I’m back with another queer advice column. Today’s question is from a writer who does all the housework while their partner works as a doctor. I have a lot of feelings about writing and domestic labor, so my response to this is loooong.
If you’re new to this newsletter or catching up after a break, there have been so many good questions lately!! Check out: ”I'm a 33-year-old dirty slut who loves to be alone and go to bed at 10 pm” and "It's so rare that I find someone that I'm interested in, and when I do, it's never great." If you’re gay and have a problem of your own, send it my way :)
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My partner is a doctor. I’m super proud of them and so grateful that we have medical professionals like them to provide excellent, thoughtful care. I’m also having a weird crisis about what this means in my life. I soft gave up on my creative writing career even though it was going pretty well because selling my writing made me feel like shit. Now I work completely from home and sit and wallow 80% of the day, do all the housework and cooking, and then my partner comes home from shift, tells me all the insane shit they did, and falls asleep. I feel like their career has structured my life for me, but when I think of what I’d rather be doing, I draw a blank. I want to be with them and I think I made the right choice to scale back on my creative career, but I’m having trouble coming to terms with these two identities. Honestly, I feel like a housewife. It’s weird! I don’t like it! Do you have any advice or insights on how I can approach this? I talk to them about it, try to get out and make friends, etc., but I still feel like it’s consuming me.
Wifey, 31
A big difference between you and your partner is that when they decided to become a doctor, there was a clear, well-trodden path for them to follow. They were told what kind of education they would need, how much money they could expect to make and where, in terms of geographic location, their skills were most needed. Every time they finished a part of their training, there were institutions and authority figures to provide feedback and permission to move on to the next step. This is not what it’s like to become a writer—partially because as a descriptor, “writer” doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a job you give yourself. I’m a writer, so is Colleen Hoover. Caroline Calloway and Alice Walker are both writers. There are playwrights, graphic novelists, and nonfiction gays. Tons of different jobs entail posting on social media and crafting a “personal brand,” which is a kind of creative writing. Lots of things are poetry, including rap songs and descriptions of ice cream flavors. The vast majority of writers have other jobs—they’re also parents, Starbucks baristas, academics, etc. Many writers benefit from generational wealth, a spouse with a stable job, or they started publishing decades ago when it was still possible to make decent money from writing books, magazine articles, or blogs. You can look to writers you admire and try to shape your career after theirs, but no one is going to tell you how to do it.