It can seem like an impossible juggling act to maintain a fulfilling and successful career, and to put in the time and energy that your marriage deserves and needs if it’s going to endure. It’s also absolutely necessary. Our careers are important not just for financial security, but also for our own sense of purpose and achievement. If we don’t feel fulfilled personally, we aren’t going to feel fulfilled in our relationships and they will suffer. So what do you do?
Choose wisely
This applies both to your career and your spouse.
Before getting married, be sure that you find out as much as possible about what kind of partnership your potential spouse is looking for and whether what they want from their life fits in with what you want from yours. No matter how much you love somebody, if you end up giving up on things that are important to you to try to preserve a relationship, that relationship will suffer. Ask questions about their thoughts on having a family, on where they would like to live, on what they want to spend their weekends doing. All of these things are the building blocks of your life and it’s important that you don’t compromise to your own detriment.
According to 80,000 hours, the most important thing about your career isn’t necessarily how much money you can earn from it. Although it’s important that you are earning enough to be comfortable, after you reach this point additional money doesn’t make you that much happier. They reviewed over 60 studies on what makes a dream job and they found that your dream job:
- Should involve work that you are good at. You are never going to feel fulfilled if you are slogging away at something that really isn’t in your skillset. For example, if you are a naturally introverted person, you are never going to be happy in a job that requires you to be extroverted – no matter how good you are at faking it. You need to be able to tailor your work so that you can approach it in a way that suits your strengths.
- Should help others. If you can use your skills to help other people this will make you feel as though you are part of a community which you are giving back to, which will in turn help you to feel more connected and more fulfilled.
- Should have supportive conditions. Your work should be engaging enough to enable you to enter a state of flow, your colleagues need to be supportive, your work needs to fit in with your personal life, and your job should also lack major negative aspects like unfair pay or longer hours than you can reasonably work.
Share your world
Your career is yours to shape and grow and that’s what is great about it. But, if you’re sharing your life with your partner, it’s important that you share this part of your life with them, too. Be sure to talk to them about what you are working on, and to ask them about what they are working on too. Allow them to offer suggestions and ideas if they want to. This lets your partner feel as though they are contributing positively to your life, and that you are contributing to theirs, which is essential in a partnership.
It can also be a good idea to introduce key people from your work life to your partner, if this is appropriate. This helps them to put a face to a name when you talk about someone from the office, and means that they can picture you going about your day. This in turn helps them to feel involved in your life.
Make time for one another
If you want your relationship to work you need to commit to it, which means actively making a point of spending quality time together, just the two of you, at least once each week and making sure that you check in with one another daily, even if you are feeling tired and stressed.
Discuss and set expectations with one another about how much time you will be spending together so that one or both of you is not left feeling as though they are putting in more effort.
It’s also important to consider your spouse when you are making career plans. For example, if you were a Registered Nurse wanting to progress and become a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, rather than committing to attending a bricks-and-mortar university, a step that might affect the amount of time you spend with your spouse, you could look at NNP programs online instead as this would enable you to plan your studies around your life.
Share the housework
Again, openness and honesty are key here. It’s vital that you ensure that you are both sharing the work of running your lives together equally in the way that best works for you. If one of you is picking up the slack all of the time this will breed resentment, which is never a good thing.
Discuss with one another what you expect in terms of cleanliness in the home and come to an agreed level that you can both stick to.
Share successes
It is important to maintain financial independence, after all, how else are you going to surprise your love with a gift if they’re seeing every payment that’s made on your credit card? However, it’s also important to share and support one another. If you are in a position where you are earning more, you don’t want your spouse to feel as though they can’t keep up with you financially. Find a way to share the financial running of your home so that if one of you benefits, then you both benefit, as this adds to the feeling of being part of a team.
Manage white noise
An article by Forbes notes the importance of management of the electronic devices in your home. When you are trying to make a success of your career it is tempting to make yourself available all of the time, and keep on top of your emails and social media by being constantly attached to your phone. However, if you do this you are not being present in your home, and you are increasing your stress levels.
To improve your sleep and your love life, it’s a very good idea not to allow electronics in the bedroom. The same goes for those nights you have designated as being for quality time together. On those nights put your phone in another room and really be with one another, without any interruptions.
