Post: #1

A lot of guys on this forum have foregone traditional, "respectable" careers, lifestyles and choices in favor of what they truly want to do. Maybe, you've decided to let it all go, work six months out of the year and spend the rest traveling and fucking girls across different continents. Perhaps you struggle answering the question ... "So what do you do for a living" with absolute certainty since you are a location independent entrepreneur with multiple income streams. Maybe you just got into a PhD program in Anthropology instead of Law School like your family expected you to since you drew your first breath. A lot of you have made the decision to not marry or have kids. Underachieving dude of a successful father? Or maybe you're just not as successful as your family expected you to be ... could be in any aspect of life.


I'm fairly certain most of us are beyond the point where we care what random strangers think about our life and choices. But how about family members who we love and cherish? I'm shipping out to Basic in three weeks at age 26. My parents and extended family members accept my decision but their vision for me was entirely different.

According to their plan, I should have been a year away from graduating Medical school, along with a sweet fiance' and wedding plans as soon as I graduated. Instead, I have a useless Industrial Engineering degree, worked in a career I hate for a couple years and am a borderline alcoholic.

My mom is a big-time drama Queen so I never deemed her rants or criticisms attention worthy. Dad's a man of few words however. Skyped him Tuesday evening & towards the end he goes " Alright son I love you regardless". I ask him what he exactly meant since we weren't having an argument or even talking about heavy topics. He goes " Well, you didn't turn out how your mother and I expected you to but we love you". I made some joke to diffuse the intensity of the situation but that shit felt like a cold blade to my heart.

Have you guys dealt with similar situations? How do you emancipate yourselves from familial slavery without straining the actual relationship or considering cutting them off to an extent?

Post: #2

You are only 26, you are not done yet by any means. Your father loves you but he is not you, you make your choices and take your path. I did not start law school till I was 28 and did medical school at 37- life takes different paths at different times for everyone. You are an engineer, and going into the military as an officer that is not bad for a guy in his 20s. You may still go to medical school, you may become a General, you may join the CIA or NSA, you may become an millionaire -there is no telling. You earned a STEM degree, and are about to serve your country - that ain't to shabby...

Post: #3

Thanks for sharing a thoughtful and honest post, and it's one thing that isn't discussed often enough. Although I could care less what other people think in general, I do care what my family members think. These people are the closest to me, and I would take a bullet for them.

Had I tried leaving the country to attempt location independence 10 years ago, at your age, my family would definitely have tried to talk me out of it -- and they would probably have succeeded in doing so, as I was a young impressionable kid back then.

My parents invested so much of their resources into getting the best education available to me. Turning away from the graduate-from-college-get-a-job-and-start-a-career path so early in my life would probably be taken as an affront to all the hard work they put in raising me. That's when my dad was still alive, though.

Fast forward 10 years to today.

I worked for a solid and growing company for over 8 years, doubled my take home pay in that time, and padded my resume with lots of work experience. I got married in this time. From their point of view, I gave it my best shot at marriage, with the aim to have kids and build a family. When that all fell apart, they rushed to my side and supported me through divorce ordeal. I stayed with my sister for a week in between my old house and my new apartment, while my mom took a few days off from work and flew 1500 miles to be with me.

Now, a year later, I started a business, registered it, and have started making money. Once they were satisfied that my business wasn't yet another ponzi multi-level marketing scheme or some shady venture into the black market, they understood the legitimacy of my business and even tried referring potential clients to me.

After breaking the news of my expatriation plans, they were surprisingly quick to support me. I'm fairly certain that if I tried this 10 years ago, they would have been singing a much different tune. I'm also certain that the divorce, in their point of view, gives me a carte blanche to do whatever the fuck I want for the next few years. Of course I'm not saying you should get married for the sake of divorcing, and milking all the support you can get from family and friends, haha.

