Tonight you shall be treated to Regret #2; or, Second Biggest Mistake I Have Ever Made and Would Give ALMOST Anything To Take Back.
Hubs (a.k.a., Hottie McHots) and I met in college. The plan was always professional school for him, eventually medical school for me. We had Fruit Loop somewhere in that "eventually" part, though I continued to keep medical school in the trajectory of my/our life path. I took the MCATs while pregnant, started applying while pregnant, finished applying and interviewing after Fruit Loop was born, and was accepted. I deferred for a year to stay home a little while longer (having become a housewife/stay-home-baby-incubator several months into the pregnancy), and Fruit Loop and I spent all of our time becoming best buddies. (That's about all I did, really - baby baby baby, very little housework, no real cooking whatsoever, leaving Hubs to work his way through an extremely rigorous professional school and fend for himself re: meals, giving him nothing but the leftover me at the end of the day...Not too proud of that, really. Also on the regret list, but overshadowed by The Big Ones.)
When Fruit Loop was a few weeks shy of his 2nd birthday, I began medical school. Fruit Loop was thrust into a 10h+ day at daycare when all he knew before was all Mom, all the time. If I thought I didn't do housework and/or cooking before, I REALLY didn't do any now. I dumped my son in daycare, studied all day, fed him dinner, put him to bed, and watched TV for several hours before going to sleep. I did nothing for Hottie McHots, I became less and less invested in my relationship with him and with Fruit Loop, and I devoted all of my spare time to me (e.g., vegging out in front of the TV) or school (which, still, was devoting time to me at the expense of my family).
Hottie McHots started doing even more. On top of an extremely successful and demanding professional career, he picked up dinner, he watched the fruit loop for the entire weekend while I studied, he cleaned, he did laundry...He did the work of two parents, all so I could get through medical school however I felt I needed to. He got very little in return from me other than my expectation that he would be SuperHubs, that he would take care of everything, that I was entitled to such selfless giving on his part, that I didn't need to do anything other than be nice and be married for him to be happy.
Fruit Loop had it equally rough. A sensitive, emotional, exuberant, intelligent little boy, one whose world was so suddenly turned upside-down, he became duller, prone to sadness and/or extreme upset when I left, stopped growing and gaining weight well, slept fitfully (waking up NUMEROUS times every night).... I firmly believe he was clinically depressed after my first semester in medical school.
I was more independent, less caring of my family, more selfish, more emotional, short-tempered, anxious... I was not a nice person. I was not a happy person.
After reflecting on how the first semester went, and how NOBODY was happy, Hottie McHots and I decided to make some minor changes for second semester. That worked marginally better, but we came to the conclusion that it was either/or: it was either medical school or my family. There could not be both. It was too hard, it was too much of a sacrifice, it was taking too much of a toll on all of us and our relationships. Framed in that context, I decided to request a leave with the plan of walking away from medical school for good.
And, after some other tumultuous circumstances and decisions (none of which I will go into now), that is what I did. It was hard to make the initial decision to leave medical school, and Hubs and I both acknowledged a large part of that was due to other people's expectations, the sense of quitting a dream, and how this is such an achievement... But, ultimately, it always came back to the family. That was a no-brainer, then.
It has, however, permanently changed the family dynamic. I put far too much strain on my relationship with Hottie McHots, and both he and I assumed our relationship had more "give" than it really did. We sacrificed a lot of necessary TLC, and I will never be able to undo the damage to our relationship from my entitlement re: medical school. Moreover, I don't have the same relationship I did with Fruit Loop, and I never will. I am still more short-tempered and selfish in ways that I didn't used to be. My regrets over this make me sharper and angry/frustrated with myself, and feeling like that renders me a less pleasant person to be around.
There are some positives, such as realizing not to take Hottie McHots and our marriage for granted, realizing how much work it takes to sustain a relationship/marriage, how important my family is to me...but, boy, it sure came at a steep, steep price. Take-home lesson: people will say it can be done, and, indeed, many women do the whole career-mom thing; however, each family is different, each mom is different, and the career-mom thing is NOT for us.
I wish I could erase all of it. The entire time. It's not worth it.
*I'm not sure you will ever know of Regret #1, little blog. I'm pretty sure just typing it would cause some sort of mainframe implosion. Or something equally dire. Not like I'm dramatic or anything.
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