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<p>OH PLEASE…that was AFTER he blamed her for something that was not her fault…and berated her for it.</p>
<p>POIH…don’t assume anything…your assumptions are not accurate and the OP herself posted so in her latest post.</p>
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<p>The powerful characteristics about being liberal is that I don’t mind people’s questioning about my thinking and I’m open to all opinions how weird it might sound to me.</p>
<p>I think that is the differentiation between being liberal or not. One need to be open to all opinions.</p>
<p>I don’t dismiss others opinion by saying “IDIOT” or not understanding “21st century American women”. I put forward my thoughts and try to logically refute other thoughts with points that make sense to me.</p>
<p>Not to defend OP’s husband, who certainly owes her a big apology with chocolate and flowers, but…</p>
<p>I remember a year ago when my DS was rejected and waitlisted from a school we expected him to get in to. I felt so sad that not everyone realized what a truly remarkable kid I have. I think it took me longer to get over the rejections than DS.
Is it possible that the husband is also over reacting to the rejections and instead of feeling hurt, as I did, instead lashed out at the nearest person. </p>
<p>Not saying it’s right, just possibly understandable. (And he better make the chocolates Godiva!)</p>
<p>I’ll repeat a point I tried to make earlier. If it was misunderstood then, I apologize for being unclear. </p>
<p>A couple of rejections or wait-lists are perfectly normal in this game, even for strong applicants who do a good job with the process. There is only one sure-fire way to avoid rejection: aim low. Don’t apply to selective colleges. </p>
<p>Disappointment is perfectly normal, too. Not everyone is equally capable of managing it. Maybe the OP’s husband just needs a little more time and space before he starts taking pride in what is actually a very good outcome. Let’s not blow either the decisions or the reactions out of proportion.</p>
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But you aren’t coming across as open to anyone’s opinions. You bat away every question and comment like it was a game of cricket. This is not the sign of open-mindedness and certainly not of a liberal person or liberal thinker. The rigid, rather antiquated attitude expressed in this thread comes across as stereotypic as that UCLA youtube rant you referenced.</p>
<p>Sigh. True sigh, here. All of this is stressful enough with blaming each other. A family needs to support each other during these times. Hopefully, everyone sees it this way, and doesn’t make this a blame fest. Enjoy each other, comfort each other. This is your family, your loved ones.</p>
<p>*I think it’s failure on the part of OP to not keep OP’s DH in the loop because even if OP was the leading parent OP should have kept OP’s DH in the loop.</p>
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<p>POIH…YOU have no idea if this wife tried to talk to her H many times about the college process and he only half-listened or didn’t listen at all. </p>
<p>*I think it’s OP who didn’t show any mutual respect by hiding the ED process from OP’s DH.
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<p>1) You are suggesting that she did something dishonest, yet there’s no evidence of that.</p>
<p>2) Spouses don’t discuss EVERY option out there. Some options are dismissed because those options aren’t good options at the time (as in this case…the son wasn’t sure about the school.) </p>
<p>Why can’t we take a negative criticism?</p>
<p>Negative criticism is ONLY meaningful if there will be another opportunity to put the suggestions into use. Since you only have one child, your wife’s criticism regarding Harvard was ugly. There was nothing to learn at that point. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t criticize what my H is wearing when we’ve already reached out destination…what’s the point? the time would have been before we left, when something could be done about it…or the next time he dresses.</p>
<p>Saying negative things when nothing can be immediately done is worthless. If there were another child who would be applying in later years, then the criticisms can come later…when it’s time for the next child to apply. And, instead of criticizing, asking questions would be far more effective.</p>
<p>It’s really cruel to criticize when nothing can be done to change the situation and the situation won’t occur again.</p>
