{"id":28877,"date":"2025-12-29T08:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T08:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/2025\/12\/29\/dear-abby-my-job-makes-me-depressed-would-it-be-selfish-of-me-to-quit\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T08:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T08:55:14","slug":"dear-abby-my-job-makes-me-depressed-would-it-be-selfish-of-me-to-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/2025\/12\/29\/dear-abby-my-job-makes-me-depressed-would-it-be-selfish-of-me-to-quit\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Abby: My job makes me depressed \u2013 would it be selfish of me to quit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Feeling Unfulfilled in Career and Marriage<\/h1>\n<h2>Introduction to the Problem<\/h2>\n<p>I&#8217;m in my early 30s and happy in certain aspects of my life. I recently moved into a house and married a man I love very much. I have friends, hobbies, and dreams. One of those dreams is to become a novelist, although I currently do marketing for a technology company.<\/p>\n<h2>The Source of Unhappiness<\/h2>\n<p>This brings me to my problem: I feel depressed by my job. I don&#8217;t enjoy working in technology marketing; this is something I have done for the past few years to pay my bills. My job is stressful and fast-paced, and people can be impatient. I usually keep work-related depression at bay by jogging, writing, and spending time with loved ones. But lately, these things haven&#8217;t assuaged the negative feelings I have at work. In fact, I&#8217;ve started to find less joy in the things I normally do in my free time.<\/p>\n<h2>Fear of Failure and Financial Constraints<\/h2>\n<p>I feel like a failure for trying to write a novel despite working so hard. I&#8217;m afraid that if I quit my job, I&#8217;ll be unable to make the mortgage payments and cause undue stress on my husband. He is also unhappy with his technical job, but does it to support us. A new job won&#8217;t solve the problem because I felt bad about other tech marketing jobs that paid me enough money to afford our house and save for a child (another dream).<\/p>\n<h2>Seeking Advice<\/h2>\n<p>How do I get out from under this rain cloud? Do I want too much out of life? One solution that might work for me would be to get a part-time job in tech that will help me pay the mortgage while giving me free time for my writing work. Give myself a year&#8217;s notice, see if there&#8217;s interest in what I&#8217;ve produced, and go from there.<\/p>\n<h2>A Different Financial Concern<\/h2>\n<p>Should I change my financial arrangement with my husband? We have been married for 18 years and have a joint checking account. He has a separate account for his side business that is just for him. I have a separate account that I use for professional purposes to renew licenses and finance my continuing education. For the past few years, he has insisted that I pay my own medical bills (which were previously always deducted from our joint account).<\/p>\n<h2>Health Concerns and Financial Independence<\/h2>\n<p>I have a history of thyroid cancer and my family has a history of more serious cancers. He tells me that I go to the doctor too often. I usually go for a physical exam, thyroid exam, and gynecologist every year. We have health insurance. I&#8217;m wondering if I should just ask for my paycheck to be deposited into my own account and then transfer money to the joint account to cover our household bills, which he also pays. I don&#8217;t want to start an argument about this as he and I are quite traditional in many ways. <\/p>\n<h2>Finding a Solution<\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s time for me and my husband to sit down with a financial advisor and work out something that is fair for both of us. Our CPA may be able to help us or recommend someone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feeling Unfulfilled in Career and Marriage Introduction to the Problem I&#8217;m in my early 30s and happy in certain aspects of my life. I recently moved into a house and married a man I love very much. I have friends, hobbies, and dreams. One of those dreams is to become a novelist, although I currently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[21367,4317,65,7929,2277,21365,14256,21364,17631,21366,20430,1919],"class_list":{"0":"post-28877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lifestyle","8":"tag-be-the-cowboy","9":"tag-dear-abby","10":"tag-depression-mood","11":"tag-gynaecology","12":"tag-health-insurance","13":"tag-i-want-too-much","14":"tag-physical-examination","15":"tag-the-man-i-love-1947-film","16":"tag-thyroid","17":"tag-thyroid-cancer","18":"tag-transaction-account","19":"tag-work-human-activity"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28879,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28877\/revisions\/28879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}