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Naked Ambition and the Art of Marital Compromise

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By Elizabeth Athelstand

As a doctoral student in H.I.V. research, I chose a dissertation project that was larger in scope and more challenging in design than similar problems that had been solved before. Against all the advice of my mentors, I insisted on doing it alone. And I encountered roadblock after roadblock.

At each one, my coworkers encouraged me to give up and switch to a project more likely to result in a quick thesis than in additional frustration. During these six years, only my husband, Arthur, encouraged me to go on. He stayed up with me through those sleepless nights, telling me that he knew I could do it, and that the scientific payoffs would be high. He was right. Years of labor finally turned into weeks of frantic thesis writing, and this past fall, I proudly defended my dissertation.

As I basked in the warm afterglow of my defense, surrounded by well-wishers, and by sudden converts to the "I-knew-you-could-do-it" club, there was only one person who was not surprised by my success -- my husband.

My next move was to land a postdoctoral fellowship. Just days after defending my dissertation, I was on a trans-Atlantic flight to Paris. I'd been asked to give a lecture and interview for a postdoctoral position at a leading research institute there, and I was drooling at the prospect. The institute has the brightest X-ray beam on the planet. It is packed both with X-ray biophysicists who develop instrumentation and new methods, and with the best virologists in the world, who would provide a steady pipeline of new viral proteins for me to study. The professor who would be my direct supervisor is young and energetic and has expertise in all the areas in which I am weak. Securing a postdoc in this lab would leave me extraordinarily well-prepared to run my own laboratory afterwards.

As I flew back from Paris, I pictured the idyllic life that Arthur and I would lead in Paris. Discussing our research over steaming café crème at a sidewalk cafe on the Boulevard St. Germain. I imagined the weekend jaunts to Italy, London, Switzerland, Germany: We would be in an incredible jumping-off point to explore Europe while young and child-free. Mais oui, what a wonderful life. ...

The little needle playing background music from a Parisian cafe suddenly screeched across the record when I got off the plane in California. "So, you really liked it?" Arthur said sickly, in a brave but transparently unsuccessful attempt to share my enthusiasm. Apparently, he was not dreaming of buttery croissants. "I suppose this would mean cutting short my research in California, doing a second postdoc, moving to Europe?" He was beginning to look like he'd just drawn the short straw in a full lifeboat a week after provisions ran out.

I shouldn't have been so surprised. As an academic couple, I knew we would have to make some compromises. The problem, though, isn't so much the location as the timing: Arthur's not ready to leave. He wants more time to complete his research here and figure out what he wants to do next. And maybe there's a reason why all the Europeans in his field move to the United States to do science: there's little financing for it there.

So, where does that leave me? Do I stay in California and continue to work with my current professors? Certainly it's a very good place and almost anywhere else is a step down. But, by staying put, I wouldn't learn any new methods or experience any new departments. When it came time to look for academic jobs, my résumé would list only one California institution. Would it look like they'd kept me on because I couldn't hack it anywhere else? Would my growth be stunted? Would I never get to work with that incredible x-ray beam? Would I never get to live abroad, learn a new language, and share that wonderful life experience with Arthur? I have these thoughts every day and am in tears about them every other week.

Suddenly, I am sleeping with the enemy. The husband who had been my pillar of strength through my thesis years, who had encouraged me every step of the way, was now tying me down.

The trouble is that Arthur and I are in different time frames in our careers. I've just defended my Ph.D. He defended his two and a half years ago. I want to move on now and start a postdoc. He wants to move on in a year and a half and look for faculty positions. But a year and a half isn't enough time for me to do postdoctoral research of any significance where I am, and it's too long to sit around here twiddling my thumbs. On the other hand, if he packs up and leaves his project now, he would have invested all the effort in setting his own project up without ever being able to reap its rewards. He can't leave and I can't stay.

We've played through all the scenarios. The thought of living on different continents is one neither of us can stomach. But if we let him finish in a year and a half, I won't have enough on my résumé to apply for faculty positions. I would just have to blindly follow Arthur and try to do a postdoc in that city. Worst of all, there's no guarantee that he'll even get a job. Do we cripple his career to follow mine? Do we cripple my career to push his?

Another option is to have Arthur do an extra-long postdoc and me do an extra-short one and hope I can get enough done so that we could apply together as a husband-and-wife team. Even then, it's difficult to find two academic positions in the same place.

The irony is, this isn't the first time we have crossed this bridge. If Arthur were single, he would never have stayed in California for his postdoc in the first place. He would have gone back to some East Coast powerhouse. He waited here for me. Now the shoe is on the other foot. If I were single, I would go to Paris. However, if I were single, would I have had the necessary emotional support at home to keep plugging away at a difficult project?

Do all married academic couples face this paradox?

Suddenly, simple chores at home take on new symbolism as olive branches. My doing the dishes and offering him the first shower with all the hot water means: "I'm sorry I'm making things difficult for you. I really do want to help." Is his vacuuming of the carpet and making coffee in the morning intended to help me forget I'm not going to Paris?

We become academics because we want to be the world's most famous respected expert in something. Our research successes bring adulation and praise. We're not accustomed to having to compromise. The college, graduate school, and research project I chose were all the best choices for ME. Now, the best postdoc will have to be the best choice for US, which may mean we get neither of our first choices, or maybe even our second or third choices. More compromises that we aren't even facing yet will occur when we are ready to have children.

Yet I know that scientific research is a fickle thing. It is just as likely to fail and make one miserable as it is to succeed and make one happy. Arthur is sure to make me happy. And, I think a good and loving marriage will be a more deeply fulfilling happiness than a hypothesis proved correct. I once said that I would rather wait tables than live in a city where Arthur wasn't. The same is still true. Although part of me wishes it weren't.