Carolyn Hax: Boyfriend buries his potential in menial jobs

Carolyn Hax is away. The following are excerpts from October 2005 live online discussions on www.washingtonpost.com.

Carolyn: I am an attractive 29-year-old woman with a graduate degree and a prestigious job in the arts. My significant other also has a graduate degree in finance but has decided he’d rather do handyman work. It appears his father, a successful businessman, has always pushed him and I think this is his way of finally fighting back. He could work anywhere but instead chooses to rake leaves, paint windows, fix doors, etc. I love everything about him except his lack of professional drive, which is really disappointing. How do I bring him around without giving him an ultimatum? – Seattle

Here’s your ultimatum: Love him or leave him. He is under no obligation to have professional drive – not to please you, not to please family, not to be a worthy, decent human being.

You’re attractive and prestigious. I mean ambitious. You’ll have no problem finding someone who values the same.

Poor guy is dating his father.

Carolyn: What is wrong with wanting your mate to live up to his potential anyway? – Seattle Again

What’s wrong with wanting him to be happy?

Love a person for who he is, not what he has on his resume. Be proud you found someone intelligent and goodhearted and courageous enough to live life on his own terms, not ashamed you found someone who refuses to live on society’s terms. I could go on, but please try to see that supporting someone is supporting the whole person, and that includes trusting him to know what makes him happy.

And if it doesn’t make him happy, then you can talk about that – not how he’d be happier in some prestigious career track he has apparently already rejected.

And if he’s happy but you can’t or won’t support his choice, then you support him by freeing him to meet someone who will.

Carolyn: How do you know when you’re ready to get married? – New York

When there’s no question you’d still be with this person unmarried. When you’d gladly elope except that it might make your mom sad to miss it. When you’re not looking for marriage to change anything about your lives together except your tax-filing status.

Carolyn: “You know you’re ready to be married when you’d be with this person even unmarried” and “it won’t change anything about your lives together.” Then why get married? – Re: New York

What you quoted still leaves lots of reasons to marry. (I won’t say “good” reasons, because those are in the eye of the beholder.) There are big legal benefits to marrying. It makes things easier if you have kids. It makes your mommy happy. People have religious reasons. It’s our society’s way of saying, “We’re a unit, treat us as such” – be it by not hitting on us at parties, or by not including one of us while excluding the other from your guest list, or name your silly social shortcut.

Carolyn: What’s your take on “covenant marriage”? – Just Curious

I believe all commitment is internal. What you do to formalize it doesn’t make it better or worse.