The point is that timing and your life experience has a lot to do with your family's acceptance of taking a different life path than they expected. A2D, I don't mean to sound patronizing, but you're only 26, and your family's ideas for your life path are a little too fresh in their mind to just abandon based on the decisions you make now. This is not to say that you should kowtow to your family's wishes, of course. I'm only saying that the closest people to you, especially those who invested in you, will often struggle to understand your decisions if those aren't part of the picture they had in their mind for you.

I would deal with it by acknowledging their emotions and reactions, no matter how much it stings or hurts, and saying that you understand where they are coming from. Don't try to fight their emotions or explain your decision straight off the bat. Just say that you're happy to explain your decisions and your thought process, IF they ask and are willing to listen.

Hope this helps.

Post: #4

(05-26-2016 02:39 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  A lot of guys on this forum have foregone traditional, "respectable" careers, lifestyles and choices in favor of what they truly want to do. Maybe, you've decided to let it all go, work six months out of the year and spend the rest traveling and fucking girls across different continents. Perhaps you struggle answering the question ... "So what do you do for a living" with absolute certainty since you are a location independent entrepreneur with multiple income streams. Maybe you just got into a PhD program in Anthropology instead of Law School like your family expected you to since you drew your first breath. A lot of you have made the decision to not marry or have kids. Underachieving dude of a successful father? Or maybe you're just not as successful as your family expected you to be ... could be in any aspect of life.


I'm fairly certain most of us are beyond the point where we care what random strangers think about our life and choices. But how about family members who we love and cherish? I'm shipping out to Basic in three weeks at age 26. My parents and extended family members accept my decision but their vision for me was entirely different.

According to their plan, I should have been a year away from graduating Medical school, along with a sweet fiance' and wedding plans as soon as I graduated. Instead, I have a useless Industrial Engineering degree, worked in a career I hate for a couple years and am a borderline alcoholic.

My mom is a big-time drama Queen so I never deemed her rants or criticisms attention worthy. Dad's a man of few words however. Skyped him Tuesday evening & towards the end he goes " Alright son I love you regardless". I ask him what he exactly meant since we weren't having an argument or even talking about heavy topics. He goes " Well, you didn't turn out how your mother and I expected you to but we love you". I made some joke to diffuse the intensity of the situation but that shit felt like a cold blade to my heart.

Have you guys dealt with similar situations? How do you emancipate yourselves from familial slavery without straining the actual relationship or considering cutting them off to an extent?

If anyone has done a PhD in Anthropology rather than going to Law School, then it would behoove you to listen more closely to M&D's advice in future - sometimes they know better than you.

I think one has to take a lot of what gets said here on the forum with a pinch of salt. Your relationship with your family is one of the greatest and most important things in your life. Personally I think many people whose family have truly loved them and tried their best for them would do well to give serious consideration to their family's wishes, and even to make certain sacrifices to fulfill them.

A huge part of the rebellion against the family's wishes seems to me to be a product of what you might call 'special snowflake syndrome', which assumes that every man's life has some great purpose, and that there is one way of life which will bring meaning beyond all others, and that if a man is not searching for this then he is wasting his life. But I think that the reality, even for very bright people, is that there are myriad different ways to apply a good brain to work of various kinds that will produce tremendous satisfaction and real interest over time.

Of course, that's not to say you should have done Medicine. We are not all temperamentally or intellectually suited to all things. Imagine the satisfaction and prestige of being a top military strategist, military scientist, military engineer. Think of all the wonderful things you'd be exposed to in any of those very different subsets of the military profession, and the endless interest, variety, and opportunity to innovate you would have.

Those two paragraphs may seem contradictory, but I don't believe they are. Should you rise to a position of interest and importance, I think you'll find that your relationship with your parents is all the richer for it. And you are not 'dropping out' or wasting a brain by taking the course you have done. I suspect also that you are quite likely still to have a (hopefully) sweet fiancée in 5-10 years time, and that that will bring tremendous happiness to your family, and compound your own.

We cannot, of course, go through life smoothly without ever having differences of opinion with our families - sometimes very strong ones. But generally the differences that seem so significant are really matters of degree (is a general less worthy or prestigious than a surgeon, or are they simply different like labradors and vacuum cleaners), and because of this it is usually a very straight path back to the happiness, comfort, and unconditional love that family at its best is able to offer. Your case seems to be of this kind.

