View Single Post
 
Old May 06, 2018, 07:41 PM
marvin_pa's Avatar
marvin_pa marvin_pa is offline
Veteran Member
 
Member Since: Jul 2009
Posts: 685
Quote:
Originally Posted by seesaw View Post
It's funny you bring this up because I'm dealing with this right now. I have a high-paying salary. It would be somewhat difficult to only date men who make the same or more than me. But I find what matters to me is not the man's salary, but that he is a hard worker and passionate about what he's doing. Someone asked me yesterday if it would bother me if my partner were a bee keeper, and I said no, as long as he were truly passionate and dedicated to being a bee keeper.

I am very career oriented, and I can't imagine being with someone who just does a job because it's a (I mean forever, not temporarily or in transition). I feel like that would be miserable. I have seen friends and family who are in marriages with partners who just have jobs and those partners are miserable and they bring that misery into their relationship. They are always exhausted, not energized, by their work. I work hard, often 10-12 hours a day, but I find my work invigorating. Sometimes it wears me out, but most often I am excited and energized by it. I know I am lucky in that, but I will also say I'm not in my chosen profession, so it's not like this was my dream job to start out.

So salary doesn't matter to me, but passion and ambition and motivation do. I can't stand a "slacker" or someone who doesn't care about doing a good job, whatever the job.

Seesaw
Interesting topic! Personally, the incurable romantic in me still believes that personality (and/or whatever things - not just careers - that you are passionate about) matters as much as your ability to bring home the bacon. It's a partnership, where each side may bring different qualities, but where the sum of those parts is roughly equal for each.

The caveat I'll throw in though, is that it can be trickier when depression is present on either side, since that is capable of rendering the most passionate of people into what appears to be fully fledged slackerdom.