<p>I reacted strongly to OP’s situation, as I lived for a short time with a man who sounds like OP’s husband. When his son was applying to college, the ex-wife was the one to take the applicant to colleges, though the ex- worked far harder than the dad. The ex- helped the applicant with his esays. The dad didn’t like the essay, but had not tried to help. When the ex- suggested small LACs, the dad wouldn’t agree 'cuz of extra $$$.</p>
<p>when the applicant would get dad’s help on a school assignment, then come home beaming with an A, dad would respond by saying “What do you mean you got an A, when I wrote the paper!”</p>
<p>When my son won an upperclass merit award, this man’s first response was “Well, he doesn’t have a g/f” (actually, I won’t quote actual words–too insulting).</p>
<p>The applicant did get into a state school. Had he been rejected, no doubt his ex-wife would have born all the blame. Its toxic to live with someone who is so critical.</p>
<p>I am glad you got out of that relationship, bookworm. Reminds me of the expression “there is none so blind as those who cannot see”</p>
<p>*Suppose OP’s DS get into the Ivies on 3/31 and OP’s DH comes back and tell he is not in a position to fund DS EFC **because he has been hiding the finances **from OP. </p>
<p>Will it be wrong on OP’s part to blame OP’s DH to not inform OP and DS about this?</p>
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<p>Are you serious? Do you really think that is a comparable analogy? Really? </p>
<p>Well, it’s not…and it’s not even close. The mom didn’t behave in a dishonest fashion, while in your proposed scenario the H did. </p>
<p>A comparable analogy might have been IF the son had wanted to apply ED and the mom had subverted the process in someway and put his app in as RD.</p>
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I think that I want whatever job you and/or your spouse has. :)</p>
<p>I still wondering which spouse in the POIH household is being blamed that darling D’s pricey prep school didn’t make that (silly) list that POIH thought was oh-so-important.</p>
<p>We have a saying at our house that applies to a lot more than food, and I’m sure I would have broken it out in the OP’s situation:</p>
<p>“Only the cook can complain”</p>
<p>Meaning, of course, that only the person who did the actual legwork gets to gripe about the results. If someone else wants a different result, they have to participate.</p>
<p>Another point about this: my ex-H does not contribute financially for my kids college, nor has he had much involvement in their college application process. I have managed to do both (shepard my kids through the application process and pay for a private college education) without a second person to “earn the money” while I helped my Ds with college selection. OP’s husband is a wimp if he can only do one of the two jobs at the same time 
You can tell him intparent said so.</p>
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<p>Why are you even bothered about the attitude of my post? It’s an opinion you might not be in favor of it but should not dismiss it as stereotypic as the UCLA youtube rants.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the OP’s opening statement and the following. Don’t you see any parallel? </p>
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<p>She was in charge of college admission while DH of finance. OP is able to accuse and blame DH for the loss of nest egg.</p>
<p>No one has suggested that it’s OP responsibility to be aware of the financial dealing as everyone has suggested that OP’s DH should have been aware of the college process.</p>
<p>In my view both are wrong. OP’s DH should have made OP aware of the financial investments so that OP could have provided some feedback on whether or not this would be a responsible call. Similarly I believe OP should have been more proactive in involving DH into the college process so that he would have known that DS is the one who was not willing to commit to the ED process.</p>
<p>'It’s true that college admissions are unpredictable but if OP’s DS has done everything possible at his end then OP’s DH can only blame OP because of her leading role."
EXCUSE ME?? Neither the OP, nor her son, had CONTROL over which schools accepted or wait listed her son, any more than you had control over which schools accepted or rejected your DD!! How can you think that PARENTS deserve blame for this? If there is “blame” to be cast, [and given the large numbers of equally qualified applicants vying for an acceptance, I doubt that anyone is to “blame”] the only ones who might deserve it would be the admissions officers who decided to wait list the OP’s son.