There is nothing ungrateful, or disrespectful, about the life you've chosen for the next few years. Consequently, there is really nothing to 'forgive' on your family's part. You say that it hurt you when your dad said 'I love you regardless', but I think, as you reflect on it, you'll realise that for a parent who has had a strong psychological attachment to an ideal of their child, adjusting to the reality can be a slower process. The fact that your father volunteered that he loved you 'regardless' is something that I find enormously touching, and was a deep and sincere expression that may not have been easy for him to make. Rather than see it as a 'shiv', you may find yourself recognising that it was a simple but profound expression of a love that asks nothing in return, and that to have that in your life is a quite extraordinary thing - something to be treasured, and that you will always be improved by having experienced.

Post: #5

Negative Reinforcement. When your parents make some kind of cutting remark, your initial impulse will be to pick a fight over it. This is wrong, because it just gets them on the defensive. From their perspective hectoring you is for your own good and they've rationalized treating you like a dependent imbecile that can't manage his own life.

Here's what works, coming from experience getting my folks off my back over being unemployed. When you get some nasty comment about something, you ghost on them for a while. Don't make it too obvious like you're an angry woman giving the "silent treatment" while still huffing around audibly hissing and sighing to let you know she's ignoring you, just get lazy about returning calls in a timely fashion and happen to be busy whenever they want to visit.

If they actually care about you they'll be bothered by the lack of contact, and they'll automatically start being nicer to you since they're getting reinforcement that if they want your attention they have to treat you with respect.

Post: #6

I think that part of becoming a man is to break out of the shell and make choices for yourself and that you must always provide your own impetus for action. I did just that a little over 16 years ago, and the success that arose from making that choice and taking that risk has begotten me many more successes over the years. So much so that it's like a drug now to do the opposite of what's expected or even known and succeed.

I took a radically different path than the typical "graduate, go to college, get a good job" that my parents had alluded to my entire life. I did the typical teenager thing cut class and got high with my friends, and my parents began to worry I would end up like my screw up uncle who alternates residences between jail and some school bus (real or metaphorical I never figured out) instead of a respectable college grad and all that.

When I turned 18 I dropped out of high school and enlisted. This was pre 9/11 when the military was recovering from the cut backs of the 90's. My family was mortified. More so I think about the dropping out than the enlisting, the only alternate reality for them was that I go to college and earn a commission. They did not support it at all and tried every which way from Sunday to talk me out of it, my dad even offered to move to a neighboring state so I could go to a JROTC program while finishing high school. Yet the harder they pushed the more I wanted it. I still remember looking at my dad's face as I drove away with my recruiter. We were both scared shitless. I considered all that a mere annoyance at the time, though now with the wisdom Ive gained over the years I can at least appreciate/understand their actions. But we all accepted it and moved on.

So that doesn't really answer your question then does it? My own relationship with everyone and everything I knew was strained due to my decision. Ultimately the relationships I have now are much stronger for all of that and not things to be trifled with. Some of us need to occupy a stratum that we have created ourselves, not one that was created for us.

Would I do it all again? Absolutely.

Post: #7

(05-26-2016 03:49 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  When you get some nasty comment about something, you ghost on them for a while. Don't make it too obvious like you're an angry woman giving the "silent treatment" while still huffing around audibly hissing and sighing to let you know she's ignoring you, just get lazy about returning calls in a timely fashion and happen to be busy whenever they want to visit.

If they actually care about you they'll be bothered by the lack of contact, and they'll automatically start being nicer to you since they're getting reinforcement that if they want your attention they have to treat you with respect.

^ This works.

If you have to take it a step further, sit them down and explain that you appreciate everything they have done for you; however, your life is your life and you have to do what is best for your happiness, not what they think would be best for them if they were in your situation.

I think they will get the message if you demonstrate maturity through being positive, logical, and showing that you have thought deeply about your situation. Remember they think of you as a child because you are their child so sometimes you need to remind them that you are an adult now.

