Ok now that I've reached the end I'll get sappy. I absolutely love being married to an engineer (well DH specifically, but the type still), even though I make fun of them all the time. He's stable and deliberate/thoughtful. He did the pre-date screening as well. Lol. I'm terrible at math, embarrassingly awful at it, so there are times I agree that he's brilliant. (I hope he doesn't read this.) He's saved us God knows how much $ by fixing things. I know I will never be surprised, in a bad way, by him making an insane purchase or even flirting with other women (engineer wives do you not LOL at the thought of your DH being an office flirt? I die.)
There are things that drive me crazy. Like he tends to shoot down my ideas if he's never seen them before/can't envision them. And his patience with people is close to zero, so parenting with him is ummm challenging. Sometimes. But it works for us. You need to know what you're getting into if you marry an engineer. But if you accept it, it's great IMO.
Ok now that I've reached the end I'll get sappy. I absolutely love being married to an engineer (well DH specifically, but the type still), even though I make fun of them all the time. He's stable and deliberate/thoughtful. He did the pre-date screening as well. Lol. I'm terrible at math, embarrassingly awful at it, so there are times I agree that he's brilliant. (I hope he doesn't read this.) He's saved us God knows how much $ by fixing things. I know I will never be surprised, in a bad way, by him making an insane purchase or even flirting with other women (engineer wives do you not LOL at the thought of your DH being an office flirt? I die.)
There are things that drive me crazy. Like he tends to shoot down my ideas if he's never seen them before/can't envision them. And his patience with people is close to zero, so parenting with him is ummm challenging. Sometimes. But it works for us. You need to know what you're getting into if you marry an engineer. But if you accept it, it's great IMO.
I agree with you - the idea of MH being an office flirt has me on the floor. It would never happen, and I know I can trust him with money. He would never make a crazy purchase; that makes me laugh really hard.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I regularly tell my cousin that enginerds make the best husbands. He drives me insane, but he's the perfect partner for me.
I'm only on page 1 of this thread and can't restrain myself from commenting.
We've been married almost 11 years so I've finally figured out how to deal with my DH needing to fix everything himself. There's a house problem. He researches forever. He starts trying to fix it. There's some unforeseen problem. He comes to tell me because I need to know that it's "far more complicated than we originally thought." I say, so sweetly, "it's ok. You tried so hard. I'll figure out who to hire." He is immediately motivated to fix it ASAP. Then he does. This exact pattern happens with every home problem.
And the work overconfidence. OMG. I am so horrified by the things he says in his reviews. I'm like, "please tell me you didn't actually say that to your boss." Oh of course he said that. Why wouldn't he? And his boss agreed, according to him. Well, he's finally getting it in reverse because he's in charge of a bunch of engineers now. And he's flabbergasted that average and below average engineers JUST DONT GET IT that they aren't the best in the group. He's blaming it on cultural differences while I LMAO on the inside.
Ok now to read the rest of this thread.
MH's work fuels his overconfidence. And like sometimes, I'm glad, because that means good things for our family. But other times, I'm like...WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY do you have to give him the outstanding and distinguished ratings?!
My husband feels that everyone just needs to be told what is wrong with x or y. He won an award for PM of the year, after he told the owner of their company not a week or 2 earlier what was wrong with their office, etc. I was like why fuel this fire?!? No.
Ok now that I've reached the end I'll get sappy. I absolutely love being married to an engineer (well DH specifically, but the type still), even though I make fun of them all the time. He's stable and deliberate/thoughtful. He did the pre-date screening as well. Lol. I'm terrible at math, embarrassingly awful at it, so there are times I agree that he's brilliant. (I hope he doesn't read this.) He's saved us God knows how much $ by fixing things. I know I will never be surprised, in a bad way, by him making an insane purchase or even flirting with other women (engineer wives do you not LOL at the thought of your DH being an office flirt? I die.)
There are things that drive me crazy. Like he tends to shoot down my ideas if he's never seen them before/can't envision them. And his patience with people is close to zero, so parenting with him is ummm challenging. Sometimes. But it works for us. You need to know what you're getting into if you marry an engineer. But if you accept it, it's great IMO.
