Hello everyone, I realise I haven't posted for a while but work and personal life has been rather manic of late... it's so nice to have a job I actually like doing and get to do some research and get to work at the cutting edge!

Anyway, I have a bit of a problem and wanted to get the usual great insights I get from people on here. It's been quite a while since I did my PhD but I haven't totally forgotten what it was like. But my partner (doing his PhD in final year) I am... well starting to resent a bit. I've made a lot of decisions and put my life on hold a bit whilst he finishes but the issue of a J O B keeps cropping up. When we talk about it, he keeps just pushing back further and further when he plans to get one. And then says he's been talking to other people (but not me) about these plans. I feel so excluded from what is a major decision for the both of us. Especially when I've turned down a good opportunity at work in order to stay here for him. But at the moment I just feel like marching into the guy's office and telling him I want to take it and just bugger off and be selfish.

I don't know what the answer is but it just makes me more and more irate thinking about it. I remember what it was like finishing my PhD but I was single at the time so only had myself to think of. I don't want to be selfish, normally I would have been but it's nice to have met someone I just really click with mostly. But not about this issue that's for sure!!!!

Maybe his mind is consumed by finishing his PhD and he can't get beyond that point. Communication is the key...

I was of the mindset when writing up that all I wanted to do was get finished. In the end I did get a job whilst writing up (post-doc at my PhD Uni.), however, there was more effort put into the write-up than the job.

People were asking me to make decisions about my life when I couldn't see past the next section of my thesis. Outsiders do not understand what we put ourselves through and (within reason) our need to be left alone and allowed to get on with it. One friend I think was expecting me to prioritise driving lessons ahead of the PhD, saying a full driving license would make the biggest difference to my life of all and this when I was close to submitting. Me being me, if someone pressures me over something, I resist all the harder especially if I'm focussed on something else.

It's a few years since I finished, yet the memories of write-up are still fresh for me. I'm aware you probably want him to do his share but it's probably a decision he's not able to make psychologically at the moment. If he's anything like many PhD candidates, a job will come onto the agenda as the funding runs out and he realises he has to have an income. He will come to that decision himself.

If you try to pressure him as a time when he's already under a great deal of pressure, you have to be careful what gives. He could decide you're being a bossy boots and the pressure you're applying is something he can do without.

Do you want to lose him by pressing too much on the issue? Some of my friendships were put on hold (see above) during the latter stages of write-up, simply because I wanted to do without the grief.


Ian (Mackem_Beefy)