My husband Will and I lived in Alabama and moved to Florida for my career. I knew that he loved music before we started dating because we had known each other all our lives. Our parents went to church together and we sang in choirs together. Once I graduated from college I applied for jobs all over the East Coast–only one job called back and it was for an editor for Strang Communications in Florida. The interview went incredibly well and I got the job. At the time, Will was working full time for Coca Cola. He was a route salesman and he was doing extremely well, but he really wanted to pursue music and I had gotten this new job. Sometimes you have to make drastic changes for both people to be happy, so we came to Florida. When we got here, he didn’t have a job and we didn’t know anyone. Our options were to take my small salary to pay for daycare while he looked for work or to let him stay at home with our daughter and save money. During that time, he had worked a little bit part-time (which he still does sometimes) and said, “I really want to go after this music.” We went back and forth about it and then I said, “yeah, go for it.” I wanted to see him have his dreams come true, because I was living my dream–I really love editing, as far as my career goes. I’ll continue to do it either full time or freelance. In a typical day for us, I wake up and get ready for work. I wake our daughter Autumn up and get her ready and take her either to school or to the bus stop. William wakes up a little later. He takes care of our four-year-old son Austin and feeds him and plays with him and then he’s on the phone, communicating with other musicians and making contacts for us all day. Also, since he stays at home, he is able to volunteer in our daughter’s classroom for picture day and Father’s Day soccer games and can help her with her homework. Cleaning just doesn’t happen sometimes. In our marriage, we separate issues into majors and minors. Cleaning up is one of the minors. I realized that I can’t expect him to be
me at home. If I want to see him grow and I want to continue to flourish myself, I cannot focus on my house being perfect. My reason for being willing to work like this is because we have a mutual goal. Our goal is not for me to stay in corporate America forever. Our goal is for us to do music together. That’s why the situation is bearable. Music is a very time invested career. So one of us has to be making the songs and making contacts and setting up shows and one of us has to make sure that we’re eating, paying the bills and taking care of our kids. We remind each other of our goals that we have all the time and we sit down with the kids and let them know what our family is about. In marriage you have to have a plan and a goal in mind. Everything has to be purposeful.
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