I agree with you - the idea of MH being an office flirt has me on the floor. It would never happen, and I know I can trust him with money. He would never make a crazy purchase; that makes me laugh really hard.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I regularly tell my cousin that enginerds make the best husbands. He drives me insane, but he's the perfect partner for me.
I am lol at this because this thread is describing me. And I am an engineer.
I am the worst at thinking I can do something after reading an article/watching a video/dreaming about it.
screw this "thinking" stuff. I CAN do things. I've learned how to do all kinds of shit. I'm actually a pretty good drywall mudder at this point. I'm slow as fuck, but the finished product looks good. My tile installation is pretty good. I can cook anything I read about. Over the course of wedding planning I up and taught myself jewelry making and basic book binding....I'm not an expert on any of those things, but that's just time and practice.
This is why I'm an engineer. We make things. It's a skill. We're not wrong.
I am also an engineer (though I suppose I am not really practicing anymore).
Ladies, let's recap. The real lesson here is not to marry or be friends with or hang around or associate or even look at male engineers. Those of you fortunate enough not to find yourselves in this situation yet have been warned!
I have not read further than this yet, but I need to point out that it's totally cool to befriend female engineers.
I'm married to an engineer (electrical and software). My dad, uncle, and grandfather are engineers. Growing up, almost all of my friends' dads were engineers, and several also had moms who were engineers. All you have to say in my town is "he or she is an engineer" and everyone just looks at each other and nods.
I'm lucky that H is extremely focused on his projects, so he rarely thinks it's worth his time to do a project outside of his focus instead of buying it. But when he does... Of course he thinks he can, and he's almost always right.
On engineering types... almost all the electrical, mechanical, and aerospace engineers I know have the quirks mentioned here, and maybe two thirds of the software people. I don't know enough civil engineering people to have an opinion.
Damn it guys. My husband is debating going back to school to become an engineer.
I think this is a chicken and egg thing. He's either the type, or not. School won't give him the annoying tendencies if he doesn't have them. HTH. :-)
Unfortunately, I recognize a lot of this. ("I could totally do that! It won't take that long!" *later* "I may have underestimated this.")
Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised: he is very like his father... who is a successful engineer. In fact, he's one of two people who can help my FIL with projects because everybody else gets too annoyed.
Ok now that I've reached the end I'll get sappy. I absolutely love being married to an engineer (well DH specifically, but the type still), even though I make fun of them all the time. He's stable and deliberate/thoughtful. He did the pre-date screening as well. Lol. I'm terrible at math, embarrassingly awful at it, so there are times I agree that he's brilliant. (I hope he doesn't read this.) He's saved us God knows how much $ by fixing things. I know I will never be surprised, in a bad way, by him making an insane purchase or even flirting with other women (engineer wives do you not LOL at the thought of your DH being an office flirt? I die.)
There are things that drive me crazy. Like he tends to shoot down my ideas if he's never seen them before/can't envision them. And his patience with people is close to zero, so parenting with him is ummm challenging. Sometimes. But it works for us. You need to know what you're getting into if you marry an engineer. But if you accept it, it's great IMO.
I agree with you - the idea of MH being an office flirt has me on the floor. It would never happen, and I know I can trust him with money. He would never make a crazy purchase; that makes me laugh really hard.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I regularly tell my cousin that enginerds make the best husbands. He drives me insane, but he's the perfect partner for me.
A guy at H's company just got busted for soliciting a prostitute who turned out to be a cop. I jokingly told H I better never see face on the evening news for such a thing. He gave me the biggest "as if!" look. Hilarious.
I was once chatting with someone and I mentioned that I am a mathematician. The guy I was taking to said, "Oh, I like mathematicians. They're great. They live in their own little math world with no real world applications. It's very nice. Mathematicians are way better than physicists. Physicists think they know how everything works. It's very irritating. But engineers... engineers are the worst. Engineers not only think they know how everything works, but they think they can make everything work the way they want it to. I don't like engineers. Mathematicians are cool."
It made me laugh. Years later when I recounted the story to my engineer H, he said they actually can make everything work the way they want.
