Kinda my view too. In a way I've always envied those who can be content and happy without always striving and working like a madman. I am better now, but in my youth I worked all the time, always hustling. So maybe those coffee drinkers have life figured out for themselves.
Tell her that your trick cut is due, lest you should be inclined to have her bear witness to your ice cold hand
Well, she did great in college and is otherwise a very stable, reliable person. I sat down, helped out with cover letters, cleaned up resume, sent out apps one weekend to 30-40 jobs, not even one single callback. I think it has discouraged her, but I can't blame her. I guess I'm a little bit more head-strong than her, because I would flip out in her situation and go work myself to the bone. I was just upset when I made the post because I paid her college loan payment for two months already. On her own, she could not pay off her college debt -- and it's basically a car payment. I almost don't want to pay it and let them sack her credit, but am not sure how to handle this. Since we are not married, I don't have to pay it. But at the same time, I don't want her to be in a position where she can't get credit in the future. Her parents are paycheck to paycheck, because they bought a home real cheap near NYC years ago, where the property taxes went sky high, and where their real income is chewed out by the cost of living. A few hundred bucks is no skin off my back, but I'm angry about the overall situation. Her current plan is graduate school, but I've warned her that if she doesn't get much financial aid, that this will be disastrous.
You're telling me. It's a serious problem. But I can't just go create a job that's "good enough". I told her working at McDonalds just to cut down on debt was a good idea, but she just will not do it.
I wonder if you have a full appreciation for the potential that exists, so perhaps one simple and true story will help. A friend of my family got in on the ground floor on a nice opportunity and did pretty well. Not filthy rich, but solidly upper middle class if not lower upper class. His wife passed away, and eventually a girlfriend moved in with him in his house. After a while their relationship deteriorated and he asked her to leave. She refused. I think he called the cops, but they weren't about to remove her by force. Turns out that you cannot just toss your live in girlfriend into the street. He had to evict her, follow the same lengthy process of forms and court dates and notices and get a lawyer and all that stuff just to break up with his POS girlfriend. To offer full disclosure, I don't know if she was paying some money as part of the mortgage payment and/or utilities. Further, I did not talk to him about this, everything is second hand. Second hand from his side of the story, I might note. Doesn't mean that your girlfriend is the same sort of skanky-@$$ white trash as the victim above's was or anything else. Just a story from some anonymous internet poster that perhaps suggests a bit of consideration can be a fine thing.
My situation is not nearly as dire. I'm more convinced that the economy is just making it very hard for people with little experience to really hack it, but the situation is alien to me in my own experience. But the situation does cause some tensions, but mostly when I myself am frustrated. Of course, I posted because I can't imagine this not happening to anyone else. And, because I don't think the jobs situation is improving at all. I think the real, real issue is somehow getting positivity and encouragement into the situation, despite the odds being unfavorable. Someone who gets great grades and works hard may not be familiar with "failure" in the job market sense. Me, personally, I have never taken job rejection too hard. For a new person, I think it affects them much more deeply. My story is really from "the trenches", so to speak. Jobs-situation ground zero. What Obama is saying and what the government is saying don't match up to my view of reality for the people around me.
If you have to come on Elitetrader to discuss your relationship issues, I'd say you have deeper problems.
Maybe, but it's not really a relationship issue so much as it is an economics issue. I've never been in the jobless-affected-by-the-economy situation, except when both my parents got laid off in the late 80s / early 90s. When that happened, they both instinctively just started looking for jobs. Mom found one first, then a friend of hers helped my dad find a job. But the situation took about 4-6 months to resolve, -and- they had a mortgage at the time. I've been unemployed on and off, but my behavior when unemployed was aggressive and the worst unemployment I faced was about 3.5 months.
You have to ask yourself, what is YOUR long term plan with this relationship? Do you see yourself being with her 3 years from now? What if you break up 2 years down the road and you have paid 24 months of her bills and she has no intention of paying you back? If she is marrying material, and this happened when already married, what would you do? I guess then her credit would be your credit problem too. Now if you get as much of good things (sex, cleaning, companionship,cooking,etc.) out of the situation as you pay then you can look at it as being even. The big problem is if those things what you do with her don't equal your financial support...