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October 2011 Moms
DoctorWorm222
member
Feeling sorry for myself (just a lot of whining)
DoctorWorm222
member
I can't really talk to anyone about this IRL, so I thought I'd get if off my chest here.
One of our best friends defended his PhD yesterday and is moving to Wisconsin. His boss took a job at another university about half way through grad school, so he and his wife moved with the lab. I was upset when they moved the first time, but it was understood that he'd be back from time to time for university functions, committee meetings, etc. With this move, I feel like he's gone for good. Of course, we all said crap like "We'll keep in touch" and "We'll come visit" but who knows what will happen in reality once everyone gets busy with life.
Of my 8 classmates, everyone has graduated but my husband. Everyone else is moving on to new jobs and better prospects. But I'm stuck in limbo until he defends - even though its bad for my resume. I feel like the job search is something we need to coordinate together (it can be tricky to find two jobs in the same city), but he's not ready. He feels really, really, *really* terrible about this, which is why I can't vent my frustration IRL.
DH is in a really $hit mood lately because of our friend's defense. I think it hit him even harder than when I defended. But then again, my defense drew less attention. In an attempt to protect DH, I downplayed my graduation as much as possible. There was ZERO celebration - no cake, no fancy dinner, no party, no presents, not even a card. 7 years of really, reeeeeeally hard work went totally unrecognized. So seeing my friend's family and friends fuss over him yesterday made me super-duper jealous. I know DH will make a huge attention hore of himself when he defends, and I'm going to have to find a way to hold my $hit together while he has his day.
And as if that weren't quite enough, the fancy hardback copies of my dissertation were delivered yesterday. I was supposed to get 3 copies (one for me, one for my dad and stepmom, and one for my mom and stepdad), but they only sent 2 copies. And some a$$hole in my lab was d!cking around with the printer while I was printing the copies to send for binding, so there's some random 5 pg journal article stuck in the middle of one of my fancy bound copies. I just can't win.
Sorry for whining. I just needed to let it out.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Feeling sorry for myself (just a lot of whining)
Here is your cake
It is probably 700 hundred calories a slice, 100 calories for each year.
Your fancy azz dinner
I don't have a PhD, but I've been in situations with this exact feeling, and it sucks. I'm sorry no one gave you the fanfare you deserve. It feels like years of f*cking with no finale.
When he defends, consider telling him how to feel about this. It might feel like sour grapes at that point, but he should be considerate of how hard you worked too, and make sure people give it the attention it deserves.
Thanks Penny! That's really sweet. Your dinner and cake look fabulous
I'll be looking for an academic post-doc. He wants to go into industry.
No, he's not quite to the point where he could finish remotely -not sure his boss would go for that anyway.
I could start looking without him, but I would be restricting his career choices to whatever city I land in. Since he's always kind of planned on being the breadwinner and the dominant career, I'm afraid that would lead to resentment. I don't mind letting him lead the way, except that he's behind at the moment.
Thats what we've been planning, but I'm afraid that it won't really matter if we say the party is for both since my graduation was so long ago.
Yes it will! Dust off your degree, put out your fancy bound dissertations, and pictures of your graduation day. You deserve to celebrate, and hopefully your husband will get the idea that your accomplishments are just as worthy of a celebration as his.
What about celebrating the next stage of your lives (new jobs, city, whatever) instead of celebrating the past? That way it doesn't matter who graduated when, it's about starting something new together.
While I can understand your H being sensitive over taking so long, I think it's really sh!tty that he didn't even honour your hard work with a card. I'm sorry about that, and I agree with Penny that we should throw you a party here.
BFP #1: July 12, 2010 Natural M/C: July 26, 2010
BFP #2: January 30 ,2011 Born: September 29, 2011
BFP #3: January 5, 2013 Born: August 25, 2013
Honestly, I wouls be pissed if my husband didn't want to celebrate my huge accomplishment because he hadn't done it yet, he's a grown man, he needs to grow up. When he defends, you had better put both of your names on that cake, you deserve it!
Now, go out and buy yourself a fabulous present to celebrate everything you have done.
That sounds nice
Toast to DrWorm!
I can kind of see it from both sides. As someone who took very long to finish grad school because of just crap stuff happening, I commiserate with your DH. It's so hard to watch all your friends leave you behind especially if they started after you. Your DH is probably happy for them, but feels crappy about himself and his situation and since you are his wife, you are the one he vents to.
On the other hand, you absolutely deserve recognition and a celebration for YOUR accomplishment. It is no small feat to get a PhD and celebrating your achievement shouldn't take away from what he is doing. When he finishes, he can celebrate too.
As far as temporary jobs go, can you get an adjunct teaching position until he finishes? The pay isn't great, but it's something.
I haven't looked into anything related to teaching, just research (we're both in microbiology). I decided to just stay in my PhD lab since DH was supposed to defend shortly after I did. It just kept getting pushed back more and more and more. Fortunately, my mentor is happy to keep me around as long as he can, but I want to get the f out of there ASAP. It a pretty dysfunctional group.
I commiserate with my DH too. I know he's in a very hard position. And he never asked me to downplay anything - I did it because I knew that I would have lost my mind if things had reversed. When I saw the first grad announcement for one of our classmates, I nearly had to breathe into a paper bag!