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If a person has time to post tens of thousands of comments, most of them probably during the day on C-D, how ambitious could they really be? They're either taking a crap ton of coffee breaks or probably not working at all or doing cushy freelance work. Really ambitious people hardly take much down time, so this thread is a little funny to me.
A fair point indeed!
Many of us were ambitious in our youth, but have coasted into established careers, where we still work long hours, but the office-routine is relaxed, unsupervised and rife with distractions. I'm physically in my office for perhaps 70 hours per week, if summing the daily moments from walking into our building, to exiting it, and including the various meetings and errands. If adding time in airplanes and road-trips for my various business-travel, it's probably closer to 90 hours per week. Yet in that time, I often indulge in languorous 2-hour lunches, bridge games, afternoon drinking sessions, and lots of internet-time. I'm in interminable meetings, half-awake, often surfing this Forum, piping up only occasionally to interject some tendentious comment to stimulate the attendees, triggering a half hour of discussion, during which I zone out. Then I utter another couple-dozen words, and the cycle repeats. I do the most by doing least, wandering around, peering into cubicles, suggesting this or that, then disappearing. At night I'll fire off some e-mails, checking on people's progress, enjoining them to speak frankly about problems, to not be bashful about their successes. Nominally an aerospace engineer, I've become half-shaman, half village-idiot. Ambition? Instead of just doing something, I sit there… and with the right posture, things just happen on their own cadence.
I say all of this not to advertise gratuitous airs of success, but to further question the meaning of "ambition". Am I ambitious? Hardly. And yet I'll frequently get up throughout the night to check on some data-post-processing calculation, that might hang up if unattended. I'm accessible literally 24/7 to students, colleagues and the like. I answer e-mails from literally around the world, from colleagues whom I've never met, but with whom I've coauthored papers. Typically their best work is when I least intrude. By and by the river flows. Who am I to paddle?
I was young and stupid. I started dating him with no expectation that he'd stick around, yet he fastened on and wouldn't let go...then I got pregnant. My kids were my whole world for a while there. I would still make any sacrifice for them, but now they're teens and I'm looking forward... When we met, I was 18 and he was 29. I got very firmly stuck in some pretty serious adult commitments before I was mature enough to even know what they meant. I've just been playing the hand I was dealt, as best as possible, since then.
I have to respond to the last bit, about "poor" guys... I really don't think I'd care if a guy made no money at all. I wouldn't mind supporting a guy if at least I enjoyed his company enough. It might not be a permanent arrangement, but I could see it being fun for a while. I don't think, if I manage to get parted ways with my husband, that I will ever seek a marriage or permanent commitment with a man ever again. I'm ready, willing, and able to stand on my own. I want any romantic things down the line to be entirely voluntary. As in, we're spending time together because we want to, not because we HAVE to.
And that's my whole point though...ambition is not necessarily tied directly to money and titles and career. It can just be ambition to enjoy life, to see the world, to write a book or master a language...just so long as a person has a dream, hope, or goal beyond clinging to me and draining my energy, living vicariously off of me, I'd be happier I think.
Sorry if I'm seeing things though my own specific lens these days...but just wanted to share that angle on the matter.
Women on here will say that they don't care how successful a guy is relative to themselves, but my observations are leading me to a different conclusion. I've seen several recent examples of women who were advancing career-wise while their boyfriend was not, and in these examples she lost interest in him and left. Anyone else seen this?
You need to get a different circle of acquaintances.
Even though I don't agree with her motive, I know a woman who cheated on her ex-husband for the same exact thing. She supposedly married him because she knew he would be a great father once they started having children. After having two kids, she started comparing herself to other couples that had kids. She wanted more out of life and her husband didn't. She went to nursing school to get her RN hoping that her husband would step up his game as well. He ended up going back to college, but he just wasn't motivated. Would take a class 3 or 4 times to pass it.
What she married him for he was good at, being a father, yet she still wanted more. She was no longer wanting to scrape by and her income level had far surpassed her husbands. She started seeing that she was supporting the family mostly on her income and then she started factoring in expenses if they got divorced. That's when she started slowly working on emotionally cheating on her husband, which led to her finally physically cheating.
Now, they are divorced and she has a little part-time second job to bridge the gap of his lost income. She still loves him as the father of their children, but she was no longer in love with the person he became. She was far more motivated than he was. She was also motivated to lose weight and lost a ton of it, while her husband made excuses not to lose weight. I don't agree with her reasoning for divorce, but she didn't want to spend the rest of her life with a man that she felt she had to support.
