Question about your (life) partner 1

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Ok, here's a few questions I'm interested in hearing the answers to.

How many of you have husbands, wives, girlfirends or boyfriends that are engineers or have technical or scientific jobs?

Would you prefer to marry (or date) someone with a technical / science background or would you prefer someone who works in an entirely different field?

I'll hold off on answering for myself until a few others reply.

 

[mog69]

Likewise - my better half is very caring, everything from children (ours and anybody elses'), old people, rescue dogs, you name it. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way, but just sometimes.............! Nice to know i'm not suffering alone tonight!

 

[BelspringKen]

I am glad my wife is in a different line of work. Its good to get away and talk about home at home, and keep work at work.

That being said, I would NOT advise anyone to rule out dating a person who does the same type of work different as you are doing. Judge people for who they are.

You may want to avoid an office romance. Some firms frown on it, and it could get to be uncomfortable if things don't work out.

 

[EddyC]

My girlfriend is an ME, like myself. I am proud that she is an ME. We met at the office and knew each other for several years before dating. I always liked her. We are in lateral positions in the company, so there is no workplace conflict.

 

[monkeydog]

ScottyUK said
"Sometimes the urge to scream "JUST SHUT UP!! I DON'T BLOODY CARE!!!" is overwhelming, but I have succeeded so far in just thinking it."

One evening my wife said "I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR STUPID PARTS!!!"

That was when I realized there is a whole other world out there (besides there are others places in this world besides the US).

 

[DaveVikingPE]

DaveVikingPE's wife: "What are you thinking about, honey?"

DaveVikingPE: "What do I usually think about? ALL THE TIME?!"

DaveVikingPE's wife: "You're thinking about other women!"

DaveVikingPE: "NO! I THINK ABOUT ENGINEERING ALL THE TIME."

DaveVikingPE's wife: "Same thing."

 

[wes616]

My wife is an architect. We don't talk about business when we get home. Ocassionally we make fun of civil/structural/mep engineer but thats about it...


Wes C.
------------------------------
Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

 

[ziggi]

Ohhhh you have to HANG the toilet paper!!
But why??? It's just as good sitting on the toilet tank, no difference in quality, no lack of effect, why waste your resources hanging it. Hehehe just kidding...my wife already drilled that out of me

In university we always considered engineering couples to be two people who just can't score anywhere else...needless to say I still dated an engineer....we broke up pretty quickly, it wasn't b/c of the career similarities.

I'm married to an actress now, basically she's good at exactly the things I'm not good at. I get to meet the strangest people, and I get to indulge my inner connoisseur. Plus we never talk engineering...well I do, she tries to listen, I try to listen when she talks about the reason for some theatre character's emotional color pattern, buzzzzzzzzz, AND I tune out.

It has its bad times, she's emotional and impractical, I'm logical and practical, thus we argue, usually about stupid things.
I wouldn't change it for anything.

 

[BJC]

It's all about synergy. The sum of you and your main squeeze has two be greater than 1+1. The occupations don't matter, the intelligence does. If your smarter than the average bear a stupid woman ( or man) is not much fun after a few days.
Everybody has problems there are times you need more strenght than you both have indivually.

 

[SWhit]

I think I get the best of both worlds. My wife has an engineering degree, but doesn't work as an engineer. She understands the way I think (and often thinks the same way), but I get the same reaction as monkeydog if I give more than an overview answer to: "So what did you do today?"

 

[nur12]

Have you noticed how many engineers are married to nurses? In every company I've every worked for there are always a few, A FEW. Actually, I can not think about any other occupations which follow the same pattern.. I am always puzzled by questions: why engineers and nurses? how do they actually meet? do engineers get hurt or sick more than others and so have more time to spend with nurses? or engineering and nursing schools are typically located close to each other?

Myself, I am an ME married to an ME. My first husband was an ME also. I guess it is a clinical case

 

[Snork]

I'm a ME, Pet. Eng, PE; My wife is a Met. Eng.; we are not only both engineers, we work at the same company - desks about 50 meters apart - and on the same projects to some extent. We've been together for 20 years and although we've had our fights neither of us has any desire to divorce. We have no kids (maybe that's why no divorce?). We talk about work, BBC shows, our horses and dogs, philosophy, religion, history, current events (the upcoming Bush coronation for instance), the Fab 5, dresses on the red carpet at the Oscars and Emmy's, hunting, music (everything from Bach to Galic Storm to Hendrix to Hank Williams (Sr., Jr. and III)), and gourmet cooking.

