Feeling a little insecure

Yes, actually, sometimes I do feel insecure. How do you get past it? I have no idea. Let me know when you figure it out.

[oceanchild]

It's really nice to read all these uplifting thoughts, and I get them intellectually, but I definitely do the insecurity thing. The worst is when I come home bitching about some stupid frustrating day at work, and DH has watched a baby die. Ok, never mind, I'll just go back in my cave now. (He certainly never intends to do that, I should add. He's always been very good about defending my right to have a lousy day regardless of what his is like. This is my issue.)

I do think it can be a hard thing to balance, and I haven't come up with a super good answer yet.

[MissCrabette]

Insecure about what? That you're not good enough for him? He wouldn't be with you if you weren't. I have my hang-ups when comparing myself to other spouses, but I never dwell on what my DH does for a living, and I certainly don't feel as less of a person when compared to him.

To play the devil's advocate for a moment, let's be serious here. Doctors save lives and have more of an impact on their patients than the cafeteria ladies or the cleaning people. Let's not fool ourselves. There are doctors practicing medicine in tents in war-ravaged areas. They don't NEED someone to change the sheets on a patient's bed. It certainly makes things run smoother when you have an entire system that works towards a common goal, but to me this is the same kind of thinking that led to the creation of fancy titles for every job under the sun. It's caused by people's insecurities and their attempt to make themselves feel better.

[SuzySunshine]

I went through the feeling insecure stage many years ago but we've been together for almost 15 years now. I think its easy to think that when he's being spewed over whether that be by people he works with or grateful patients and families. I like what GMW posted. It takes ALL kinds of people to make this world go round, whether you are a physician saving people's lives or a line man making sure people have electricity or a clerk at a store making sure people can buy the things their families need, things that also support the people that made them. If we only had doctors and the like the world wouldn't get very far.

The start of anything new is hard, whether that be medical school, med school clinics, intern year, fellowship or the first staff job. But what we do as the spouses, support systems, moms, etc. is just as important as what they do just in a different way.

(And this has been kind of therapeutic for me to write, thanks!)

[reciprocity]

If I ever feel insecure I just tell DW that "probably all those people whose lives you save are total assholes anyway"

Kidding, kidding. It's a little different for us, since she's in her PhD and so her work probably won't be saving lives for a decade or so, but I sometimes feel a bit lame when I compare my complete lack of emotional connection to my career path with her own drive. I can sometimes manage to eke out a bit of enthusiasm when I'm working on a generic drug case, but even that really just boils down to two giant corporations slap-fighting over who should be able to make more money off of people being sick, so...

[JDAZ11]

If I ever feel insecure I just tell DW that "probably all those people whose lives you save are total assholes anyway"

[corn poffi]

My BF always tells me that he loves the fact that I'm not a doctor. I spent about 10 minutes feeling inadequate once and he told me to snap out of it. He told me that the last thing he wants is to date somebody just like him.

I don't, and I don't even have a college degree.

I'm just as smart and valuable as he is, just in different ways. What I do has a more direct impact on our family's well being, too. Granted, he doesn't "save lives" anymore, so by the litmus test presented, I guess he'd be less valuable, too. I completely respect and appreciate what doctors do (of course), but their chosen line of work doesn't make them "better". I've never felt anything other than pride (okay, sometimes annoyance ... enough showing off already) when dh "talks doctor".

[corn poffi]

Yes! I never feel inadequate when he "talks nerdy" as I call it. I feel proud that he's such a smarty, or I want him to shut up. I'm a question asker, so I love it that he's patient when I ask stupid questions like "what's uglier, a liver or a pancreas?". It's the pancreas, if anybody is curious.

Yes! I never feel inadequate when he "talks nerdy" as I call it. I feel proud that he's such a smarty, or I want him to shut up. I'm a question asker, so I love it that he's patient when I ask stupid questions like "what's uglier, a liver or a pancreas?". It's the pancreas, if anybody is curious.

LOL - we used to play "Name that ectomy". DH would come up w/some crazy surgery or procedure name, and his best friend and I would work to decipher it. It's a fun game (in our nerd-world).

