> What's best for my future family? That I 100%, undoubtedly love my job, or that I 100% always put food on the table?

And that's the crux of it, isn't it? I find that if my job is boring and my life outside of work is slow and uninteresting, I'm very unhappy. I need one or the other to be engaging on a regular basis. My wife is the strange sort of creature that is happiest in a very stable routine at work - one that I'd typically call monotonous.

Fortunately we already live happily on less than a third of our combined income, so it's actually lower risk for us happiness-wise if I pursue higher financial risk but more interesting employment. My lack of routine can often upset her, but it's much preferred to me being totally drained and demoralized at the end of a long and painfully boring workday.