Not sure if any of you remember me. Even when I frequented this site I was always more of a lurker than a contributor.. Sorry for the long post, you don't have to read if you don't want to!
So, I guess I'll start off by saying that I am not at all jealous of the woman marrying my ex today. We dated so many years ago, when we were 14, and I'm in a relationship with another amazing guy that I hope to marry one day. So trust me when I say, I'm not sad that my ex is no longer available... That's not it.
I think what is getting to me is that I see many people around me lately that chose different career paths (my ex, for example, is in the military) that have set them up for marriage and that happiness earlier. Meanwhile, I just graduated with my Bachelor's, am in grad school, and have another couple years until I can even work.. At which point I will have student loans to start paying, and I won't make a ton of money in my chosen field, so who knows when I'll be able to say I'm financially stable and ready for marriage in that aspect.
I think my ex getting married is making me feel almost childish, like I haven't completed as much as I could have in that time, because I chose to go to college. And it seems like an eternity until I will reach that step. For any of you who might remember me, I've grown up a bit since I posted about being sad because I wasn't engaged. I totally understand that I'm not really ready for marriage due to my financial situation. Now I just get upset because I feel like that time may never come. Sometimes I wish I'd just started working retail full time after high school. It wouldn't be the best living, but at least I'd have money coming in regularly and could plan for a future. *perfect time to switch to my facebook tab to see that a woman I graduated high school with, who did just as I was saying, is now engaged, and pregnant*
So, yeah, I guess what I'm asking is if anyone has had experience dealing with feelings of professional/career inadequacy and relating that to fearing you'll never be able to get married? Any good ways to cope? (And obviously I'm throwing myself into graduate school 100%, but I always find time to freak about stupid things..)
Thanks for reading, or even just providing a space for me to voice my feelings.
"Love is hard and love is messy and it can hurt worse than fire, and sometimes it makes you wanna tear down a building with your bare hands, but it also happens to be the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I'm obviously not a big fan of hyperbole."