[niener]

LOL - we used to play "Name that ectomy". DH would come up w/some crazy surgery or procedure name, and his best friend and I would work to decipher it. It's a fun game (in our nerd-world).

I'm so glad someone else does this!!!! We're very dorky .

[GrayMatterWife]

I love that!

I'm not sure it will work for me (few people feel lawyers make life worth living, lol). But maybe for my next career!

I'm a lawyer.

Lawyers are like cops and dentists. No one likes us until they need us, then they want the absolute best.

Lawyers make the practice of medicine in our country possible. There is no way that the business world (and medicine is a BUSINESS) could function without rules (protecting the DOCTORS, too--which doctors who bitch endlessly about malpractice suits often fail to recognize).

[GrayMatterWife]

If I ever feel insecure I just tell DW that "probably all those people whose lives you save are total assholes anyway"

Every day of DH's life, his entire residency, except for the six months at Children's. It was one meth-addict, drunk-driver, wife-beater after another.

[GrayMatterWife]

You know what? I don't think I really answered the original question. At least, not in a forthright, personal way. I repeated the story that my artist-friend had told me, because it has brought me a lot of comfort at times. But, I think your question was, essentially, "Do you ever feel that what you do is unimportant, when compared to what he does?"

The answer to that is a lot less idealistic than the view my artist-friend suggested.

Yes, I feel like that sometimes. DH is freaking brilliant. He has a degree in biochemistry. I didn't even know how to spell that (hyphen or no??) for the first two years I knew him. When he applied to medical school, he literally had programs tell him that they'd love for him to come to them, but that they knew he'd be picked off by better schools. He got a Cell publication while working on his PhD--and I still am not certain of what his PhD is in. Something about biomedicine? He has patents and publications out the wahzoo--and not in those crappy little NSG vanity journals--in real scientific journals. He went to one of the best NSG residencies in the country, and graduated the program a year early. He was better published than most of the attendings he worked for. And he is just freaking brilliant. At the farewell to the chiefs party last year, the chairman starts his remarks with a comment about how intellectually intimidating my husband is. He's well on his way to obtaining funding for his own lab, and he's not out of fellowship.

By contrast...

I am a federal law clerk. Basically, I am a ghost-writer for a judge. There is no upward mobility. There is no credit. There are no accolades. At least 25% of the people who call me think I am the intake girl at the front desk of the court clerk's office (a job that needs no degree whatsoever). I will never accomplish anything important in the law, and I know it. I am OK with that, because my priority is not my career trajectory. My priority is my kids because I have to do that pretty much myself.

Sometimes I really feel like a loser when standing in DH's shadow.

But, as I've gotten older, I feel a lot less like a loser. For several reasons:

(1) The recognition that I chose this and it is a worthy sacrifice. I chose to have children. I chose to take a less aggressive career track for them. And I continued to make that choice. I am always free to change that. I can go back into a high-powered, big law firm career and hire nannies. I choose not to. Why? Because deep down inside, I would feel like a MUCH big loser if I don't raise my children the way I want to--which is being a very involved, hands-on mom. It would be utterly disingenuous to compare my professional accomplishment to those of DH because we chose different priorities for our time.

(2) I have been very lucky--many members of the bar here have gone out of their way to tell me how much they appreciate how I do my job and tell me that they think I'm a great law clerk. That gives me encouragement. I am not saving lives, but I am making a system I believe in a little better for the people it serves.

(3) DH never, ever, ever, EVER suggests that I am a loser. He has never pulled the crap about why can't I handle [X] or why can't I do [Y] because my time is worth less than his. He is completely and totally supportive of whatever I want to do and encourages me in my down moments. He has told me how much he admires me. I get a lot of support from him.

So, yep. I feel like a loser compared to Dr. Smarty-Pants Life-Saver Guy. But as time goes on, I feel less and less of it. Sometimes I feel it, when professional women look askance at my non-designer purse and Easy Spirit shoes and unsexy government job. I can feel their darts of judgment ("Another sellout!"). But I care a lot less now.

[reciprocity]

as someone who appears before federal judges frequently, federal law clerks are among the most important people in my world