This his may be news to you, but there is no “do this, this and this and you WILL be accepted” guarantee for private or public college acceptances these days. Applying ED may bring a higher chance of acceptance, but many kids are not ready by Oct to decide without hesitation where they REALLY want to go to college a year later. There are too many fuzzy factors [% of ED applicants that may be accepted relative to total # of openings , # of male/ female applicants, distribution of applicants/ state, race of applicants/ # of spots already promised to recruited athletes, DA’s, % of applicants that are legacies, URM’s, reduction in the number of openings this year because LY’s class yield was to high resulting in over crowded dorms, etc, etc, etc. ] that are material to the admissions decisions made by COLLEGES, not PARENTS - and most of those factors are totally out of an applicants [or his parents] hands.</p>
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<p>But no one knows that OP did. From the different postings it can be clearly seen that the communication between the two is not strong and so the assumption on my part is not far fetched.</p>
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<p>In my opinion if she didn’t tell DH about the ED option to a DS top choice school then OP surely was not being honest to her DH.</p>
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<p>I think spouses should discuss all options, if we take both OP and OP’s DH both caused problem by not disclosing all the options for the tasks they were in charge of resulting in unwanted results.</p>
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<p>You learn from all set back or negative results. I don’t have the habit of let go without analyzing. I take DW criticism in good spirit. She always dreamt of DD going to Harvard, it was difficult for her. DD choices changed over the course of high school from Pre-med and Yale, so she didn’t feel it. DW had a tough time getting over the Pre-med and then Harvard, so it was uber difficult. So we did analyze and found what could have been done better and I agreed to be more careful in our future projects. This actually made her get over it sooner.</p>
<p>I do learn from one aspect of life and try to find parallels in other aspect and apply the learning there. That’s the only reason to point to parallels in business and home life.</p>
<p>I give up. POIH, you have your very narrow belief system and you do not sway from it. </p>
<p>The one who brought the UCLA analogy into the conversation (Alexandra Wallace’s distasteful complaint about asians using cellphones in the UCLA library) was you. For what point? You are obviously bothered by it. What does it have to do with the discussion here about parenting and the cooperative working relationship that should occur, and the support that parents should mutually provide for their child making college decisions? None. It was jsut an oportunity for you to complain about it. It has nothing to do with being a “21st century female” unless your point is that stereotypes are provincial. That we can plainly see.</p>
<p>If the OP helped her son with the college search and application process (and he still has several RD schools to hear from,so dont give up on him and that Ivy or top tier, reach school and the corresponding window decal just yet, POIH) and helped and supported HIS DECISION not to apply to an ED II school after being denied at his EDI school, then she was a good parent and helped her son with HIS DECISIONS. This is NOT THE PARENTS DECISION and not attending an ivy is NOT FAILURE. Failure, IMO, is the dads inability to see this.</p>
<p>POIH, what is your point, exactly? In hindsight, H blames me for not demanding S do the EDII for safety/match. Yes, S and I talked about it and YES H was present at times at the dinner table, in the family room, in the car…etc., etc. Did I demand a summit meeting and ask for undivided attention of DH at each of these milestone conversations? No. But you are missing the point that this is NOT what S wanted to do. S was not interested in making that commitment for the EDII. You said that I speak with no respect for my husband…really? Because he gambled our nest egg, I don’t listen to him, and have no communication with him and treat him like, what is it you said, meat? We’ve been in this relationship for over 24 years and buddy that entails a lot of hills and dales. I’m not, nor have I ever claimed to be perfect…something you might try someday and may even enjoy the outcome. Maybe he’s not an Ivy kid, but he went through this process well; identifying schools at each of the three levels. Tufts syndrome at the safety/matches? Maybe, but I’m not going to raise a kids who blame the waitlist on him being ‘overqualified’; don’t think that’s a healthy way to look at anything that doesn’t go your way. In any event, I’m not sure why so many of us take so much time to try to enlighten you. Part of me thinks you can’t possibly really think this way and I have to think that you like to stir the pot.</p>
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<p>It takes two people to communicate so if there was information lacking, they are both responsible. And frankly, people tend to be reluctant to communicate with a spouse that is hyper-critical and/or ungrateful. </p>
<p>There are basic respectful ways to have a loving and strong marriage. As intparent says, “only the cook can complain” is a simple but truthful rule. Why would one not follow that? What is really accomplished by blaming your spouse and sharing that out loud!? </p>
<p>And let’s be frank, living one’s life in a supportive and happy marriage (and modeling that for our kids) is far more important than so much other nonsense on CC (like scoring 2350 or getting into Harvard). Big whoop if your kid ends up marrying a jerk.</p>
<p>breathedeeply: I wish well to your DS and am sure that he will thrive where ever he decide to matriculate.</p>
<p>I was just trying to bring to surface that there is nothing wrong in criticizing because as I pointed before you put up that OP will be mad and blame DH if he mess up finance.</p>
<p>Which seems to be the case anyway. So DH has the right to be mad too if he was not formally made part of the discussion. What goes on between two people who are in touch with the process some time is not discernible to other sitting. So you should have talked about it with him directly.</p>
<p>DH can also say the same that he told over dinner many times that he is shorting google when it went from $100 to $300.</p>
<p>Also your DH doesn’t have an alternative like you had by cashing in your options and paying down the mortgage and putting the kid’s money away. He can’t undo ED process now and will have to live with the results.</p>