The Luv Doc: Keeping It Real

Dear Luv Doc,

I have been with my wife for almost eight years. Right from the start I have always been attracted to her because she is beautiful, smart, funny, has lots of interests, and is always discovering new places to go, restaurants, books, music, etc. Over the years I’ve noticed a pattern where she gets really excited about something and then after a few weeks/months she’s off to something else. She can’t seem to ever stick with anything for too long. She’s always getting new furniture, appliances, clothes, paint, wallpaper – you name it. All these changes don’t really bother me because I’m a low-key, stable guy and I can handle just about anything that comes my way. The only thing that really gets to me is that she treats jobs the same way. She has a degree and always seems to land on her feet, but she has had five jobs since I have known her. Last week she told me she is thinking about quitting her good-paying job at a marketing company to become a personal trainer. She’s been really into fitness for the past year; she’s lost a ton of weight with diet and exercise and has gotten really fit, so I don’t doubt she knows what she’s doing, but I know several people who are personal trainers and they only do it on the side because it’s so competitive and there’s not a lot of money to go around. So, when she said she is thinking about quitting her job, I said maybe she should try doing it on the side before taking such a big leap. She said she is sick of her job and feeling unfulfilled and wants to put all of her time and energy into becoming a successful trainer. She said she was insulted that I didn’t think she could do it. My concern is that she’ll grow bored with it really quickly and want to move on to something new, but whatever that is won’t pay as well as the job she has right now. Should I support this change or tell her that she should keep her job for a while while she tries it out?

– Trying to Keep It Real

One of the most difficult and frustrating skills you have to learn in life is the ability to keep your mouth shut when you know an idea is going to be an absolute fucking trainwreck. Thankfully this doesn’t apply to many scenarios, but I imagine it’s an immutable prerequisite for working in the Trump administration. During his first presidency – which will surely go down in history as “Dumpster Fire #1” – the MAGA minions’ go-to response when Lord Dampnut’s intelligence or qualifications were called into question was, “Yeah, but he’s going to hire really smart people because he is such a good administrator.” Instead, history proved he totally shit the bed and then blamed it on everyone who was smartly trying to scurry out of the mess. In fact, Trump is such an insufferable, egotistical nitwit that by the middle of his first term he had run off nearly anyone in his administration of even marginal competence and replaced them with family members and sycophants. Maddeningly, more than 77 million U.S. voters weren’t fucking paying attention. Either that or they got addicted to the shitshow. “Oh my fucking god won’t it be hilarious to own the libtard cucks for another four years!!”

Look, it would be impossible to claim straight-faced – on the Fourth of July weekend no less – that the first six months of the Trump presidency hasn’t been a wickedly entertaining satire on the decline of American intelligence and the rapid demise of the U.S. as a respected superpower. If it were made into a movie (actually it has and it starred Dax Shepard as a guy named Frito) it might be hilarious instead of terrifying, but this nightmare is real and it’s difficult to even comprehend how much worse the MAGA Shitshow will become. The clown car has already driven off the cliff and the only question is: How bad will the wreckage be? As bad as American voters will allow. If that didn’t send a chill up your spine, I don’t know what will.

Hopefully the above digression illustrates that in nearly all scenarios, it’s important to speak up when you see a clown car pulling a school bus over a cliff. However, in life, not all impending failures are apocalyptic. Sometimes the worst thing that might happen is that someone might learn something. That seems to be the case with your wife. She isn’t driving a car off a cliff, she is simply trying to improve her life. Your job is to not get in her way.

There is very little to be gained from poking holes in someone’s plans for personal betterment – especially if you’re married to them. You just come off looking like the opposition – an obstacle to overcome. Instead, you should ask her if she would let you help her draw up a business plan for the first three years, which is the average time it takes for a business to become profitable. Let her know that you’re willing to commit if she’s willing to commit. That way you’re part of the solution and you can also help keep it real. It will take an amazing amount of luck and fortitude for her to be successful in three years, but, the same could easily be said about America, so let’s all do our best to stay positive.

This article appears in July 4 • 2025.