Does anyone ever feel like they’re living in the shadow of their spouse or partner?
I met my husband during our senior year of high school. We went to separate schools and eventually got married two years after graduation. We had our son before he started college. He had been deferred after being medically discharged from the Marines.
He was awarded a full-ride scholarship to study Systems Engineering with an emphasis on Mechanical Engineering. During his second year of school, we had our daughter. He was working three jobs on campus, and I worked off and on full-time to help support our family while he pursued his degree. He graduated with honors in 2013. He was accepted into a PhD program for Physics but chose not to pursue it, knowing it wouldn’t offer much financial support for our family.
Shortly after graduation, he landed a job in the oil and gas industry. Around that time, I enrolled in college to pursue a degree in English Literature with an emphasis on Creative Writing. But when the industry crashed in 2015, he was laid off. We ended up moving to Oklahoma in September of that year. Unfortunately, no colleges nearby offered the same degree program I had started, so I put my education on hold.
Fast forward 10 years later, and I still haven’t finished my degree—or any degree—and he is currently earning dual Master’s degrees in Materials Science and Business.
He is incredibly hardworking and intelligent. If he doesn’t know something, he’ll research until he finds the answer or a solution. He’s charismatic, outgoing, a smooth talker, and a true people person. He always seems to get his way, and things just seem to fall into place for him.
I, on the other hand, feel cursed. If something can go wrong, it goes wrong for me. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I struggle with communication. I’m far too introverted to be a people person. I feel like I’m the raincloud to his sunshine.
I often joke, “Well, I’m just the reject (insert last name).” He doesn’t believe that, but things just don’t come as easily for me as they do for him. I’m not as accomplished—I stayed home with our kids and eventually had a third. I struggle to learn new things and understand how things work. I have to work twice as hard just to be on a fraction of the same level.
When people look at us, I wonder how often they see him as this smart, professional man—and me as the fumbling fool. He’s the king, and I’m the jester. Dance, monkey, dance.
Does anyone else struggle with this, or is it just me?
Singing Like A Canary 