Slashdot Mirror
IT and Divorce?
frank_tudor asks: "I am graduate student and work as a web developer. I am also getting a divorce and I have a son caught in the middle.
I believe my profession had a part in it. For my graduate thesis I am writing a paper about Dads who work in the computer industry, divorce and custody. I think our industry causes a high rate of divorce but I need some help from the Slashdot community.
My questions are: How many of you computer Dads have also gone through divorce and have retained either half or full custody of your children? Do you think your job had something to do with it? What were some of your hardest challenges and are your kids happy?"
IT didn't cause your divorce. Stop trying to look for external causes when they were internal. My Dad worked in IT and my parents are still married, nearly 40 years now.
Aren't you worried that, in light of your personal life issues, this thesis might come across a little...I dunno...biased? Just a tad?
Unpleasantries.
The first step? My wedding next year.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
It was a couple patches ago when my wife filed for divorce. I'll never forget the day because that night, my epic tier two helm piece dropped and I won it for only 150 DKP. I don't think I'll ever understand why she did it. I was by her side the entire time she was being charged with child abuse. I know she never abused our son because I was in the other room on TeamSpeak when the alleged beating occurred and I didn't hear any screams except those of my guildmates dying from Nefarion. I know I should have attended the custody hearings for our son but the only night of the week I don't raid on is Tuesdays and the judge refused to move the dates. Call me crazy, but I never saw it coming.
... it would probably fail miserably with "I don't want to be a nerd like you, dad!"
Yep, the only reason she left me is because I'm in the IT field. I make a lot more cash on average & my job as software developer is one of the most highly sought after in the nation. Computers are becoming more and more prolific in everyday life so I maintain a solid job. But from what I've told you, it's pretty obvious that being in the IT field is what separated me and my wife. Looking back, I miss the times she brought me a beer as I was stacking sunders.
Sorry to make light of your situation, Frank, but honestly I think that a lot of IT people know how easy it is to find pr0n online. I've heard this is a growing concern. Honestly, the perks of an IT job would probably be desirable for the wife, I think it's just the fact that the person is more clued in to how to use computers for pleasure and addiction. IT filed offers more money and doesn't ravage your body (at least not like construction or farm work does). Whether it be Warcraft or pr0n, these addictions pay a toll on a happy marriage. If you find a correlation, it's probably in those topics, not just IT.
About the questions with kids, I don't have any but I would think that it would be very simple to get them involved with a computer project and spend plenty of weekend time with them. Then again, that's just what I would dream of happening
My work here is dung.
Like spoons made Rosie fat.
Are you seriously planning to use responses here as "data" for a graduate-level academic thesis?
Married? Kids? I'm still running girlfriend 5.0 since I'd heard the upgrades to wife 1.0 came with so many problems I'd stick with what already works for me. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
1) Ask /. is now officially worthless
2) Your thesis is horribly flawed
3) Your wife is leaving you because you whine too much
This
Surely you can't discount the fact that IT workers are drawn from a different portion of the population which makes it difficult if not impossible to prove that there is a causative factor?
It sounds like an interesting topic, but be careful with overstating the implications of your correlational results.
His job smacked his wife around. Now seriously, who's gonna stay in a relationship like that? I mean come on...
His job was also very lazy, never did anything around the house. And it would never listen! If you're going to be in a relationship with a man, women, and a job, everyone needs respect each other and their personal space. But job just didn't know when to back off either... it would keep pressing and pressing... jesus, I'm in the bathroom. Just leave me alone!
... I just want you to know that I'm sorry that you and your family are in this situation. It's painful for everybody, and I feel for you.
For my graduate thesis I am writing a paper about Dads who work in the computer industry, divorce and custody. I think our industry causes a high rate of divorce but I need some help from the Slashdot community.
I realize this may come across as a cheap shot but...
If you're writing a graduate level paper, shouldn't you actually do some, you know, statistical analysis to support your core hypothesis rather than go with, "I have a feeling and asked some other nerds."?
You're far more likely to get results with, "Statistics show that while divorce is at n%, n+y% of male IT workers experience divorce. This thesis looks at prime causes for that y% and performs a statistical breakdown of their effects." than "I got divorced, I work in IT, it sucked. This paper's about how I'm pretty sure IT made it happen. I asked some other nerds what they think."
Not sure if any of the data you have here is going to be significant ... and since this _is_ slashdot, I doubt highly that you could use it as a reference on a graduate thesis. Personally, I've been married for 3 years and have a son, which I'm sure outcasts me in the group. But, I digress.
... far from it. Here are some traits I observed which one side, the other, or both had in those cases: personality conflicts, lack of communication skills, unwillingness to communicate, unwillingness to listen, self-absorption leading to the exclusion of the other, disjoint financial strategies, unfair domestic workload balance, ho-hum disregard for the children. I never saw a particular job or anything actually interfere.