My DH is a physicist and works with/manages mostly engineers. I'm pretty sure this goes for engineers at work, too, lol.
What I get is crazy-math-in-his-head, and bitching about when movies and TV shows do stuff that defies the laws of physics. And if my kids ask, "Why is the sky blue?", they get the actual scientific explanation involving light scatter.
Oh my gosh, I will never be able to watch movies again with out an little voice whispering, "That's not mathematically correct.That's not how it would really happen". -Gravity ... ruined -The Theory of Everything ... ruined -Interstellar ... Met with a scoff
And, don't let a pop song try and use a scientific lyric. Mr. Kirkette winces every time he hears Calvin Harris' I Feel so Close to You Right Now. Apparently, that's not how force fields work.
lol
My H would love to commiserate with you. I cannot take that shit.
Shows like CSI make my brain bleed. HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO OPEN A HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE BOOK ONCE IN A WHILE BEFORE JUST MAKING SHIT UP!?
My DH is a physicist and works with/manages mostly engineers. I'm pretty sure this goes for engineers at work, too, lol.
What I get is crazy-math-in-his-head, and bitching about when movies and TV shows do stuff that defies the laws of physics. And if my kids ask, "Why is the sky blue?", they get the actual scientific explanation involving light scatter.
Oh my gosh, I will never be able to watch movies again with out an little voice whispering, "That's not mathematically correct.That's not how it would really happen". -Gravity ... ruined -The Theory of Everything ... ruined -Interstellar ... Met with a scoff
And, don't let a pop song try and use a scientific lyric. Mr. Kirkette winces every time he hears Calvin Harris' I Feel so Close to You Right Now. Apparently, that's not how force fields work.
YES! We saw The Imitation Game and the first thing DH said when we walked out was, "Well, that's not really how it happened..." Of course not.
My H would love to commiserate with you. I cannot take that shit.
Shows like CSI make my brain bleed. HOW HARD WOULD IT BE TO OPEN A HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE BOOK ONCE IN A WHILE BEFORE JUST MAKING SHIT UP!?
LOL Be careful what you wish for. The summer I taught physics ( and cried every night because I was miserable) he looked at the kid's textbooks, and said, "Your not actually using this shit to teach! It's completely watered down and wrong. No wonder our field has issues!".
He also had words for the school adopted Math text.
Yeah, I TA'd physics for non-majors during my first year of grad school. It was...not good. Physics without calculus is weird, wrong, and more difficult in a lot of ways.
All the spreadsheet talk is making me laugh. My H is constantly giving me grief about my spreadsheets.
I SAH, yet I am continually making spreadsheets. I don't usually make him look at them, but I did recently make him oooh and ahhh as a macro I spent a couple days on automatically populated shopping and prep lists for a meal planning spreadsheet I made.
Someday my life well be entirely organized by spreadsheets and I will no longer have to think.
pixy0stix & kirra, My H would argue that CivE's aren't like this because they "aren't real engineers." (Something about them not having to take a certain class in college that was particularly tough.) After many, many arguments, he has KIND OF come around on this. When he was in school, I would get so mad at his arrogance. "They ARE engineers...hence civil ENGINEERS!" and he'd respond something about sanitation engineers and domestic engineers. It's a miracle I ever married him!
But this thread has me LOL and nodding. Oh, enginerds. I agree with others, he is a fantastic husband and father. Thankfully he can usually recognize and laugh at his quirks. He also works for a huge engineering company that essentially runs our town (and furthers ALL of their arrogance since "this town would shut down if our company left!"), so he's completely surrounded by enginerds, so it's normal for him. The nice thing is that most of my friends are also Enginerd wives, so we have these conversations frequently!
Oh, and hi! I usually just read this board & admire all of the smart women over here. I had to join in tonight. I think I'll come around more often.
