

My regrets as a 46 year old, and advice to others at a crossroad - franze
https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/2livoo/tifu_my_whole_life_my_regrets_as_a_46_year_old/

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Someone1234
The grass is always green, etc.

Someone else, also 46, could make a similar post talking about how they wasted
their most productive years on trivialities and as a result they now struggle
to pay their bills, and regret never having a "career."

Obviously 9-7, missing fathers funeral, having no relationship with your own
family is an extreme example, but the OP wants us to think about how that
could apply to "our" situation. I think for most people it won't.

The OP's story is a great allegory. And just like all great allegories you
have to crank it up to 500% to make its inherent "truth" more self evident.

As an aside: The 10 year cheating wife is a scumbag. The OP takes that on the
chin but she is clearly a very bad person in SO many ways. It is one thing if
she cheated on a whim and then left him, 10 years ago, it is another thing
entirely to keep it up for that period.

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JoeAltmaier
Yeah its easy to blame the wife. The wife who slept alone every night. That's
like a 10-year prison sentence of celibacy. Why so hard on her, for
essentially keeping the family together for 10 years? Would we be blaming her
if she left after only 1 or 2 years of neglect?

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ravitation
To be honest, we don't know anything about their relationship, but calling the
last 10 years a prison sentence to celibacy is a bit ridiculous. Also, having
a husband that is too focused on providing for his family financially is
certainly not neglect.

As you say, there is more to love and marriage than sex - but both are built
on trust. If she was unhappy she needed to voice her unhappiness, not destroy
the trust on which the rest of their life was built. That's why she deservers
the entirety of the blame. Cheating on a long term partner is one of the worst
betrayals of trust there is.

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SnacksOnAPlane
I would argue that being focused on money at the expense of seeing your family
is absolutely neglect. You can spin it as "being responsible" all you want,
but it's far more important for a kid to have a father that's present and
engaged than for the kid to be financially well-off.

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SnacksOnAPlane
I work hard while I'm at work, but I only work 8-hour days, max. Most of the
time, more like 6-7 hour days. I've got a side project that might turn into a
business, but I'm taking it slow and letting it develop organically. And if it
stops being fun, I'll stop doing it.

Next year, I'm going to take 5 months off of work to hike the Appalachian
Trail. This is whether my side project takes off or not; if it's doing well,
I'll totally leave the management of it to my co-founder while I'm gone.

I'm taking improv and sketch comedy writing classes. I don't have nearly as
much free time as I used to, but I feel like I'm actually alive now.

Some people think that working 10-12 hours a day is living. They're hoping for
a big payoff in the future based on slaving away now. I think living in the
moment and exploring all the awesomeness this world has to offer is the best
thing I can possibly do for myself.

My boss once asked me, "what's more important to you: doing your job or having
fun?" I laughed and said that's the dumbest question I've ever heard.
Obviously, having fun. I work in order to facilitate having fun. Work is not
the end, just the means to the end.

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t1lthesky
As a guy in his mid-20s working in a high-pressure, high-paying 9-8 job...

Its all a tradeoff. Yeah I'm working very hard during the week - I don't
really have time for anything besides work+gym during weekdays, and some
weekends I need to work as well. BUT I'm able to provide for my single mother,
live in a very nice area in my city, travel wherever I want to go on vacation,
eat at nice restaurants, buy expensive toys, etc etc. Coming from a family
where the the nicest place we ever went out to eat was hometown buffet, this
financial freedom is pretty damn great.

Plus I would argue that I actually have more freedom to do what I want to do
during my free time, despite having less of it. I went to NYC for a weekend
last week, was in vegas 2 weeks before, and I'm traveling to Japan over
Christmas and NYE to snowboard in Hokkaido. You just cant do stuff like that
if you don't have any money, especially when you need to help support your
family.

Anyway just my 2 cents. Every job has a varying degree of intensity, and mine,
despite the long hours needed, is still pretty flexible in terms of when I can
take time off and such.

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huehue
Enjoy the rat race guys, your wife and her boyfriend will love you for it.