I have a couple friends that have been divorced, though they are from different professions. In those cases, the job wasn't the crowning gem in the divorce itself
Where I'm at now in my mid-30s, most of the guys I work with are married and have been for quite some time. There are very few divorcees and the people I know are very loyal to their partners and their families. I'd have to say that here in IT, those of us who are married are a pretty fun, stable bunch.
I think you need to stop blaming your career for your divorce and do a little more soul searching.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Marriage is hard. Its a lot of work. If you aren't willing to give up on your child, then why give up on your marriage? I wish people valued marriage half as much as they valued their relationship to their children.
I've seen divorcees willing to move to other states, pay lots of money, adjust their schedules, adjust their lifestyles... all just to be with their kids. Spouses should do the same thing. Its all a matter of priority. Marriage just doesn't mean as much anymore.
These days, people divorce because they argue too much. Or because "the spice" is gone. Or because they don't like arguing about money. Or because the in-laws hate each other. Or because wife gained some weight and doesn't look good enough anymore. Get over it. Man up and deal with it and treat the marriage with the importance it deserves.
I've been married for eight years now and I have a child. Some of that married time has been REALLY hard. But I treat my marriage like my child. It would take a LOT for me to give up on my child. Same for my marriage.
Its all about priorities.
I'm married with two happy children. I know several people who have gotten divorced and have shared custody of children. None are IT professionals.
The high instance of divorce in the US is much more related to materialism, disconnectedness (also called "independence") and ideas of "self", attitudes towards relationships and the myth of satisfaction than any scapegoat, popular (homosexuality) or unpopular (IT professionals).
I always tell my single friends that finding a spouse and marriage is more about being the right person than finding the right person.
Good luck on your thesis. I hope it's well researched and well received. Obviously there's more to it than you could put in an "Ask Slashdot."
I've been in IT for some years now. I went through a divorce. Was my profession responsible, no. I have a wonderful son and share custody 50/50.
I worked at a startup for 1 year, during that year I rarely if ever saw my family. Did that job contribute to my divorce? No, because I decided to quit that job, and find another (That year surely didn't help my relationship, however it wasn't the catalyst to the failure of the marriage).
Divorce can be a horribly emotional experience, we often soul search to find out "what went wrong, what could've I done differently". Sometimes, you just got to sit back.. take a deep breath, and just realize it didn't work out. Regardless of whether she cheated, you cheated, you were away working all the time, she wasn't a good wife, and the myriad of other reasons, nothing can change the present situation... so...
Best advice, Keep your cool and move forward. If you feel the job's a problem start looking for a new one.
Awesome!
I was in a relationship for eight and half years with my ex. We'd bought a house together nine months earlier and I thought things were okay. Yes, I'd been working *a lot*, like nearly every weekend for the last three months. She'd got a promotion which took her out of town a few nights a week, I didn't mind, she'd been really supportive of my career in the early days and I figured it was me returning the favour.
I came home one Sunday evening and she announced she'd met someone else and she was leaving me. She'd known him for a month and was in love with him, she still loved me but she wasn't *in love* with me. WTF?! No it's not up for discussion, I'm moving out. So I got fifteen minutes notice that my relationship was over.
I knew that we'd been distant but I'd resolved that I was going to put the effort into our relationship as soon as this project was delivered.
Have you figured out the moral yet?
and in this order of importance:
the key is to manage your time - you can meet a deadline *and* keep your private life if you're organized and diligent.
When you recognize love in another and realize how precious it is, everything else seems so insignificant.
In my experience, people in the IT industry have a lower incidence of divorce in general. It is more likely that divorce happens because you do not prioritise what's really important (work vs. relationship). Blaming it on your job is just silly.
No.
1. Hardest challenges: being a single father with an eighteen month old son, learning to actually be a parent, growing up, staying focused on the job because...TADA! divorce sucks...regardless of what profession you claim on your 1040.
2. Happy Kids? You don't have a teenager do you? Happy is a relative term. And, yes, my children are relatively happy.
I also must say I think your thesis premise sucks. But good luck anyway.
They tell the woman that they love 'em, and figure that the woman should understand that the value of love for that woman should be 'true' from now until they tell her that it is now 'false'.
Unfortunately, the woman needs to have the value of love set every time she boots in the morning, and occasionally during the day also.
Playing Call of Duty 8 hours a night for a month straight doesn't help either.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
If your income is so important that you sacrifice your relationship, you don't deserve neither.
I work in IT, I have been doing it for 10 years now. TEN FUCKING YEARS.
Christ almighty I hope you're not a coder...
