doesn't change all the time. You weaponize this statement as if to say we - or at least one spouse - should abdicate their agency in their own or their shared life.

[the_omegist]

I find your comment pretty agressive ("Maybe learn something from the person", "This statement is meaningless")...

Which is pretty ironic because if saying "everything changes constantly" is meaningless, what about your advice to "learn" from a comment on the internet about a man he doesn't know at all that "regrets" something neither of us really know about ?

One example has zero value as a "life changing lesson" and one can regret objectively awful things (regretting the feeling while high on drugs, etc).

[HelloMcFly]

> Which is pretty ironic because if saying "everything changes constantly" is meaningless, what about your advice to "learn" from a comment on the internet about a man he doesn't know at all that "regrets" something neither of us really know about ?

The OP's statement was a truism used - in this instance - to critique the wife for not "adapting to change". I think I made that pretty clear in my comment. If you can apply that BS truism here, why not elsewhere? Why not just always go with the flow, never have desires or motivations of your own? Why ever object to undesired life changes?

It bothered me, as you can tell. It's not advice based in the reality of a shared life. Telling someone unhappy with the direction of their life that "getting used to change serves everyone" is terrible, borderline offensive advice. The worst takeaway is to blame the woman for not going along to get along, which dijonman2 sure seemed to be doing to me.

I'll take the critique of my own comment, though my point remains: the person who wrote the article was trying to impart a life lesson they learned a hard way, and I encourage that user (and all of us) to reflect on it and potentially learn something. My "maybe" wasn't passive aggressive by intent, it was meant to be interpreted literally, albeit not expressed in a very considerate way.

[the_omegist]

I get your point better now, thanks for the clarification.

I agree we should try to improve things that can be improved, but I guess this example's extreme nature (international relocation) makes it difficult to have a nuanced talk about couples' intra-dynamics...

[JoblessWonder]

FWIW, it sounds like she DID move with him and support him (through a non-"reasonable" request of moving to the other side of the world.)

The marriage still fell apart.

[AussieWog93]

The thing is, he was likely already providing incredibly well for the household and didn't need to move the whole family to Asia. If I pulled some crazy shit like that, I'd hope my wife reminds me who I'm working for and why.

[the_omegist]

Except if it had negative consequences, you can't be sure his wife would have accepted them.

No single decisions is totally all-bad or all-good.

[nineplay]

She's providing for the household by taking care of everything in their lives outside of his specific business functions.

He should be making every reasonable effort to support her.

[DwnVoteHoneyPot]

> taking care of everything in their lives outside of his specific business functions.

You're just making stuff up. You don't know this is the case.

[nineplay]

I don't know that he's providing for the household, for all we know he's blowing every penny on meme stocks.

[dijonman2]

Money isn’t free. The person earning needs to be supported. Running a house is work but I wholeheartedly reject the notion of someone both working and supplicating their partner. This is abuse.

[brewdad]

If you think this story represents abuse, I truly hope you aren't married and never do.

[dijonman2]

That’s not nice

[msrenee]

Why do you assume the wife isn't working as well?

[ponow]

Sounds like bait and switch.