Thread: My Wife Is Having A Career Crisis Moment

"Where did I go wrong?" You opened your mouth!

If she is interested in auto mechanics, then I'd let her do the head job. Walk her through the process and let her pull the wrenches and let her lift the head off of the engine.
There's nothing like having a head pulling you into the engine compartment to make you rethink why your choices - especially if you smash your finger between the head and the exhaust manifold.

Doing a head job on a 50 HP Yamaha, at this very moment.
Ain't no fun, but its better than bending over, or laying on your back.


Maybe a marine mechanic, Mike. See if that raises an eyebrow. I've met a few women mechanics, in this business.

If she wants to turn wrenches there are many forms of it. As Mike just said. Marine, air, electrical, etc... Automotive is a dirty hot job and not for everyone. Does she like to keep nice finger nails? Those would be the first thing to go.

The best I can offer is.

Tell her she is good at everything she does. If this is what she really wants to do then go for it.

Just tell her that she can retire and spend all of her time with you! That usually stops a lot of the what if stuff. But, be careful. She may call your bluff and you be stuck with her. Can you imangine how that would be? She would give you advice on everything, tell you how to really do something and just be a plain old pain in the ass on everything. Women can't be boss, they have to be bossy!

Originally Posted by outback

Pour some oil on her, add some grease into her hair, and throw some rust in her face. If not a whimper comes from her lips, she'll make a fine mechanic.

Thought you were going somewhere else with that one!

This and the other comments are all good, gonna have to read through and make some flash cards with bullet points!

I've recently had similar discussions with my wife. What I've come to realize and had to say to her is that she has been under a common misconception that she has a right to be happy with the work she's doing. While that would be nice, and I'd love to do the same, there ARE other things to be concerned with. What I've been hammering home is that entertaining ideas like being happy with her job is a luxury that she's come to know on the back of MY job. Without MY job its not even up for consideration. But MY job is no more guaranteed tomorrow than anyone else's. If I lose it, we're both screwed. We need to operate as a team. And that means she has to be prepared to be the stop gap that I have been during this time if my job is lost. We all want to be happy with our jobs but we won't be too happy if we can't pay the mortgage or eat. Change careers if it makes sense. Just make sure it makes sense

Hope she don't mind loosing some skin n blood, a common occurrence.

Love Rez’s suggestion of being an aircraft mechanic. My cousin does it for a living. He makes ok money and says the job is pretty laid back as far as personnel go. Everything has a process and every tool has its place as dictated by regulation. Every day is different, though he says there is a fair bit of paper work as everything you do on a plane needs to be logged.

As a car mechanic, side jobs are endless and the amount of money you save by working on your own vehicle will pay dividends as well.

The best things I’ve learned of 12 years of marriage is to first be supportive then to try and address her fears. Every time I’ve said something similar to how you did I piss her off. I think she wants my validation and support first, then to ask the questions that she thinks are critical of her decisions. I’m the complete opposite and appreciate when someone calls me out for being an idiot or possibly setting myself up for failure.

Time to break out a copy of “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” by John Gray.

When women ask, they don’t necessarily want an answer, but they do want to be heard.

Here’s a useful quote from the book -

“To feel better, women talk about past problems, future problems, potential problems, even problems that have no solutions. The more talk and exploration, the better they feel. This is the way women operate. To expect otherwise is to deny a woman her sense of self.”