med change came at a bad time

You are not responsible for how he feels! Stop the guilt, not productive It's necessary for you to go out of town for your work and you "enjoy" it since you enjoy your work so it's necessary to you and your well-being.

Is your husband still in engineering? I ask because my stepson flunked out of engineering not once but THREE times and got all turned around and messed up trying to follow my husband, his father, with psychological/teenage blinders on because my husband is so great/good and worthy of being followed, etc. :-) My husband isn't particularly psychologically astute though so had a tough time understanding and I had to work hard showing him what his poor son was doing, that he wasn't "bad" for doing it just didn't have enough/good guidance and tried to get my husband to help steer a bit into a different subject more to my stepson's aptitudes/liking, etc. That didn't happen, he flunked out of school altogether and went through about 5-10 years of struggle but I feel good about that because I helped guide my husband's policy which was ultimately helpful. I very much identified with my stepson as I feel I was like him when I was in college the first time, just trying to do what I thought was "expected" of me but having a hard time at the same time because it wasn't "me" doing the decision-making. But my stepson finally met his wife and his life did a 180 turnaround and he couldn't be doing better now; we all look up to him, his wife and two kids, etc. He's the "heart" of the family now.

So, you might check your feel for your husband and make sure you think he's in a field he "wants" to be rather than one he thinks he "should" be for whatever reason. Praise for good stuff and "ignoring" personal bad stuff still can help a lot I think. My husband thanks me every time I make dinner, whether he likes it or not, etc. and so guess how I feel about making him dinner? We're saving $100/month on not eating out as much as we use to

Hi Perna - thanks for your email and sharing your stepson's story. He is a lucky guy to have had you in his life during what sounds like must have been a difficult time. My husband failed out of engineering a few times as well. Ironically, he has a really strong aptitude for and interest in such things. He just caved to the pressure. He's studying industrial design now, and it's definitely a matter of him following his heart. I've always encouraged him to do so, and he knows that he is free to pursue what interests him the most (except other women - lol).

Hard to ignore the personal bad stuff, but I try very, very hard to pick my battles. He gets tons of praise for the good stuff -- and I mean it sincerely -- I think he is the most terrific, talented, loving, kind person on earth.