ETA: I told my H re: this thread & he wondered if everyone would get all upset bc he doesn't think CivE's are "real engineers". Umm...no. The idea is so outrageous that there is no need for others to be upset by it, dear. (& yes, I told him that.)
pixy0stix & kirra, My H would argue that CivE's aren't like this because they "aren't real engineers." (Something about them not having to take a certain class in college that was particularly tough.) After many, many arguments, he has KIND OF come around on this. When he was in school, I would get so mad at his arrogance. "They ARE engineers...hence civil ENGINEERS!" and he'd respond something about sanitation engineers and domestic engineers. It's a miracle I ever married him!
But this thread has me LOL and nodding. Oh, enginerds. I agree with others, he is a fantastic husband and father. Thankfully he can usually recognize and laugh at his quirks. He also works for a huge engineering company that essentially runs our town (and furthers ALL of their arrogance since "this town would shut down if our company left!"), so he's completely surrounded by enginerds, so it's normal for him. The nice thing is that most of my friends are also Enginerd wives, so we have these conversations frequently!
Oh, and hi! I usually just read this board & admire all of the smart women over here. I had to join in tonight. I think I'll come around more often.
Lol I just asked H if he thought civil engineers are engineers. He says they're just really different, and he thinks so, but he would have to study their class requirements to be sure.
I am laughing so hard at this thread. My computer enginerd husband is like this. I cannot count the number of times he's looked at something like an Adirondack chair and been like "I could totally make that."
I got a homemade pair for our 11 year anniversary this year.
I'm married to a mechanical enginerd turned IT consultant to IT project manager. Our entire life driven by spreadsheets and lists. My god the lists!
I got a tip from my college adviser when Mr.Kirkette first called to ask me out on a date. She was married to an engineer . She said," Make sure you really like him before accepting the date, because engineers will never leave you".
This is so true. I always joke that Mh would never have married anyone if I hadn't hit on him while drunk our senior year of college.
Once an enginerd considers you one of their people, that's it for life. Lol.
So true. DH and I met when they put business majors and engineering majors together in a program to "work as teams" ha! Here we are almost 20 years later.
And, don't let a pop song try and use a scientific lyric. Mr. Kirkette winces every time he hears Calvin Harris' I Feel so Close to You Right Now. Apparently, that's not how force fields work.
OMG! I have this exact same problem with this song, lol.
eclaires, I agree with the "once you're their people, that's it for life." When I met my H, I was in a 2+ year relationship (that started in HS). Drunk H announced to his buddies that night that he was going to marry me. 5 years later, we were married. I've now been rolling my eyes at his Enginerd quirks for 15 years. His persistence paid off, and I got the better end of the deal!
But with a special nod to Nuclear Engineering for being "the hardest."
Yup He said Nuclear is by far the coolest. Then, there's the tier of purists (MechE, ChemE, EE, etc.) Then, a tier for hybrids (Software, Systems, something about biomed vs. Pharma. Honestly, I was starting to zone out. Then, old school train/ railroad engineers from back in the day. Not current train conductors because it's computerized. Then, "engineers" in name, but in application and training have little to do with actual engineering. He had a little discomfort actually considering this group in the same frame as the others.
I truly love you bitches, because the above was like a 25 minute conversation. I was really just hoping for the facts in bullet point version.
lolololol we in this thread know what you just endured on our behalf. So thank you!!
Damn it guys. My husband is debating going back to school to become an engineer.
I think this is a chicken and egg thing. He's either the type, or not. School won't give him the annoying tendencies if he doesn't have them. HTH. :-)
QFT. My H went back to school to become an engineer and is convinced he is an all-the-way enginerd. Nope, sorry babe, not true. He loves his hands-on fixing-shit projects, is quite capable doing them, and for that I am grateful. However, many of the quirks mentioned here are not my life. He is a mechanically-inclined people-person and annoying in a different way. Annoying - he takes on big projects and gets 89% done before moving on to the next. I wonder if the house will ever look like it's not in the middle of a renovation.
OTOH, he may have been wearing his "people who think they know it all annoy those of us that do" t-shirt today.
ChemEs are at the top of the food chain. Just ask my husband. He's never wrong.
Never.
I do feel like we need a support group for those long explanations we spouses get when we ask a simple question. The worst is when I give up and just start walking away and he follows me. BE GONE, STRANGE WIZARD!