- Jun 20, 2022
- 4
- 12
- 52
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Lutheran
- Marital Status
- Married
My wife and I moved back to the Midwest after seeing the state of our family's farm and my parent's health. When I lived here before, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for a good career. When we moved west, I was able to not only get into a good career, but I was thriving in it and felt it was totally a blessing from God. We were living out west for 5 years and when I moved back, I was making 6 fig's and we were incredibly happy.
Forewarning, this is a bit of a rant and I'm sorry, but I really just need to vent for a sec because I no longer understand what God is doing with me here or why he had us come back here. If there's a lesson or something, I don't feel I'm getting it.
When we moved back, my career was already taking a hit. I was getting paid now less than half what I was making before. People like to say it's due to CoL, but before when I could save almost $50k in mere months, here I was living paycheck to paycheck unable to save anything and we weren't even paying a mortgage or rent or anything. I looked around and it was just the going pay rate for my job. So, that forced me to have to work remotely as long as we stay here which isn't easy because I'm competing for jobs with everyone else in the nation now. 2.5 years later after moving back, I've been out of work for 4 months now. My wife is working, but her job also pays less than half of what she was making previously, and we can barely get by on it.
Mom passed 6 months after we moved back, leaving us to take care of my dad. Dad and I have never been the best of friends. I love him, but if we met on the sidewalk, I don't think we'd be friends. In the time we've been here, I've grown more and more frustrated and so has my wife who is now expecting our first child. We stay at the family with dad because he asked us to, made me promise two times that we wouldn't leave. My wife comments uncomfortably how much he likes being waiting on. He's made comments and requests of her that have made her uncomfortable and irritated me when I learned of what he said, but I felt in an awkward position being his son and knowing how defensive he gets when you try talking to him about his behavior. In his mind, he's never at fault and never does anything wrong, which of course drives us crazy. After seeing our faith, he decided to pursue Christ and reads the Bible every morning and studies the Word. It's another reason I just don't get his actions or decisions at times.
We went through our whole savings making sure we had good holidays to remember, paying our bills, and putting food on the table; literally down to our last dollar. The reason we're down to our last dollar is because after moving back here, I've been out of work most of the time with local employers telling me I'm way overqualified and remote opportunities all are contract jobs which don't last long. It upsets me because I worked so hard at building my career and I am very good at it and I know God will place me somewhere. The wait and constant job searching is exhausting though.
Our farm is one of the oldest in the state and the oldest in our county. 200 years. I'm 7th generation. It's important to me that it stays in the family for future generations. If we leave, I don't trust my dad not to give it to another family member who would just sell it, and they would. Honestly, the farm doesn't make much money and whoever takes it over would have to spend money to keep it going. The work it takes around here to keep it up to snuff is a lot. My wife and I understand the importance of the farm, but tbh, we don't really want to take it over, we just don't trust anyone else to not sell it. Once it's gone...it's gone forever and I don't want to rob future generations of that.
I feel like we haven't had a life since moving back here and I feel like we've given everything we have to be here and help dad without much gratitude. When I had my quad bypass he cared for about two days and then as he portrayed it, became wrecked with worry about me, making my wife work double-time on caring for him just as much as me as I was trying to recover from the surgery. (not fun at all btw.) When we thought we had lost our baby, he ignored the whole situation and went into to his room and cranked up a college basketball game. The list goes on and on. Now, we can't afford to buy groceries anymore. Week before last he said he would take over buying groceries, now he says he won't, just out of the blue. (dad's a multimillionaire) It left me frustrated and angry because here I feel like we sacrificed everything down until we now have nothing to make sure we had food, and he won't contribute at all now even after offering. I know everything will work out but living with him and taking of care of him...I'm sorry and I know this sounds bad....but we are really over it. Every time I think he can't get more selfish and self-preservationist, he continues to disappoint me. My wife and I know we are burned out. We know how we feel is wrong. We know we need to turn to love and understanding. I'm just sick to death of whatever lesson God is trying to teach us and we want our watch to be over! We want our lives back. That in itself is selfish but it's how we feel. I certainly don't want our baby coming into and living in this environment. There is a big part of us that wishes we had never moved back here to try and do the right thing. Honestly, I'm starting to lose my faith over living like this because I'm beginning to feel like this is some big joke the universe is playing on us. There are times I begin questioning that if there is a God, if there is a Father in heaven and loves us, I can understand a thing or two for testing us, but for the endless enduring and losses we go through since coming back here and on top of it, making us take care of a dad we can't stand to be around because he makes us feel like servants and doesn't seem to care a lick. If I could give up, I would, but I can't.
