Do I have to quit?

[I'll never tell]

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.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

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.

 

[Ace]

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.

 

[Stitch]

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.

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.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

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.

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.

 

[Dick Whitman]

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.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

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.

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

 

[Ace]

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.

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.

 

[User 1019]

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

 

[Ace]

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.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

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.

 

[Stitch]

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.

 

[FileNotFound]

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.

People in journalism, or ER doctors, or firefighters, or teachers who have to grade papers well into the night, or nurses, or restaurant workers, or SIDs, or IT technicians ... many jobs have some suck built into the schedule.

One of the things that drove me out of journalism was being tired of getting called into work on the whims of some terrorist. Now I lose personal time to balky technology that needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW, even if RIGHT NOW is 2:21 a.m.

My divorce (after 20 years) wasn't caused by my work schedule, but I can say without fear of contradiction that it didn't help.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I think my wife could have applied for sainthood after dealing with my schedule. My old paper had a knack for sending me on my longest trips of the year on almost no notice.

"Hey, remember that trip we tried to budget for six months ago and said no. Well, we're going to do it, you leave tomorrow at 6 a.m."

"It's 7:30 p.m. right now."

"Yeah? And?"

She rolled with stuff like that like a champ. It was when I'd have to leave family functions over ridiculous **** like a tight end being added to the practice squad that would **** her off. She had a right to be mad, and she never directed it at me, which was always appreciated.

The best part about my job now is that I leave it at the office. I don't think about it for a second until I arrive the next morning. That's an amazing feeling.

 

[User 11148]

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.

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

Read the Steve Ellis RIP thread (if it's still around) ... in the midst of the heart attack that set him up for his shuffling off the mortal coil, he made his wife hold off on calling the ambulance so he could finish a recruiting story. Steve was a friend from way back when -- he gave me my very first journalism job when I was a freshman in college -- but I can't say I respect the choices he made over his life with regard to work's proper place.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

The best advice I ever got in journalism was "Don't love your job or your paper because it won't love you back."

 

[LongTimeListener]

I am assuming from your initial post that you are fairly young (30ish?) and don't have kids. At that stage, your schedule might not be that big of a deal to you; when I was in that position, my Saturday was either going to be working or watching 10 hours of college football, so what did I care about the rest of the world? But if you do the whole "where do you see yourself in 10 years" exercise and the answer is with a wife and kids and you're coaching their soccer or football team or you want to make sure to be home for Christmas and Thanksgiving and even Valentine's Day, the board's collective experience would probably tell you that you aren't going to feel that same rush from your job when there are other meaningful activities pulling at you.

Time was, as recently as 10-15 years ago, you could put in your time on the night/weekend shift while you were young, then you could aspire to a job with a schedule that is more in line with most humans. I don't think that exists in the news world anymore, unfortunately.

 

[NickMordo]

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.

Are you coffee-maker salesman as well?

 

[I Should Coco]

Time was, as recently as 10-15 years ago, you could put in your time on the night/weekend shift while you were young, then you could aspire to a job with a schedule that is more in line with most humans. I don't think that exists in the news world anymore, unfortunately.

Through a mix of luck and "lowering my expectations," this is the career path I've been able to follow. Been in the biz for about 18 years; spent the 1990s as a stringer, reporter, photographer, etc., dropping everything to cover breaking news, sports on weekends, you all know the drill.

Then my son was born in 1999, and my daughter two years later, and I realized parenthood (and my marriage) was more important to me than beating other newspapers and journalists I hated.

Since then, I have slowly moved away from reporting and, basically since 2005, have been a full-time copy desker. Yeah, the second-shift hours aren't great, but they're consistent and they allow me to be done with the job when I leave at midnight.

Of course, a wife who probably is eligible for sainthood made all of this possible.

So to I'll Never Tell ... it is possible your priorities will change, and hopefully there will be a way to combine your passion for the news business with family/married life.

You only get one trip through this life, so I hope you will find a path that works for you and your loved ones.

 

[Seahawk]

Going back to childhood, the only job I ever wanted was to be a sports writer. In my mind from the time I was 5 or 6 years old, there was nothing else that even piqued my interest.

I had a career as a sports writer for several years, and I loved it. For the first several years of my marriage, it was working out fine.

Eventually, the strain started to take a toll. We got to the point of seeing each other for about four hours total each week, thanks to rough schedules and long commutes. Rather than wind up being a single sports writer, I chose to change careers and stay in what has been the best relationship of my life.

We all have a choice. For me, marriage and family became a bigger priority than my career. Now that we have a son, the personal side of life is that much more important to me. I can say without question, my life has never been happier since I changed careers. I still find ways to feel fulfilled at work, but damn if it isn't nice to leave work at the office and enjoy life at home.

All I ever wanted was to be a sports writer. Until I realized that something else was far more important to me.

No one can make the decision for you. Identify what your priorities are, and act accordingly.