Do I have to quit?

After five years of living in sin, I broke down and got married. Within two years, my job -- the same one that predated her -- was the overwhelming reasons we split.

I gave it a while. Dated around. Found someone who embraced my job and had her own life, which I thought would be the key, while I was doing my thing. Less than two years in, we're up to multiple falling outs over it.

There are days when I hate my job. There are others when I knock it out of the park and end the day with a feeling that you can't even buy. Love/hate relationship is clichéd, but I don't know how else to describe it.

And I feel like without that rush of deadline, sense of accomplishment after a big project, whatever ... without that stuff there would be a huge void in my life. But without someone to share my life with, there's going to be a void, too.

WTF? Do I need to go to a shrink? Have I romanticized this profession too much or not romanticized romance enough? Have I just not found someone who is going to truly understand just what my job means and how bad it can suck depending on the time of the year?

Please tell me somebody out there has something that can make me feel better.

 

I, or no one else, can make a decision like that for you.
I've been in the newspaper business for nearly 20 years now, and the schedule sucks. It's one of the main reasons I don't have children. My wife works an equally crazy schedule with her job, and I didn't want to have kids so I could hand them off to my folks and say "you raise them while I'm working."
That being said, I never subscribed to the whole "calling" thing. This is a vocation, a way to pay my bills. I like my job. I'm good at my job. I don't see anything romantic about it. I enjoy sitting out in the sun making a living watching sporting events. If I could find something else I liked just as well with a normal schedule, good pay, days off, I'd walk away in a heartbeat and never look back. My job is how I fund my life. It's not my life. My family comes comes first.
But, I'm also of the opinion of "this is who I was when you met me."

That probably didn't help you one bit, but just something to think about.

 

Never,

It's clear from your post that you love your job more than your wife/girlfriends. So you need to make that work for you and not stress over it being an either/or thing.

 

If you don't see your spouse, it's tough to make a marriage work. Not impossible, but tougher than it should be.

It seems you've made a choice on what's more important. You might find a someone who understands how critical it is for you to be covering teenagers competing, but the chances of that happening are extremely small.

Wives/girlfriends may have their own life, but if they're with you, they want you to be a part of their life as well.

 

Believe me when I tell you ... no there wouldn't.

And even if there is, a newspaper isn't the only place you can feel a sense of accomplishment for your work.

 

Have you thought about possibly switching to news side, if possible? Same adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment - in some ways, even more. But less night and weekend work.

 

I feel really sorry for anyone who chooses a job (especially in journalism) over a spouse or kids or both...

 

I think Never will come around once he finds someone who means more to him than work.

 

Find another gig and cover a game a week for the paper.

 

He doesn't want to quit.

Look:

He quite living in sin and broke down and got married.

Found someone who embraced my job.

There are days when I knock it out of the park and end the day with a feeling that you can't even buy.

And I feel like without that rush of deadline, sense of accomplishment after a big project, whatever ... without that stuff there would be a huge void in my life. But without someone to share my life with, there's going to be a void, too.

 

Unless someone is in the same or a similar field, nobody embraces our job. They might accept it or be able to deal with it, but there are barely any positives to the schedules that people in journalism have to deal with.

 

My parents divorced a few years after my mom got a full-time job in the '80s. My mom worked nights as a retail manager and my folks barely saw each other. No one will embrace your job and you can't expect a significant other to do so.