Post: #8

Keep working hard, staying focused on both long and short term goals, and eventually meet a beautiful woman and have a family. Grandchildren have a tendency to give your parents an outlet for their paternal and maternal instincts. Its just in our DNA.

Post: #9

(05-26-2016 02:39 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  According to their plan, I should have been a year away from graduating Medical school, along with a sweet fiance' and wedding plans as soon as I graduated. Instead, I have a useless Industrial Engineering degree, worked in a career I hate for a couple years and am a borderline alcoholic.

Your degree is not useless. Industrial Engineering is a great fallback at bare minimum and imparts a lot of knowledge that is applicable to related fields.

While working in a career you hate is maybe avoidable I guarantee you that the vast majority of men have worked in a job they hate for at least a year or two. You can take make it a negative or draw the best positive you can from it (to recognize/avoid situations like that in the future).

Borderline alcoholic is more worrisome. If you are drinking yourself into a stupor a good bit or drinking heavily on the regular, it's likely that you are at least partiall depressed or very frustrated with your life. You're likely harder on yourself than your parents or anyone else could ever be. Bring yourself up, not down.

(05-26-2016 02:39 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  My mom is a big-time drama Queen so I never deemed her rants or criticisms attention worthy. Dad's a man of few words however. Skyped him Tuesday evening & towards the end he goes " Alright son I love you regardless". I ask him what he exactly meant since we weren't having an argument or even talking about heavy topics. He goes " Well, you didn't turn out how your mother and I expected you to but we love you". I made some joke to diffuse the intensity of the situation but that shit felt like a cold blade to my heart.

Have you guys dealt with similar situations? How do you emancipate yourselves from familial slavery without straining the actual relationship or considering cutting them off to an extent?

H1N1's response bears repeating, especially this section:

(05-26-2016 03:33 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  There is nothing ungrateful, or disrespectful, about the life you've chosen for the next few years. Consequently, there is really nothing to 'forgive' on your family's part. You say that it hurt you when your dad said 'I love you regardless', but I think, as you reflect on it, you'll realise that for a parent who has had a strong psychological attachment to an ideal of their child, adjusting to the reality can be a slower process. The fact that your father volunteered that he loved you 'regardless' is something that I find enormously touching, and was a deep and sincere expression that may not have been easy for him to make. Rather than see it as a 'shiv', you may find yourself recognising that it was a simple but profound expression of a love that asks nothing in return, and that to have that in your life is a quite extraordinary thing - something to be treasured, and that you will always be improved by having experienced.

You really gotta focus on taking the positive out of situations. The next time you talk to your dad I would bring it up. I would tell him that you had a hard time with what he said because you don't want to be a disappointment and that you thought about it more and want to thank him for supporting you even though you're not taking the same path he thinks is best. That is, if you believe that. Tell him you love him at every opportunity too. There will be one day when you can't. That day may be a long way off, but it will still come sooner than you expect it.

Post: #10

ATD does your family not understand how good you will have it as an officer in the military?

Post: #11

I have found that life success causes your family critics to shut up. My motto is "why argue when you can win instead?"

I essentially gamble for a living (have been since 18), and my family thought I was going to end up as a degenerate alcoholic gambler. Got nothing but flak from all of them for over 20 years, especially since my mother is a rapture ready Christian who spent all her time trying to save me from being a servant of Satan and from drowning in a life of sin.

Life success and fairly clear indications that I'm pretty well off has caused them to tacitly concede that they were wrong. Though I get the occasional passive-aggressive comment from my mother like "How much did you lose today? One day you will lose it all!" my family is pretty much okay with it now. In fact, my dad talks about it with other relatives and friends with a slight hint of awe.

Post: #12

(05-26-2016 02:39 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  Have you guys dealt with similar situations? How do you emancipate yourselves from familial slavery without straining the actual relationship or considering cutting them off to an extent?

