Danielle and her husband had begun their marriage working together. Before long, though, Danielle had moved to another employer, where she expected greater opportunity for advancement. Her husband had stayed behind, soldiering on in his original employment. Danielle, though, didn’t find the advancement in her new job that she had sought. Indeed, the opposite happened: Danielle gradually took less interest in her job and career, and more interest in the marital household. She hadn’t planned to do so. She still thought of herself as a career woman with abundant dreams and strong ambition. But Danielle also sensed that she might be wanting a different kind of career, one that had more to do with making a household than with earning a living by holding a job.
Careers
A job is one thing, a career another thing. A job earns a livelihood. A career is an arc of jobs and roles that covers all or a significant part of the course of a life. Work, whether inside or outside of the home, and whether in business, government, education, nonprofits, social services, or household services, is such a big part of life that married couples must navigate careers together, in coordination or collaboration, more than separately. What one spouse does in the way of a career can affect what the other spouse may do, can do, need not do, should probably not do, or must not do as a result. Marital households have needs for both household support and household services, both of which increase substantially with the birth or adoption of children. The better marriages find synergies by coordinating the careers of spouses. Expect to give real thought and attention to how you and your spouse coordinate your respective careers, whatever those careers may earn, provide, or entail.
Turns
One way to approach dual employment or business careers of two spouses is to ensure that each spouse has an adequate period of marital support and commitment to pursue the spouse’s career for the benefit of both spouses. Coordination may, in other words, require or recommend taking turns. One spouse may, for instance, work at a non-career job while the other spouse completes education for a career position. On graduation and employment, though, the career spouse may forgo additional training or advancement while the other spouse pursues career education. Alternatively, one spouse may remain for a time in a dead-end job simply to keep the household financially afloat, while the other spouse starts a business, engages in a charitable cause, or pursues a similar career-related dream. When that spouse has created a profit-making business, has met the charitable cause, or satisfies the dream, the other spouse may then leave the dead-end job, taking the time and forgoing the earnings to find, qualify for, and gain a career position. Back and forth the opportunities may go, while each spouse supports, appreciates, and encourages the other.
Division
Other spouses eschew dual employment careers for a more-traditional division of roles, one providing the bulk of the marital income while the other provides the bulk of the marital household services. Each spouse still has a career, only one though in the traditional employment sense, the other in the traditional homemaker sense. Marriages need not begin that way. Marriages often begin with both spouses completing education and seeking or holding employment. In time, though, one spouse or the other may earn sufficient income in a sufficiently stable, secure, and rewarding career to provide sufficient financial support for the household, giving the other spouse the option of forgoing employment to maintain and improve the marital household. The birth or adoption of children can speed or confirm that efficient and traditional division of roles, as the children require and benefit from constant home care and attention. As natural, orderly, traditional, and beneficial as that division may be, it may not accord with the expectations of one spouse or both of the spouses. The employed spouse may groan under the burden of a job and career, while the stay-at-home spouse may groan under the burden of housework. Role modifications or even role swaps may need to occur.
Income
Earning the income necessary to support the marital household is a significant factor in shaping marital career roles. If the marriage needed no income, each spouse could do as they pleased with respect to employment. The household would survive if either, both, or neither worked for pay. But the vast majority of marriages require one spouse or even both spouses to work. Because the need for income carries such a big influence on marital careers, consider carefully what income your marital household truly needs. Don’t let ill-considered lifestyle choices increase the required household income to the point that either or both spouses must work at an undesirable or dangerous job or location, for unreasonable hours or under unreasonable demands, in ways that burden or harm the marriage. Better to cut back on discretionary expenditures and attempt to reduce or control housing and transportation costs, than to spend indiscriminately and have to pay the piper with grueling work. The point is to see and control the relationship between the marital household budget and the demands that budget makes on spousal careers. You and your spouse may agree that having one of you at home caring for the marital household while the other works makes the best sense for your marriage. But that agreement may mean nothing if your uncontrolled spending requires both of you to work.
Priority
Deciding on, pursuing, and advancing in careers while married requires giving careers their appropriate priority. When as a single person you pursue a career, you have no marriage with which to concern yourself. Your career cannot compete with your marriage for time, energy, attention, and priority because you are not married. Yet when you marry, you instantly acquire a very substantial interest with an unquestionably higher priority than your career. No matter how you prioritized your career before marriage, your career will definitely play second fiddle to your marriage once you marry. Anyone who holds their career in higher priority than their marriage should probably not be married. If your spouse means less to you than your career, your spouse will soon notice it and may justly object to it. Priority does not mean promptly abandoning one for the other, though. You can certainly both pursue a career, even a challenging and rewarding career, while treasuring and sustaining a healthy marriage. Many of us do. Priority does, though, mean that your marriage and career do not compete for attention with one another. Your spouse should not feel as if your spouse must outshine your career to gain your due devotion. Leaving your spouse with the feeling that your career competes with your spouse for your devotion will soon adversely impact both your career and marriage.