She's now dating around and getting the attention from the kind of guys she feels that are on her level. She even told me that being with a guy who she deems is poor is no fun. She's already been married to that person for a number of years, and she doesn't want that lifestyle anymore.
He was good enough then, but not good enough now? Either he was never really all that she wanted and she hoped for change, or she was once equal but decided to she wanted "better". Meh, seems like a classic case on marrying someone good on paper expecting they'll improve/change. She knew who she married and should have accepted it from the getto, or decided, he might have good qualities, but better off with someone else before marrying and bringing kids into the picture, and forcing/demanding change. I can't say I can sympathize for her: she sounds selfish (to me, anyway).
I think so? I don't have family riding me about what a loser my boyfriend is, he pays for some of our outings, he encoursges me to look my best and feel good about myself. He accepts gifts from me graciously without a sense of entitlement. I'm definitely content.
Emotion plays into this quite a bit. Emotion tricks our hearts and our minds into someone liking us more than may actually do. I've seen it from men and women who can take care of themselves. They want the excitement from the person who they can't stop thinking about, even if that person is very seldom around. You build up the person to be more than who they really are.
True.
I've seen the most ambitious women who claim to want the Ivy league Harvard husband who marries the resort manager, and doesn't quite strive to excel at the achievements she sets for herself.
Actually, I knew two of the same kinds of women very well, and one was raised in a pretty stable environment, but she still chose the abusive partner, which one would think if someone who was raised with high self-esteem would not find themselves in such a predicament.
The other overly ambitious woman was emotionally abused while growing up. At least her partner was not the abuser.
Both these folks dumped some well-intended men in their lives, because they always wanted more only to find less. Not that I'm saying settling is okay.. they both did. You are correct: people build up illusions of others without knowing them truly before falling in love/lust.
I think it's a politics thing if the woman feels her mate is some sort of high echelon level member of society it will help her own goals too. She wants someone to impress her colleagues with at parties and so on.
He was good enough then, but not good enough now? Either he was never really all that she wanted and she hoped for change, or she was once equal but decided to she wanted "better". Meh, seems like a classic case on marrying someone good on paper expecting they'll improve/change. She knew who she married and should have accepted it from the getto, or decided, he might have good qualities, but better off with someone else before marrying and bringing kids into the picture, and forcing/demanding change. I can't say I can sympathize for her: she sounds selfish (to me, anyway).
I agree that she is selfish. Life will work out the way it is intended too. I think she didn't realize there was more to life than what she had with her husband initially. They were married in her early 20s and they were both obese. As the marriage continued and they had children, she decided to lose weight and had surgery. Her husband didn't want to have the surgery himself, but was on board to lose some weight. He just didn't really put any effort into it.
As she started to lose weight, a new and refreshing segment of men started to pay attention to her. She got caught up in it and there was nothing her husband could do, since he didn't want to be as small as his wife. He was happy with himself in life; however, she was no longer happy in the life she was living.
She's been dating around for a year and has probably slept with 7-8 different guys. There's nothing wrong with sleeping around either, but these guys she's attracted to are emotionally unavailable too. She has the physical appearance that they are looking for for some fun in the bedroom, yet they aren't wanting to be serious with her. She's stuck in her own vortex right now.
I agree that she is selfish. Life will work out the way it is intended too. I think she didn't realize there was more to life than what she had with her husband initially. They were married in her early 20s and they were both obese. As the marriage continued and they had children, she decided to lose weight and had surgery. Her husband didn't want to have the surgery himself, but was on board to lose some weight. He just didn't really put any effort into it.
As she started to lose weight, a new and refreshing segment of men started to pay attention to her. She got caught up in it and there was nothing her husband could do, since he didn't want to be as small as his wife. He was happy with himself in life; however, she was no longer happy in the life she was living.
She's been dating around for a year and has probably slept with 7-8 different guys. There's nothing wrong with sleeping around either, but these guys she's attracted to are emotionally unavailable too. She has the physical appearance that they are looking for for some fun in the bedroom, yet they aren't wanting to be serious with her. She's stuck in her own vortex right now.
In that situation I can't say I blame her it sounds like she turned into a different person and is going through some sort of a phase. Physical attraction is important he should have got on the ball and did it with her. One of the dangers of getting married in your 20's, you might be a totally different person in your 30's. This is why I go after women that like to stay in shape I don't want to have to worry about this problem or trying to change them.
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