This is how you do it:



100% willingness to walk away is the way to go. I have some rough edges though, but I have straight up told my parents that I think college is dumb and I could make it without the degree.

My mom was not happy about it, but hey as long as you have a clear definable goal going forward and you include your family in the decision making process, things tend to work out.

Post: #13

I've never had to deal with family disappointment in my choices. That would require them to give a shit first. It's never come up.

Post: #14

If fairness, not to speak of all families, but some families are selfish and essentially feel that their child is "in debt" to them to be who they want them to be simply because they gave them life. Which isn't totally fair, since children have no control over who their parents are, and just because "mommy/daddy wants it" doesn't always mean it's in the best interest of the child.

Post: #15

Don't be lying on your death bed saying "I had a shit life of unhappiness, but at least I did what everyone wanted me to do for them"

Post: #16

didn't become an IT guy
didn't become a doctor
didn't become a lawyer
didn't get my masters
didn't go to a prestigious college
didn't get scholarships
didn't get married
didn't be a devout Muslim

I was 14 and deviated from my religion - my family trying coming correct - it didn't work. I stopped reading the Quran, I stopped praying, I started questioning. My mother didn't like this one bit and tried forcing me to do things.

They suddenly realized there was an atheist and then agnostic person on their hand. Eventually they backed down and let it be, they realized I wasn't changing.

I was 16 and was out of the IB (High Honors Specialty Program) my mom realized pushing me to her bragging goals wasn't going to work.

I was 18 graduated and had no intention of going to an expensive prestigious school let alone had any grades for scholarships.

I got a job at an actions sports store as I worked my way through college.

I went to a JC, my family frowned, wondering why I wasn't going to directly to a 4 year univeristy.

I then transferred to a UC college here in California. I had half the student debt than most my peers.

I didn't major in the sciences or criminal law. I majored in marketing because I forced myself to be extroverted. I also did some minoring in computers (it was always a hobbie).

I graduated with a decent GPA, I had 2 internships under my belt, along with getting hired for the company, I'm still working for.

Family starts asking me about marriage, I laughed, even before game, before the forum, I knew that marriage was a bad deal.

I started becoming like a male relative I looked up to, doing what I wanted, no marriage, no kids, living the life I wanted and being free.

This relative told me "Once you do something for so long, it's hard to go back" - red pill truths without even know what it truly meant.


My family knows I do what I want, they've learned not to try and change me. I'm not a disappointment - I'm just doing my own thing and stay away from family dram. I'm actually glad they live on the other coast.


If there is a takeaway from this - do what you want, trust your gut, and fuck what others think if they're trying to drag you down.

Post: #17

(05-26-2016 02:39 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  My mom is a big-time drama Queen so I never deemed her rants or criticisms attention worthy. Dad's a man of few words however. Skyped him Tuesday evening & towards the end he goes " Alright son I love you regardless". I ask him what he exactly meant since we weren't having an argument or even talking about heavy topics. He goes " Well, you didn't turn out how your mother and I expected you to but we love you". I made some joke to diffuse the intensity of the situation but that shit felt like a cold blade to my heart.

Obviously you're recounting the story in text and Skype allows you to pick up visual cues, but still: sometimes fathers blurt shit out and don't realise the effect of their words.

Don't mistake your father's statement that he loves you regardless to mean that he loves you less because you chose a different path to the one he thought was best. Parental love doesn't work like that in most semi-functional families.

Don't mistake your father's statement that you didn't turn out the way they expected you to to mean that you fell short of a standard they specified to you and which you consented to. He may have just meant that he had some sort of prediction for the life path you'd choose of your own free will and his prediction was entirely wrong. It doesn't make your life path wrong, it makes his prediction wrong - that's all.

Recognise also that your parents are from a different generation. They are operating - understandably - on the belief that if you get a good university education, you're set for the best possible life in the West in a job that didn't require you to bust your ass physically or ruthlessly compete day-to-day as you would in physical labour or shit piece-rate jobs like door-to-door salesmanship. As late as 30 years ago that assertion was correct. It's not anymore (partially because all those families' aspirations have been met with a chronic oversupply of university graduates) but a lot of families haven't recognised that yet.

