Q: I have a high-powered job and spend long hours in the office. I also travel a great deal and it’s starting to bug my husband. His job is 9–5 and I can feel his resentment growing. What can I do?
A: It’s a good sign that you recognise your husband’s growing discontent and are willing to address it. Sustaining a healthy marriage is hard work and requires consistent attention.
Resentment often signals a sense of loss of worth, self-confidence or self-respect. For your husband, it may not be as much about you, but more about his own choices. He may be unhappy in his own career, feeling his own pales in comparison to yours, or he may feel that you’ve grown disappointed in him.
Smart, ambitious, powerful and successful women seem to want more from their men. More men today accept and prefer women who are equally and even more successful, but he may feel that due to your work demands, there’s no time for your relationship with him. You need to check in with each other about your expectations, wants, needs and feelings.
A healthy marriage evolves and allows for redefinition on a regular basis. Talk to your husband, acknowledge his feelings, but try not to defend your own position and invalidate his in the process. You need to communicate, cooperate, negotiate and compromise to reach a workable, satisfactory arrangement that suits you both. Remember, conflict is an opportunity for growth.
A sustainable relationship requires time and energy, working constantly towards intimacy and connection. Sometimes, we’re so focused on what is required from us at work that we shamefully neglect the people we love, and then we wonder why the relationship’s not working out.
There’s nothing wrong with having a high-powered career and you certainly derive meaning from it. Most good employers understand the need for a work-life balance. But carefully examine your own motivation. Sometimes, focusing all one’s energies on work can be an escape from other issues which we’re reluctant and fearful (or sometimes just ill-equipped) to deal with.
Are there deeper issues you may be avoiding in your relationship? If so, you need to give them your urgent attention.
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