Sorry for the vent, I know probably more than half of this sounds selfish, but dealing with this day in day out for the past almost 3 years has made us very thin. Blessing to you all. We could use your prayers and so could my dad.
Forewarning, this is a bit of a rant and I'm sorry, but I really just need to vent for a sec because I no longer understand what God is doing with me here or why he had us come back here. If there's a lesson or something, I don't feel I'm getting it.
When we moved back, my career was already taking a hit. I was getting paid now less than half what I was making before. People like to say it's due to CoL, but before when I could save almost $50k in mere months, here I was living paycheck to paycheck unable to save anything and we weren't even paying a mortgage or rent or anything. I looked around and it was just the going pay rate for my job. So, that forced me to have to work remotely as long as we stay here which isn't easy because I'm competing for jobs with everyone else in the nation now. 2.5 years later after moving back, I've been out of work for 4 months now. My wife is working, but her job also pays less than half of what she was making previously, and we can barely get by on it.
Mom passed 6 months after we moved back, leaving us to take care of my dad. Dad and I have never been the best of friends. I love him, but if we met on the sidewalk, I don't think we'd be friends. In the time we've been here, I've grown more and more frustrated and so has my wife who is now expecting our first child. We stay at the family with dad because he asked us to, made me promise two times that we wouldn't leave. My wife comments uncomfortably how much he likes being waiting on. He's made comments and requests of her that have made her uncomfortable and irritated me when I learned of what he said, but I felt in an awkward position being his son and knowing how defensive he gets when you try talking to him about his behavior. In his mind, he's never at fault and never does anything wrong, which of course drives us crazy. After seeing our faith, he decided to pursue Christ and reads the Bible every morning and studies the Word. It's another reason I just don't get his actions or decisions at times.
We went through our whole savings making sure we had good holidays to remember, paying our bills, and putting food on the table; literally down to our last dollar. The reason we're down to our last dollar is because after moving back here, I've been out of work most of the time with local employers telling me I'm way overqualified and remote opportunities all are contract jobs which don't last long. It upsets me because I worked so hard at building my career and I am very good at it and I know God will place me somewhere. The wait and constant job searching is exhausting though.
Our farm is one of the oldest in the state and the oldest in our county. 200 years. I'm 7th generation. It's important to me that it stays in the family for future generations. If we leave, I don't trust my dad not to give it to another family member who would just sell it, and they would. Honestly, the farm doesn't make much money and whoever takes it over would have to spend money to keep it going. The work it takes around here to keep it up to snuff is a lot. My wife and I understand the importance of the farm, but tbh, we don't really want to take it over, we just don't trust anyone else to not sell it. Once it's gone...it's gone forever and I don't want to rob future generations of that.
I feel like we haven't had a life since moving back here and I feel like we've given everything we have to be here and help dad without much gratitude. When I had my quad bypass he cared for about two days and then as he portrayed it, became wrecked with worry about me, making my wife work double-time on caring for him just as much as me as I was trying to recover from the surgery. (not fun at all btw.) When we thought we had lost our baby, he ignored the whole situation and went into to his room and cranked up a college basketball game. The list goes on and on. Now, we can't afford to buy groceries anymore. Week before last he said he would take over buying groceries, now he says he won't, just out of the blue. (dad's a multimillionaire) It left me frustrated and angry because here I feel like we sacrificed everything down until we now have nothing to make sure we had food, and he won't contribute at all now even after offering. I know everything will work out but living with him and taking of care of him...I'm sorry and I know this sounds bad....but we are really over it. Every time I think he can't get more selfish and self-preservationist, he continues to disappoint me. My wife and I know we are burned out. We know how we feel is wrong. We know we need to turn to love and understanding. I'm just sick to death of whatever lesson God is trying to teach us and we want our watch to be over! We want our lives back. That in itself is selfish but it's how we feel. I certainly don't want our baby coming into and living in this environment. There is a big part of us that wishes we had never moved back here to try and do the right thing. Honestly, I'm starting to lose my faith over living like this because I'm beginning to feel like this is some big joke the universe is playing on us. There are times I begin questioning that if there is a God, if there is a Father in heaven and loves us, I can understand a thing or two for testing us, but for the endless enduring and losses we go through since coming back here and on top of it, making us take care of a dad we can't stand to be around because he makes us feel like servants and doesn't seem to care a lick. If I could give up, I would, but I can't.
Sorry for the vent, I know probably more than half of this sounds selfish, but dealing with this day in day out for the past almost 3 years has made us very thin. Blessing to you all. We could use your prayers and so could my dad.