The idea that one should marry outside of engineering to avoid a dull life is a load of ####!! If you're dull, you'll be dull no matter who you marry.

 

[IRstuff]

Sure, medical is sort of engineering. The body is a chemical-electrical-mechanical-optical system. Lots of good stuff there. My previous almost wives were a nurse and a pharmacist.

TTFN

 

[kontiki99]

I'm not married. I have managed to not get too tangled up with women in every occupation.

 

[berkshire]

my wife is an editor,
every time she sees me writing something on here, she just shakes her head and walks away.
B.E.

 

[jmw]

Oh Great! an Agony Engineer thread!

My wife is now completely domesticated (well, nearly so) but she was an Anaesthetist (however spelt) and her eldest brother a surgeon and two nephews are a plastic surgeon and a micro-surgeon (yes, he is quite short).

We do actually talk shop. She talks and I listen. I understand nothing of what she says (a recent survey reported that most men don't actually listent, but do konw enough to nod and go "uh ha" and "yes dear" every so often).

No toilet role issues but she is a tothpaste tube pest - she squeezes at the nozzle end and I then have to then squeeze it all from the back of the tube to the front. In the old days (sorry, wrong thread but never mind) when toothpaste came in metalised tubes you could roll them up from the back end. Now they insist on straightening themselves out again. This means that just as soon as she can get at it she squezes from the nozzle end and while some undoubtedly comes out, all the rest promptly goes to the back of the tube again.

I have at last learned the trick of letting her shop on her own without worrying if we will have to sell the house. Last week I dumped her at a Factory outlet Mall with lots of shoe shops. Six hours later when I collected her she had just two bags of shopping and a happy smile. A number of shoe shops were trying to get all their stock back on the shelves but hampered, I guess, by most of the staff having relocated to the post-traumatic stress treatment centre.
She bought no shoes.
Actually we don't have room for any more, but not that this was a consideration, she is just Jimmy. (Pardon the made up rhyming slang-Jimmy Choos - choosy? .... OK never mind, I'm sure the ladies will understand).

She then spent the next hour telling me how much money she had saved ... I still haven't figured out how to explain that she didn't save any money buying stuff she wouldn't have otherwise bought... if anyone knows the answer, let me know.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[wes616]

Plus we never talk engineering...well I do, she tries to listen [/ziggi]

I'll be she actually "looks" like she's listening too.


My ex-wife was in the film business too... talk about a match made in hell.... but I don't think that career had anything to do with it.

Wes C.
------------------------------
Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

 

[Warpspeed]

I cannot imagine anything worse than being married to another engineer !! It is nice to come home and get right away from all that stuff, at least for a while.

Thinking about it, I know of several couples working in the exact same professions, and it can tend to become competitive. None of them seem really content, the worst example were probably a pair of lawyers, ha-ha-ha.

 

[mog69]

nur12 - "Have you noticed how many engineers are married to nurses?"
Just a thought, but you don't suppose it could have anything to do with the uniform do you??

 

[heieup]

Well I'm a production manager and married to an engineer, also we both work for the same company although in different depts separated by at 3 mile drive.

Sometimes we talk shop, sometimes we talk about other things. We grumble about general stuff at work and put the world to rights, we also amuse ourselves laughing at the politics as we are both on different sides of the fence its funny to see what rubbish our managers are sometimes telling each other.

I think it helps that when we've had a hard day we can talk to the other one and they do understand and sympathise. Helps to get things off your chest rather than bottling it up and taking it back to work the following morning.

And we're both each other's free consulting services which makes our problem solving that bit more effective.

Obviously we do switch off work as well and have different interests and hobbies as well as some shared ones which gives us different things to talk about than the 9-5

 

[VFF]

In Australia, it is very common for Engineers to be married to nurses or teachers. Something about being caring members of the community.

Scary thing is when I tell my wife (a primary teacher) all the new management tricks I learnt in my MBA course, she replies that she uses them all the time in the classroom...