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
My wife and I are both in a position where we work long, hard hours. The thing is, we're both willing (and often do) drop whatever we're doing in an instant to help the other out--even if "help out" is nothing more than "just sit here with me for a while."
Marriage, done well, is hard work. Marriage, done well, is telling your wife to put her feet up and relax while you do the laundry or cook dinner--never mind that you're both exhausted from a long day's work and you'd really rather just play video games if you had the choice. Marriage, done well, is moving to a new city so that your spouse can pursue a promising new job. Marriage, done well, is near-constant attention, care, and dedication. That said, it's easily the most satisfying, fulfilling, entertaining and educational thing I've ever done, and I don't regret a second of it.
My grandfather-in-law had some sound advice on how to make a marriage work. He told me that marriage is a 90/10 proposition: each partner should expect to do 90% of the work themselves and only expect 10% from the other.
How much did you give your wife and family? How often did you ask your wife to wait until you were done doing whatever it was you were doing? How many times did you tell your wife not to bother cleaning the kitchen or bathroom and instead do it yourself? How many hours a day did you spend "free time" in front of the computer?
Do you genuinely believe that the fact that you write web pages played a significant role in the collapse of your own household?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I'm the son of a man who's worked IT/EE/DOD for pretty much his entire life. He divorced my mother when I was six months old, and obtained full custody.
I'll guarantee being in the profession had NOTHING to do with it. When I turned 18 I went thru every document concerning the divorce (and a few old cassette tapes with my mother's adoptive father telling my dad to ditch my mother and take me somewhere else,) and I can easily conclude it wasn't due to him being in the profession, it was a matter of morality and family economics (what should've gone to diapers, food, etc. to me instead went to my mother partying every night and getting FUBAR'd.)
Now I will say that *YES* it's possible that working in the IT field, which is very demanding (sometimes requiring 30-hour shifts, from what my father's told me from his days at Texas Instruments,) will strain or destroy your relationship, mainly because your job keeps you away from your wife, or the job puts so much stress on you, that while you wish you could vent it at the job, you end up relieving it in unconstructive ways at home.
But it's a little unfair to place the blame squarely upon your job. Tell me, what did you try to keep the relationship working? She should've known that you would have long hours. Somehow, knowing how many relationships I've been in for the past ten years, not all of it is squarely the fault of the job, or even your girl (well, minus my three lying and stealing ex-fiancees,) but usually upon you. There are always exceptions, but most filed cases I've seen are the woman leaving the man, for infidelity, spousal abuse, drug usage, conflicting interests, etc.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Not necessarily. At least in EU.
Lack of social skills in IT (and most heavily intellectual industries for that matter) is an American specific thing. That is not the case in the EU.
Based on personal observations from 2 years in a US Uni and 5 years in a EU Uni the stratification between sporty steroidheads and geeks is much more pronounced in the US. In EU sports are played for fun and there are quite a few sporty geeks or very geeky sportsmen. And quite a few womenisers and party animals (and vice versa) amidst them.
Till recently most EU companies did not consider it to be a "bad tone" for people to be rational and interested in the material side of the job (shares, salary, etc). That is not the case in the US which is much more like this. You are expected to be a sociopath, work long hours, be passionate about the job and sacrifice your family and kids in favour of it and if you do not fit this mould you do not get hired. While some EU companies have tried to adopt this model (I had that tried on me in an interview), it has not been particularly successfull (at least till recently). As a result in the US there is job based selection towards sociopathic intellectuals (this is not just IT, in fact biotech is much worse).
For example in the company where I work less then 5% are overweight, 90%+ play some form of sport, 95% are married and the divorce rate has been 0 per 100 employees (for 5 years span). That is way better than the national average for the UK and many times better than the US.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Your wife is an asshole. That's the moral.
The way I look at it is this. Either you are flying signals ("I'm single! I'm looking! I'm available! Look at me!") or you are not. I'm going to bet that your wife was flying signals. If you look back at her behavior totally objectively, you'll probably see it. If you do, internalize this fact -- she was looking to get out.
The best advice I can offer you is from my own experience.
1) Don't hang around. She says she still loves you? Bullshit. She doesn't. She's not even THINKING about you. Move on.
2) Don't believe her if she comes back. She says she wants to try again? She says she wants to "Renew your vows" (that's a rich one)? Move on.
3) Don't let her set your agenda. Guilt trip about "staying with the kids while she goes away?" Sure, if you want to. If you don't, tell her to drop them off at your place, you'll deal with them.
And don't -- absolutely don't -- let yourself be angry, bitter, unhappy. This is not your fault. It's not about your job or how many hours you put in. It's not that you didn't "work hard enough" at the relationship. Baloney. I know plenty of people who have ridiculous schedules and see each other rarely, but they're doing just fine.
