Last week, I put the love of my life on a plane halfway around the world, and I have no idea when I will see him again. It breaks my heart but I don’t have a choice.
He just got a job abroad, and I have a job here. For the time being, we can’t be together.
Why don’t I move to follow him, you ask? Well, I am an independent working woman who has a career she values, and who doesn’t want to give any of that up just for a man. Why should I?
Couldn’t I get a job over there? I could try, but there are visa restrictions, and even ignoring that, there’s just not much of a market for my work there—trust me, I’ve looked.
So what do we do? Toughen up and deal with it.
But sometimes I wish I could be a woman who didn’t care, a woman who didn’t have a career. A woman who would be happy to have an entry-level job, and not want to build a career in a very specific field. A woman who would be happy to stop everything, and make babies while my partner works.
But I’m not. I love my job and I love my career. Even if now was the right time for babies, I’m sure I’d want to have some kind of job waiting for me when my maternity leave was over.
I love the modern feminist world where women can be whoever and whatever they want. But as much as I love the modern feminist world, it also has created some problems. One of the downsides of it (especially combined with the current economy) is that couples can’t always be together—if there isn’t a job available that meets each person’s minimum standards, then there’s not a lot they can do about it.
But as much as I wish I didn’t have a career, I won’t ever sacrifice that side of myself. Of course I love my partner, and want to be with him—but I love myself more. At the end of it all, I need to be able to support myself, and I need to follow my passions. If it was any other way, I would end up unhappy, and full of resentment and anger—and that wouldn’t make for a happy relationship either. One way or another, we will be together again, but until then—feminism sucks.
