Dear Cali Chica:

When you are at their house today or tomorrow, keep yourself as calm as possible, use your listening skills, let them talk, don’t jump in to insert important information. Later, after they talk, you can add this or that, but let them take their time communicating their way, their pace first (but do answer their requests for your input when they ask, of course, but don’t express whatever it is with desperation or acute urgency).

Regarding the rest of your recent post: two issues- location and employee vs private work. He can continue to work as an employee in nyc and switch later to private, and he can work private in SD and switch later to employee. (I am assuming not all employee positions are in busy hospitals, comparably in stress level as his current).

Thing is your husband is currently very stressed and has quite a few years of elevated stress in his  experience of recent years. I can see that he would not feel stimulated by the stressful prospect of having only one year of being salaried before he has to meet a quota and eat-what-he-kills. Like you wrote before, you’ve seen him age in recent years, his youthful, adventurous, hungry-to-explore spirit not there, is it. I can see how, for an older person (or a person who lost his youthful energy), a stable income, no time limit, no competition (eat-what-he-kills), is very preferrable.

The cons, “not much room for personal growth”- that will become relevant to him when he regains that youthful energy, if he does. (A very stressed, tired person wants to rest, not to grow!)

When your husband told you this morning, “We aren’t 25 anymore, not even 30”, if you put away the numbers, I think what he is saying is that he is too tired, too old to “ramp up”, which is what the SD prospect requires.

In summary: he is tired and old, at least for now. In figuring out the reasonable choice, you have to compute not only objective pros and cons but also the mental state of the individuals concerned. SD can be the right choice for one person, but not for another. Same with nyc.

The right choice for him and for you, as a married couple planning on having children is then him being an employee, as simple as that. Where is a different issue- will living in SD fit him better, be calming to him, and to you, being in that weather, that different style and cost of urban living, raising a family, I don’t know.

I think that the correct choice then is him working as an employee, be it in nyc or elsewhere, as well as you working as an employee and being able to stay home when you become a mother.

anita