My apartment is too small and cramped to have people over, and I can’t keep any pets, hence I feel lonely in the apartment.

My trade-off: shortest commute ever (walk 12 mins to work), cheap rent (saved at least $5,000) year, in smacking downtown Chicago.

For most people, an extra $5,000 and getting to walk to work is SUPER awesome, right?

I really enjoy socializing, cooking and entertaining. I know people would say but spending time with friends cost 0 money. What I love the most is cooking for my friends. I need a proper apartment with a proper kitchen and there are inexpensive apartments like this but so far away that nobody would come visit me. So yes, it would cost me relatively $5000 a year to entertain my friends at home. I am not sure I’m willing to make that trade-off (especially given that I’d have to go back to taking the bus/train to work ughhh).

I’m considering toughing it out for one more year to save up some money. But I’m afraid I might turn anti-social.

Then he used that to ask what are professional triumphs worth compared to personal ones? How do we make intangible well-being comparable with tangible accomplishments like raises, advanced degrees, promotions and accolades?

Thats a good and complicated question. It makes me think of how Bhutan is the only country in the world to measure Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product. I wonder how different things would be in people’s life if we had to report our annual contentment instead of salary to the IRS on April 15th. Would it be a better world? A less productive world? Would people be more moral, or less? I don’t know. It would be interesting though.

This is a specious explanation, made up simply to back up a claim.

Money may not buy happiness, but not having money definitely seems to cost it.

A: It truly depends on the circumstance. In review of the opportunity and potential vulnerability, I would have to weigh the pros and cons.

I spent much of my free time at the start of my marriage away from my wife, despite her being pregnant with our 1st at the time. I was finishing up a masters and preparing for a major professional licensing exam in my field at the time, and my time was limited. I missed many of the adventures of the bun-in-the-oven phase, but the long term reward was worth the lost time. Since then, my career advancements have allowed me more family time, higher salary, and wonderful travel opportunities for the entire family.

I’m not fooling myself, I know that some of the reason that I didn’t choose that path is that I can be a little lazy. But another big reason is that I LIKE being home with my family for dinner and going to my kids’ events. As my kids reach the age where they’re looking at leaving the nest in a few years, I look back at the time my wife and I have had with them and we both think we’ve traded well.

So, in that regard, I’ve done OK! Economics is all about the allocation of scarce resources. Time is a scarce resource in our personal economics.

Being from Mars as well I get where you’re coming from, and while individual differences trump just about everything and there will always be empirical evidence of the man being the more sensitive and nurturing in a relationship, I was speaking of generalizations. Apparently my sarcasm went astray as you are correct that no one makes men make pregnancy jokes, my more boring point was that men can’t understand it because a) they will never give birth, and b) they will never be able to experience anything else as a woman either. Much brain research suggests we learn and think different, we have different hormonal makeups, we have different physiology. I don’t think it’s overly controversial to say: we’re different and as such typically fill different roles within a relationship. Just like introverts/extroverts will fill different roles. Yeah, there are women that think more analytically like men (though the fact that it is pointed out means it’s abnormal). And there are men who are very empathetic. So?

I don’t think anyone is BLAMING Sandra for the situation, much less due to the pervasive patriarchy of our culture. But she DID make choices and take actions to which he reacted. No one is saying that his choices were appropriate or that she was responsible for them, but it is a logical fallacy to state that she had no effect on them.

She was part of the dynamic system that was her marriage. I think you may have missed HollyP’s point. Holly wasn’t saying that Sandra cheated, and I didn’t get that she was blaming her. But tradeoffs are made when when one has a demanding job or project. SB not only acts but produces and gets involved in a lot of the behind the scenes stuff in her movies. No, a good man/woman doesn’t cheat when their spouse is that absorbed in a job/project. But it DOES put a strain on the relationship, and the (unfortunate) typical result when one feels abandoned by one’s significant other is to find someone new. Once again that doesn’t make it right, but it’s human.

To play devil’s advocate, if she was out of pocket for nine months with her project what does that say about the value SHE placed on HER role in the marriage? His cheating isn’t her fault, but as was pointed out, she CHOSE to marry him, and she CHOSE to take the projects she did. His role in the relationship isn’t just to follow her around like a lapdog and be ready when she has time.

I am not saying that is how it was, but when a marriage falls apart it isn’t usually the result of choices by just one party. Sometimes it is, but in my experience it is then usually due to extreme personality issues to which there were clues before the marriage. Once again I am not saying it is the FAULT of both parties (only one has to cheat for all bets to be off), but it is the result of the accumulation of both of their choices.

For many of us, our focus rests solely on what we do.

Would I trade my marriage for more money? Absolutely!

For me, this trade-off is worth it.

I think you did.

My view is that happiness doesn’t come to those who spend too much time looking for it. Happiness is a by-product of a life lived in balance. I would never directly sacrifice my family for a professional triumph. But I would put in long hours to achieve a professional triumph knowing that it put some stress on my family.

