Moonbear said:
On the other hand, if it's a more short-term thing, such as you need to work really hard for 5 years to get promoted to a certain level that will bring better stability and ability to support a family, then one would hope your significant other could understand and be supportive of that need in the short term as long as they know that the early sacrifice will get you long-term gain that will let you enjoy doing more things together.
That, again, reminds me a lot of what my gf says, too. She pointed out that when I had to defend my thesis, if anything she only encouraged me to spend more time on it, because it was real deadline. What she has problem with is when I don't have any obligations from outside, and I set up my own deadlines and/or assignments for myself.
I guess the reason I have problem with this is that, since I was 9 year old, I had a dream of being famous physicist, like Einstein. My goal has always been doing "my own physics" (which, by the way, is the reason why I make assignments for myself -- I was teaching my advisor the physics I was doing, not the other way around). So, this goal can not be accomplished if I simply follow the minimal requirenments that others impose on me.
Now, from your reply I can see how I can spin it by saying "if I will be famous I will also be rich, so this will help our relationship long term". But this would not be an honest reason. I want to be famous for the sake of being famous. I don't care whether or not this would get me promoted, or any other practical benefits that come with it. For all I care, I might as well be homeless; as long as I am famous that is all I need.
I did ask my gf the following question: if practical requirenments (such as completting ph.d. on time) are more important than my own requirenments (such as posting a certain arxiv paper a week from now which no one cares about besides me), then why should I be a physicist on the first place -- no one "required" me to choose physics as my career; in fact, I would probably make more money as a businessman. I don't remember her answer to be honest, I believe she answered something along the lines that I shouldn't be so black or white. But anyway, that is one of the questions I have.
There is also another angle to the issue that you brought up. As a result of my bad history with physics department (see this post
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=314153 ) I made myself a bad reputation and no one wanted to be my advisor, other than retired professor who is not in my field (my field being quantum gravity, and my advisor's field being car safety). In order to accommodate my interest, me and my advisor agreed to find an advisor from a different school whose work is in my field. Since neither retired professor from my own school, nor the working professor from a different school, are in a position to support me, I got no money for my work; my sole source of financial support is my mom.
Appart from that, I didn't have any real assignments either. The field of the professor working at the other university is causal set theory. This is a very obscure approach to quantum gravity, in which only 20 professors have been working, worldwide. Even though this approach has been around for a while, not much progress was made. I decided to take advantage of that, and invent completely different approach to causal sets of my own -- thus fulfilling part of my dream I had at 9 year old to do "my own physics". As a result, I am basically teaching my advisors (including the one in the field) and not the other way around, so I don't have any assignments.
I don't think my gf brought it up any time recent. But I remember her saying a year ago "if that is your job, are you being payed for it?" and "were you actually given this assignment, or did you come up with it on your own?". Of course, one thing I can say in my defense is that my project kept me in school and also I just defended a thesis on it and the whole committee (made out of 6 ppl) approved it. But still, she is right in a sense that I was supervising myself throughout this project, which means that I could have done twice less and still have defended it.
I guess the reason I don't like THIS being one of the reasons that she doesn't take my work seriously is that, like I mentioend earlier, the whole reason I was in a situation when I didn't have real supervision was that I screwed up in the past. So, if I put all that together, it sounds like "since you were a bad physicist in the past, you might as well continue to be bad".Now I know she does not actually think that way. After all, I confronted her on that by asking what if I had a real supervisor who pays me, and who told me to do a lot of research, how would then we manage our time? I think her answer was something along the lines that she would have given me all the time I want before the deadline set up by my advisor is approaching, but not otherwise. So, since my advisor won't be giving me deadlines every few days, we would have time together.
I guess it PARTLY answers my question: say, real advisor would be giving me deadlines once a month, and then I will only be busy once a month, un-like now when I am busy every day. However, there is another side of a coin to this: if I stop making myself busy every day, then I would be busy LESS often than once a month since I won't have assignments. So it is no win situation: I can either be more busy than once a month or less busy. Okay, actually, this whole thing is not very relevant now because I just got my ph.d. and I am starting a postdoc. In postdoc I WILL have a real paying job and stuff. So I guess I was just talking about it just for a general assessment of her mindset.
Speaking of the issue of my prospects, one thing that my gf said a couple of times is that, in her honest opinion, she doesn't see how I would become a professor given the poor social skills I have right now. I suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, which is considered to be a mild form of autism. While this does not affect my academic skills (in fact, a lot of ppl with Asperger are quite successful in their field of interest), it severely impairs my social skills. So, my gf said that she doesn't see how I would be able to be a professor at a university where I have to teach; the only option she sees for me is to work in a research institute where teaching is not part of the duties.
I called her on it by asking whether it means that she thinks I shouldn't take my career seriously because it won't work anyway. Her response was that no she does not mean that. Quite the opposite: she thinks I CAN improve my social skills by socializing more (in particular, with her), but that means I shouldn't devolte so much time to physics that I don't have time for social skills. I guess I hope that the latter is her real motivation as opposed to the former.
To me it seems that her blaming my Asperger is part of the problem. Fixation on a narrow area of interest is common among people with Asperger, and she viewes my research in physics as such fixation. In fact, I remember the following conversation. We were talking about my controlling mom who views me as a little kid (insists on calling me every day, asks whether I ate and what I ate, bends down to tie my shoes, etc) and tries to find ways to sabotages my relationship with my gf simply because she doesn't approve of her. In that conversation my gf pointed out to me that, unlike my mom, she never makes me do anything I don't want to. The only time she tries to change my actions is when she sees that my motive is to please my mom, as opposed to do what I trully want to do. I then asked her, how about physics? In case of my studying all the time it has nothing to do with my mom. Her answer was that in case of physics this is my fixaction due to Asperger, so it is a different story since it goes to abnormal extend.
In other words, the implication of this is that she views my physics as part of Asperger, which is what gives her attitude about it. I can further support this point. She believes her father, also, has Asperger's. She believes that the reason he watches TV a lot is because it is his Asperger's-related fixation (although I don't agree with her on this point -- in my mind, watching TV is a sign of laziness, not a fixation, and laziness has nothing to do with Asperger). Anyway, both of her parents neglected her when she was growing up. In the past she was comparing the way I neglected her for physics to the way her father neglected her for TV. One thing I suspect is that if she didn't blame my physics, or his TV, on Asperger, she would have seen that one is career and the other is hobby, and they are not to be compared. But, due to her thinking that both are part of Asperger, she thinks physics is REALLY my hobby, it just "happened" that one can make career out of it; then, a natural consequence of that belief, would be hurt feelings that I neglect her for a hobby.
That is one reason I make this post. You guys don't have Asperger. So, if some of you guys still overfocus to the extend that I do, then the implication would be that may be this is not a symptom of my Asperger, but rather the one of being a scientist. And, if such is true, then perhaps I am a scientist who happened to have Asperger's, as opposed to someone who decided to be a scientist because of the Asperger.
Moonbear said:
Basically, you need to decide your priorities. If career is more important than your relationships, your relationships will suffer. If your relationships are more important than your career, you may be slower to promotion but happier at home. Or, seek out someone who shares your goals. If you find another workaholic, you may get along well.
Are you saying that all successful physicists have unhappy wifes?