You don't have to share your parents' perspective, but you can appreciate it exists. There's about only one aphorism from a Stephen King novel that I've adopted to any extent in my own life. It basically comes down to this: "Your parents are getting too old to change their ways ... but you're getting old enough to understand that."

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #18

I did what they wanted and it didn't work out, so they let me do what I like now and they're supportive.

I went to college (first generation college grad) and that didn't pan out, so now I'm working abroad and supporting myself. I think they're fine with this given how many of my peers aren't doing shit back home.

My dad did express disappointment that I didn't into law, but he's gotten over it. What am I supposed to do? apologize? Fuck that.

he and I spoke on the phone recently and he remarked that I'm happy and have a plan for the first time, so I guess it all worked out.

I think parents are usually cool if you have a plan and aren't just being a drunkard/party-animal. I did the party-animal thing for too long and they got scared, which is understandable in my book.

Post: #19

(05-26-2016 04:38 PM)Avon Barksdale Wrote:  ATD does your family not understand how good you will have it as an officer in the military?

They got no clue but I don't think it's about lifestyle or money. It's all mental. Kaotic mentioned something about his mother's "bragging rights" which seems to be the case in my situation and something I noticed in other families as well.

My mom seems to be bothered with the fact that she might need to tell her friends who have Physicians & Lawyers as children that her son is "just" in the military.

I'm 100% committed to this decision. Just want to get rid of their passive aggressive remarks. It's one thing to deal with that shit when you're 19. At my age, I just want them to get off my back and accept me for who I am.

Thanks for all the comments and advice guys.

Post: #20

(05-26-2016 11:04 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  

(05-26-2016 04:38 PM)Avon Barksdale Wrote:  ATD does your family not understand how good you will have it as an officer in the military?

They got no clue but I don't think it's about lifestyle or money. It's all mental. Kaotic mentioned something about his mother's "bragging rights" which seems to be the case in my situation and something I noticed in other families as well.

My mom seems to be bothered with the fact that she might need to tell her friends who have Physicians & Lawyers as children that her son is "just" in the military.

I'm 100% committed to this decision. Just want to get rid of their passive aggressive remarks. It's one thing to deal with that shit when you're 19. At my age, I just want them to get off my back and accept me for who I am.

Thanks for all the comments and advice guys.

What branch?

Aloha!

Post: #21

^Army.

Planning on putting Hawaii on my OCONUS active duty station dreamsheet.

Aloha!

Post: #22

Good to hear. Schofield barracks is ten minutes from my house. You can come over.

Your parents will change their tone once they see you all dressed in the uniform.

And wait till you Skype with your dad from Afghanistan. They'll be proud, just give them some time. I dealt with basically the same thing with some of my family.

You just worry about killing terrorists and spreading freedom.

Aloha!

Post: #23

From my relocation thread - bolded part is most useful here:

(05-22-2015 02:47 PM)262 Wrote:  Part 5: What to expect from friends & family, & what I'll tell work

My strategy for telling my close friends and family about my plan to move abroad was to warn them about a year in advance. The idea was to give them time to accept the idea, knowing that some might never accept it. Overall, I think this strategy was better than telling them at the last minute, since I'm imagining some of them panicking in that scenario, and possibly acting to prevent me from carrying out my plan. Time will tell to see if they do this still.

Like Roosh, my mom is having the hardest time with my plan. She obviously wants me to stay in the US, likely because she sees herself - and thus me - as a beneficiary of the (increasingly) liberal and (formerly) prosperous US culture, over her former, more conservative and (formerly) less properous Asian culture. Thanks to Roosh, I can expect my mom to also figure I'll just come back in a few months or years, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

My dad is neutral on my plan. Unlike my mom, he's the one who took the big risk coming to the US, obviously before the days of the Internet and relatively inexpensive plane tickets (so all he basically knew was that it was a rich white country that hopefully wouldn't lynch him if he was careful). His family was neutral to unsupportive of him coming to the US, because in their eyes, things weren't that bad in their country. His foresight about how over-competitive his country was to become from a job perspective ended up benefiting those family members who had been neutral to unsupportive of his move in the past, since he was able to help them come to the US a decade or so later. I think he understands that since he hasn't had my experience in today's world, he can't say whether the move is good or not. But if there's one thing that I learned from his experience, it's that it can pay to be an early-mover if you're convinced of a foresight (in my case, the foresight that the US is going to become over-competitive from a sex perspective).