You cannot just sit around being happy. You’d be miserable. You have to get out into the big, bad world and fight for things. And, yes, sometimes that means putting on 20 pounds or missing out on baseball games with your kids or whatever. You’ve got to make those trade-offs to lead a life of meaning and purpose. But you also need to be careful not to get too carried away and make so many sacrifices that balance is lost.

Rob

Her husband, she had to actually shush from talking to her during the vid of her as a nominee and it seemed then, there was little warmth there between them, and also after she won. So… I say, I agree with everyone else here, but I challenge the question as it seemed pretty obvious then, knowing nothing else about who he was or that he was her husband, that he was insensitive and she was irritated, so… adultery came first, and she ended up a bit better off due to the win.

The question also presupposes a permanent negative vs. a permanent gain. If your spouse leaves you because you’re successful, is the problem really that you took a personal blow for professional success? Or is the real problem that you married somebody who is threatened by you if you’re successful?

I agree with Nicole. Sandra has not traded her happiness to a successful career. The husband has been an adulterous jerk for who knows how long. There’s nothing she can do to change this. If anything, she actually gains double happiness by getting rid of this douchebag (again, it depends on how you see this situation).

And please, if money doesn’t bring us happiness, what’s the point of this website? Let’s not dismiss money altogether. We all know what money can do will bring us happiness so why do we live in denial? Why do we have to choose between money vs. happiness? And why do most people assume that people with a lot of money are not happy? No wonder most of us are either broke or average. This duality way of thinking restricts us from reaching our best.

I agree that scale is important, but I still think the analogy holds.

$50,000 to someone who makes $200,000 is probably going to buy a boat or nice car or simply be invested/saved.

$5,000 to someone who makes $20,000 might allow them to go back to school or keep them from being foreclosed on.

The latter is going to be way more happy with what their money gets them than the $200,000 individual is going to be with a BMW.

For someone earning $200,000/year, the equivalent in this example is $50,000. Somehow, I think that might make them just as happy – or at least close to the person who got $5k. 25% of your income is a beast of a windfall no matter how much you earn.

I’m beginning to think my feminist psych friend is right about the pervasiveness of the patriarchy. Yes, blame the victim for her success. I shake my tiny fist at the patriarchy.

But I have to say, that there are very few people I know who married for the first time as an older person. It has been my observation that older folks get more set in their ways, and are often less open to compromise if they haven’t been in a situation before where they’d have to make those compromises. And compromises are the key to a happy marriage.

When we were dating & first married, MrP worked as a travelling consultant for several prestigious firms. He had a very healthy salary, a fat expense account, a glamorous job which took him all over the world, and he was on track to earn a small fortune. He was on the road 40-50 weeks a year. 85% of the men (and they were nearly all men) he worked with who’d made careers in this field were either divorced or cheating on their wives.

Thankfully MrP chose our family over his ambition. He has a more modest job, rarely travels, works 40 hours a week and has plenty of time to spend with the family. Our marriage was worth the $100,000 more he wo uld have earned each year if he’d stayed in that field.

So yes, it is entirely possible that if Sandra Bullock hadn’t been so driven, she might have invested more time in personal relationships and be a happily-married non-Oscar winner.

I might go for a young Issac Asimov though, between his first and second wife, maybe. Not sure about the facial hair though. But I think I’ll stick with my quiet engineer–16 years together and he’s still more handsome than any celebrity.

I might trade massive long-last professional success for family happiness because professional success most likely will make getting a family much easier.

Here’s why:

Let’s say that wanted to be a world famous NFL quaterback for the ages. There are what a couple of dozen football teams every year. 1 starting quarterback each, maybe 5 or 6 top-of-the-world quarterbacks.

Now..let’s do some math, very loose and unscientific, but might have some value.

http://www.tinyurl.com/clesp

6.5 billion people on the planet..

almost 50% women (3 or so billion)

Let’s just move it to the US (which greatly restricts it but why not?)

96 million eligible people – 54% women – 51.1 million women

14.5 mil over 65 = 36 million left.

Let’s say 2/3rds of them don’t really work out (which I think is stretching it): 9 million

So, 9 million..Realistically I would say the number of great matches of finding someone, THOUSANDS of potential mates. Hell, even hundreds is still massive.

and about success? 2-3 possible spots in the world, with massive luck, etc, of being one of the best NFL quarterbacks for a couple of seasons and be remembered forever?

That’s an easy call.

and, this doesn’t even include how much insane cache you will become as a potential mate when you are that successful. Yeah, I hear he grousing, “I wouldn’t be that kind of person”. To date someone like Paul MacCartney back in the day? Joe Montana? Picasso? Brad Pitt? Sure you wouldn’t..

Perhaps not exactly the kind that the NY Times author was suggesting…more along the lines of staying in a bad marriage because they can’t afford to support their kids on their salary.

Statistically, women with children don’t do particularly well financially when they divorce.

While I don’t think that money brings happiness, it’s pretty stressful if you have to wonder how you’ll feed your kids.

In a way, perhaps Sandra Bullock is one of the lucky ones, since she has the means to support herself, and can afford to kick that SOB to the curb.