Remember: it's about her wanting to leave. It's not about you "failing" in some respect. Dry your eyes, forget your guilt, and find someone who wants to be with you. And if you notice her "flying signals," put her on the "temporary fling" list and start flying your own signals, fast.
Funny you should mention that when he's essentially soliciting anecdotal evidence in favor of his thesis by asking for people to tell their own stories.
He's not taking a representative sample group and testing whether or not his thesis is true but is instead trying to find data points that agree with his thesis and ignoring the context of how many others disagree with it. It's not exactly scientifically rigorous work so much as an attempt to find other people to reassure him that he's normal, and that's it's less his fault than if there was no correlation.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Well, this topic is about to fall off the Slashdot homepage, so I guess my comment is destined to languish in obscurity. However, let's do this for posterity.
There are many posts here making the point that it's ridiculous to blame your job for your divorce. They make the distinction that human beings make these choices, and the blame should fall there. It's a good point, although maybe some could have said it more kindly. But it doesn't change the fact that some work environments are extremely hostile to marriages.
I worked at software reporting tools company for a couple of years. At one point, there was a Web site redesign scheduled. As the sole Web person at the time, I worked 2 90+ hour weeks back to back. It was something like 16 days on, each day up at dawn, home at nearly midnight. I was a (relatively) new father. I didn't once speak to my daughter during that time -- I only saw her sleeping at night. I was OK with this because it was a very short-term crunch. But I was a little sad. I launched the redesign Sunday night, got a few hours of sleep, and arrived at work Monday morning at 7:30 AM. I wasn't expecting much, but some acknowledgement of my hard work would have been nice. My boss was there, livid. I don't even recall what the problem was, but it was minor. She ripped into me. I defended myself with the truth -- "I've worked 16 days in a row, I haven't seen my family, there aren't any more hours in the day!"
Her response? "You'll just have to find a way to do more!"
You can say that the people in the marriage are always the problem. You can say that it's a cop-out to blame external pressures. And I agree to a certain point. I was at a crossroads, and I could have chosen my job over my family at that moment. It would have been my choice, my consequences. But I also know that certain types of people can and will take advantage. Certain people do NOT care about anything other than their own goals, and if they can manipulate a young, inexperienced worker bee into slaving away, so be it. If the worker bee crashes & burns, "maybe that worker bee wasn't cut out for the job." It is a fairly heartless way to interact with people, and to some degree, I think such people are not blameless for the pain that follows.
Oh, and I'm still married. I work freelance, my own schedule. We have income that is nowhere near what I used to make, but I'm way the hell happier.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
I agree that if your family is or wants to be supportive, they don't usually require a lot of time each day. What my wife and kids DO require is some amount of time, however limited, that is theirs and theirs alone (nearly) every day. Also, they need to know that whatever else is taking my time is in pursuit of some concrete, beneficial goal.
I have bedtime traditions with my kids. Not the same one every night, but a handful we can use on different nights depending on everyone's energy level. Sometimes I wrestle with them before bedtime. Sometimes I read to them out of a slim blue volume of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems for children. With my daughter I'm teaching her a song in French; sometimes we dance around the livingroom and sing together. With my oldest son I'm now listening to him learn to read before bedtime.
None of those take more than fifteen minutes each, but they happen (nearly) EVERY night, at or about the same time, and my children and I have come to count on them.
With my wife it's similar. Some nights we're lucky, and all three kids are asleep early enough that we can talk (and do other things) for some time. Other nights we're really tired but we make time to exchange a simple kiss or two when passing in the hallway, or to rub each others' shoulders, or something.
I guess if I have anything to add to the parent post it's that you need to sell your family on the benefits of whatever else is consuming your time. If your family truly believes that what you're doing is in pursuit of some shared goal, there's less resentment at your being busy. Couple that with consistent time together, even if it's short, and it sends the message "I value you" rather than "I don't have time for you." I myself am very task-focused and tend to deal brusquely with interruptions when I'm focused on something, so when I'm with my family I try to be WITH them, and I apologize when I'm too harsh.
I'm rambling a bit, and I'm deeply sorry if this post is hard to read for the original poster since he's past the stage where these ideas have any value for his current situation. But I wanted to chime in with my two cents in support of the immediate parent post to this one, which contains a lot of useful wisdom.
Dominance, hah! Today I showed my dominance clearly, I said to her:"Now you sit down and listen! I'm the man in my house! If I want to do my dishes in my own house I'm going to do them and I'm going to do them right now! And you're not going to stop me! Heck, perhaps I'll clean the windows too!" Now that showed her! The only thing she could do is put on her lovely smile and said: "Yes dear". It clearly felt as a victory, although somehow I mistrusted her willingness to comply on my demands...