In my email circle yesterday, we were talking about men (particularly military men) and the constant pull they seem to feel between the personal satisfaction of a deeply-valued career and the knowledge of its family impact. The talk then turned to whether or not women feel that pull, a question asked by a man in our circle.
A brilliant wife of a career military man (with a professional career of her own now that her children are raised) offered up the following answer, one of the best testaments to love and true maturity I've ever read:
We make decisions, not always easy ones. Sometimes part of us doesn't lie easy with them, but ultimately they are ours to make and there are always tradeoffs. My husband knows I could have been anything I wanted to, but I gave it all up to be his wife.
There are many times when that was not easy for me. But he did not make me do that.
All the same, I often wished things had been more balanced, that I'd had the chance to do some of the things I wanted to. It just didn't work out that way. The needs of the [military] and our children came first and I couldn't be a GOOD mother and a good lawyer, for instance.
So, I chose, not just in part because I thought the country needed what he does more than it needed another lawyer.
I'm going to be interested in what kind of reaction this post gets...
