In two months I will be married (yay!). My partner in crime has income projections that are 2-5 times higher than mine. Which is a convoluted way of saying, his salary is enough for us, even with FI dreams.
TL; DR: He's on the mustachian gravy train of goodness, and he is encouraging me to do the work I am LOVING (jewellery store, pays ok) as opposed to the work that makes me miserable (data entry in a library, pays a little better than ok and could lead to a great-paying librarian job ). Is it ok to quit the job I hate, using my spouse as a safety net? (Like he wants.)
Update: thanks to all of the fantastic advice here, I have decided to maximize my happiness by working at the jewellery store, and quitting the sub-par library job. At the same time, I will volunteer at libraries and youth centres, while looking for a part-time reference librarian gig (more people time, less data entry!!). Keeps doors open :) I move in a year, so I will re-assess the situation after that :)
So here's my situation:
I have a full-time seasonal permanent job as a library assistant at a university library. Pay is ok, but not as good as I could be making if the right job (librarian) came up. I like the people I work with, but oh man - the work makes me fantasize about suicide in a non-literal way, and I come home every day feeling like a depressed slug. Not good. I stuck it out last year because I was determined to pay off my student loans (I have two degrees: BA in English Lit and a MLS in library science). Mission accomplished. Do I go back to this job in the fall? Oh - and the hours have changed to 12pm-8pm, Tuesday - Saturday. I get vacation days, but they HATE when I take Saturdays off. I pretty much have to twist arms and ask for favours in order to use my own earned vacation day on a Saturday. So the hours suck, the work sucks, but the people are great, the job comes with benefits and paid vacation. It's also in a field relevant to my education.
For the summer I wanted to find work I might enjoy, and I found some! I'm working at a high-end, family-owned, independent jewellery store. I LOVE IT. I feel like I'm made for this kind of work. I get to talk to people all day long, help them pick gifts for themselves or others, help them celebrate milestones, get engaged or married, and clean their jewellery... I love it so much! The people I work with are great, the hours are ok and they let me take tons of time off to visit my family, go get married, visit my fiance's sick dad every second month... They're great. From doing my own research I know a LOT about different metals and stones, I can usually eyeball someone's ring size, and there are courses I can take to further my knowledge that sounds so appealing to me. Two days ago I helped a mother and a daughter look at engagement rings for the daughter. At one point I offered to clean the mom's (very mustachian) wedding rings. She was surprised and said, sure! I cleaned them in the ultrasonic cleaner and then steamed them. WOW, those little diamonds had probably not looked that sparkly in YEARS. Decades, maybe. The mom had tears in her eyes when she saw them all good-as-new. I freakin' love my job there, and it's helping my self esteem and relationships and everything. Although I have loved customer service and sales jobs in the past, I've only been at the jewellery store for two months, so maybe the novelty will wear off. But my manager has been there 20+ years and clearly loves what he does... So maybe it's not all novelty! The pay is ok, once I get commission it will probably be comparable to the library assistant job and less than a librarian. Probably.
So... Can I quit the university library job, and work at the jewellery store instead? There is a half-decent chance I could pick up some evening librarian shifts ($$$) for 3-9 hours a week at the university library. And/or I could volunteer at this one youth centre, something I've really been wanting to do. I think it would be wise to keep my foot in the library door, and develop both of these career paths concurrently. But I have to admit, if it wasn't for my fiance's career, I probably would be doing the "short term pain for long term gain" thing, and suffering at these crap library jobs in hopes of getting a nice librarian gig some day. I've experienced one librarian job, it was a 3 month term position . Academic gig. It was ok, not joy every day. The jewellery job makes me feel happy all day, and I'm great to be around when I get home. Volunteering at a youth centre would help me be more appealing for a public librarian job (which I haven't tried, and might like better).
Wow this is long. I guess I just want an opinion that is not my parents' or my fiance's. What would you do? I feel like I'm too young to let myself enjoy life so much ;) I'm supposed to work and not like it, right? ;)