Oddly enough, my married male friends are supportive of my move, while my single male friends are neutral, at best. It may be that my married male friends want to live vicariously through me, but it may also be their way of warning me away from the trap that caught them. My single male friends say I'm throwing away a great lifestyle, but I figure they're simply ego-invested in the US ("All my dating work for scraps at best? It can't be! They promised!").

What's even odder is that my single female friends (who I rarely hang out with though) are supportive of my move. I guess since we don't want to bang, they can freely admit that women have the upper hand to men when it comes to banging, relative to other countries. They seem to admit this the way that Sheryl Sandberg openly admits to hypergamy (bang alphas when young, extract resources from betas when old). In both cases, it seems they figure that enough males will go along with the program anyway, even in the face of these traditionally unfavorable admissions.

Obviously I haven't told anyone I directly work with, since they don't need to know anyway. I'll just give them the standard two weeks notice and say I'm taking time off to travel the world. That's an easy "lie" to maintain since it's close to the truth. But I'll definitely not reveal any neomasculine truths. I won't have anything to lose, but I can't be bothered with the hassles, and I'll leave the neomasculine conversions where they lie best - when the students seek the teachers.

Post: #24

They'll fall in line once they see you with all the poise that comes with being in the military. Some guys don't get it, but you're committed and you'll probably come out of it better off. I think most of us agree that when you see a man in uniform that we feel a bit of pride and I imagine the same thing will happen with your family.

(05-26-2016 11:04 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  

(05-26-2016 04:38 PM)Avon Barksdale Wrote:  ATD does your family not understand how good you will have it as an officer in the military?

They got no clue but I don't think it's about lifestyle or money. It's all mental. Kaotic mentioned something about his mother's "bragging rights" which seems to be the case in my situation and something I noticed in other families as well.

My mom seems to be bothered with the fact that she might need to tell her friends who have Physicians & Lawyers as children that her son is "just" in the military.

I'm 100% committed to this decision. Just want to get rid of their passive aggressive remarks. It's one thing to deal with that shit when you're 19. At my age, I just want them to get off my back and accept me for who I am.

Thanks for all the comments and advice guys.

Post: #25

(05-26-2016 02:39 PM)Anabasis to Desta Wrote:  I'm fairly certain most of us are beyond the point where we care what random strangers think about our life and choices. But how about family members who we love and cherish? I'm shipping out to Basic in three weeks at age 26. My parents and extended family members accept my decision but their vision for me was entirely different.

According to their plan, I should have been a year away from graduating Medical school, along with a sweet fiance' and wedding plans as soon as I graduated. Instead, I have a useless Industrial Engineering degree, worked in a career I hate for a couple years and am a borderline alcoholic.

My mom is a big-time drama Queen so I never deemed her rants or criticisms attention worthy. Dad's a man of few words however. Skyped him Tuesday evening & towards the end he goes " Alright son I love you regardless". I ask him what he exactly meant since we weren't having an argument or even talking about heavy topics. He goes " Well, you didn't turn out how your mother and I expected you to but we love you". I made some joke to diffuse the intensity of the situation but that shit felt like a cold blade to my heart.

Have you guys dealt with similar situations? How do you emancipate yourselves from familial slavery without straining the actual relationship or considering cutting them off to an extent?

That sounds like a tough situation that can cause a deep rift in a family relationship.

Still keep in mind it is a hangup of theirs, not yours. You can use tools of persuasion to improve a relationship.

I wrote you a PM of actionable advice and am willing to post it if you like the suggestions.