Accommodations
You may find several accommodations that ensure your career does not unduly compete with your marriage and that your spouse continues to feel your due devotion to your marriage over your career. Do not underestimate the significance of discerning and adopting those accommodations. Careers can take a great deal of time, attention, and effort. You may not be able to give your marriage equal time, but you must still give your marriage higher priority. And that’s a key to preserving and promoting your marriage while maintaining a demanding career. The measure isn’t the bulk time but the priority attention. A simple example that may work well for you and your spouse is to find the highest-priority time for your marriage each day, and arrange your work schedule to respect it. If, for instance, your spouse needs and wants you at home for a family dinner hour and relaxed stroll or other activity to follow it, then regularly be home on time prepared for that marital devotion. To satisfy your career’s demands, you may have to get to work an hour or two earlier, or work late in the evening after your spouse retires for the night, but you’ll have prioritized your marriage. Same thing with weekends. If your spouse expects, deserves, and needs your Saturdays and Sundays regularly free, then make up any career demands for a longer workweek by working early in the morning, late in the evening, or when your spouse is away for part of the day. Attending to your spouse during your spouse’s priority time shows that you prioritize your marriage over your career. Find accommodations that work for you, your spouse, your marriage, and career.
Breaks
Another accommodation that many spouses make to prioritize marriage over a career is to take regular vacation breaks from the career, during which to celebrate the marriage. Weeklong winter and summer vacation breaks from work can be treasured times for marital adventure travel. Refreshing breaks need not be few and far between. Other periodic three- and four-day weekends can likewise be precious marital getaways. As soon as one such marriage celebration ends, plan and look forward to the next one. Let your spouse and marriage be the jewel and crown that it is, atop the body of your marital household that your career financially supports. Likewise, when you are home from work, break mentally and emotionally from work, recognizing that the marital household, not the workplace, is your life and home. Do not obsess over work concerns when at home. Doing so won’t solve the work concerns or feed your marriage. Avoid burdening your spouse with work issues. Yes, from time to time your spouse may be an adept and valued work advisor. But constantly carrying work issues home to hash out with your spouse isn’t prioritizing or helping your marriage. Develop the discipline to keep work at work.
Benefit
Just because you marry does not mean that you should or will do less well in your career. The opposite may instead happen. Marriage may significantly advance your career or your spouse’s career. The traditional adage, frequently modified and adapted especially with respect to gender roles, is that behind every good man is a good woman. Construe the adage to mean that the encouragement, support, and advice of a sound spouse can promote the other spouse’s career. Marriages, though, can do much more than give a career-minded spouse another member of the team, who happens to be a spouse, to advance the career. Marriages are instead the reason, rationale, and foundation for a career. A career supports a marriage, not a marriage the career. And that priority is not a bad thing at all for a career. Careers are not healthy when they are their own end. Make an end out of your career, and it will consume you, like any other lesser god would. Give the highest priority to your job, career, money, happiness, or you name it, and you’ll soon discern the distortion of your sound character. When one marries, one gives a career its sound justification in supporting the marriage. Careers have a natural and healthy place in the social order, and that place is to support a family. You can test that truth by bringing your spouse to a career-related social event, where other spouses also attend. You’ll instantly notice how whole, rounded, and grounded the spouses’ attendance makes the event. The marital justification for the career has suddenly appeared. Meet your boss’s spouse, and you’ll see why your boss works as hard as your boss does. Introduce your spouse to your boss, and your boss will see why you work as diligently as you do.
Reflection
How would you describe to a stranger who asked, the coordination of your career with your spouse’s career? Have you each at times made sacrifices for the other’s career? How did those sacrifices work out? Did they work as you both had hoped and planned? Are the financial needs of your marital household driving your career decisions or your spouse’s career decisions? Do you and your spouse need to change your marital lifestyle and reduce your expenditures so that each of you can find a better balance between marriage and careers? How do you, or how does your spouse, give priority to your marriage over your careers? What accommodations have you found that you are able to make to give your marriage priority over your career? Do you have other accommodations you might consider trying? Do you and your spouse take regular vacation or other breaks from careers to celebrate your marriage? What career benefits can you see that you or your spouse may have realized because of your marriage? Are either of you able to work with greater confidence, purpose, equanimity, support, and balance because of your marriage?
Key Points
A marriage must incorporate and coordinate the spouses’ careers.
Spouses may take turns promoting one another’s career.
Tradition divides roles, one to a career and one to the household.
Careers must provide for the marital household’s financial support.
Give priority, even if unequal time, to your marriage over your career.
Find accommodations your career can make to prioritize marriage.
Give your spouse the best time and attention each day.
Celebrate your marriage on regular vacation breaks.
Your marriage grounds, justifies, and benefits your career.