Dear Jerry:

Your thinking and acting regarding jobs and money make sense. Choosing business was probably a good choice on your part.

The problem in your mind and life, as I see it, is not solely that of career choice. If you pursued psychology instead of business, I don’t see that it would have been a better choice.

As I see it, there is a problem in your relationship with your wife that factors into your depression in a significant way, and that could not be solved by making this or that career choice. Clearly you made a good choice in regard of income, but that did not improve the relationship with her.

How do I know the relationship with your wife is not good? Because you shared the following: “I just want to scream out everything I’m about and have someone listen with anticipation”- clearly she is not listening with anticipation, clearly you have been silent with her for too long, so much so that you want to scream.

You shared: “I think one of my main difficulties in life has been interacting with others in deep, meaningful ways. And I long for that kind of interaction”- clearly, you don’t have that kind of interaction with your wife.

You shared: “I feel like a broken record, talking about similar feelings over and over”- to your wife, so you pressed the stop button on that broken record?

We are social beings. We need to interact with others in deep and meaningful ways, at least sometimes. Without such interaction any job will be unsatisfactory.

I get the feeling that you are a very private person and it may be awkward for you to share here about more intimate parts of your life, such as your relationship with your wife. You are welcome to, right here with me. Let me know either way..?

anita

Dear Jerry:

I think I understand your situation better: I think that you are indeed stuck, most accurate word.

Stuck and powerless to free yourself from this prison cell, so to speak, where you have been in  for years. As you made the logical decisions, to make enough money to support your family and the many other decisions for the benefit of your family, you turned in the keys to your freedom and you find yourself stuck, or imprisoned. You turned in your creativity, your dreams, the part of you that lived.

What remains is this deadness that continues to exist within the boundaries of dry logic.

What to do when every possible solution to this entrapment is met by refuting logic?

How about moving to a very small house in a very quite place, a little town, maybe outside a city limit, where living expenses are very low, taking a job as an elementary school teacher, a school where behavior is okay, on the part of the students, where you can be creative, even share a few poems with the students?

A happy father is much more logical for the well being of your children than more money. Sure you and your wife have to make enough money, but.. just enough.

And teaching elementary school (or higher, as long as students’ behavior is okay) does not require more schooling, or if it does, then it is something you can do gradually while teaching, take classes here and there while working, or during summer recess.

anita