We hear it all the time, "My partner cares more about their job than our family." Or "My partner's job gets the best parts of them and we get what's left over at home." Work is something that happens everyday and is big source of conflict and hurt in parenting partner relationships. Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP offer a two step process for how couples can discuss work, family life, and staying connected as partners through it all.
We hear it all the time, "My partner cares more about their job than our family." Or "My partner's job gets the best parts of them and we get what's left over at home." Work is something that happens everyday and is big source of conflict and hurt in parenting partner relationships. Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP offer a two step process for how couples can discuss work, family life, and staying connected as partners through it all.
Hello and welcome, mrs Couples Counseling for Parents. They show about couple relationships, how they work, why they don't, what you can do to fix what's broken. Here are our parents Our dad, dr Steven Mitchell, and our mom, erin Mitchell.
Speaker 2:Hello and thanks for joining us today on Couples, Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Steven Mitchell, I'm Erin Mitchell and on today's show we want to discuss how parenting partners can talk about work and the impact of work on, I guess, themselves personally, but more, I guess, more broadly, the impact of work on family Right, and this is a conversation that we get into with a lot of couples and it's a really important thing because most everyone has to go to work and it's something that happens every day and it can be a real area of conflict and misunderstanding.
Speaker 3:That's what I was just going to say I think it can feel so hard to talk about. And, like you said, it is something that happens every day. So it's something that needs to be talked about, and I think couples need to feel like we're able to discuss this important thing without it making it worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, without having a conflict every time. And so I'm going to read you a little case example of what this conversation could look like for you and your partner. Granted, it's not the only way the conversation goes, but it is the way it goes a lot in our experience, and so I'm going to give you this case example, and then we will kind of use that to help us try and impact. How can you and your partner have this really important conversation, right? So Kaylee and Devante have been together for five years and they have one kid with another on the way, and they both work full-time, and work is often an area of stress in their day-to-day life. And, of course, there's the mental load conversation, where Kaylee feels that, even though she also is working a full-time job, all the decisions about parenting, coordination of the kid's lives, household tasks and the emotional energy of thinking about the kid's well-being is often placed on her. Yeah, devante and her seem to get even more sideways. So that's one place they get sideways. But a place where they even have more difficulty is when they start discussing how Devante's work impacts him and the family. On one level, devante works outside of the home and Kaylee works from home. So this means Devante's not around as much, and this creates an extra burden for Kaylee because she's the parent at home. Yet there's.
Speaker 2:And then there's also the stress that Devante feels in work in general, and so you know Devante is a very career-driven, he's focused on trying to advance and the tech company works for. He has a great job, he enjoys his work, he spends a lot of time giving work his brain space and his emotional energy, and Kaylee feels that this focus takes away from the family's overall well-being. And she tells Devante when you get home, you're not here with us. You always have a call to finish up or need to send one more email. You are prioritizing work too much.
Speaker 2:Devante typically responds with I'm trying to give our family a good future. I have to work this hard if we want to give our family the best life. We have everything we need. We don't have to be stressed about money and it's all because I'm working this hard. Devante tends to react strongly to Kaylee when he feels she implies he's being so career-focused solely for himself that he's being selfish at the expense of the family, because in Devante's eyes, everything he does is for the family, and Kaylee feels activated when Devante acts like she does not contribute to the financial well-being of the family or have her own career goals, and she also. She frequently will say things like look, I have to try and be present, even though I'm working a full-time job. It's not just my job to balance work and our family life effectively. You need to try and do the same.
Speaker 3:Big deal.
Speaker 2:Big deal and frequently a story that we frequently hear.
Speaker 3:And honestly, it's not hard to see or at least from where I'm sitting right now, it's not hard to see why this conversation turns sideways so fast. It matters, and it matters to them both, and they both are feeling really missed. I love the way you've said at the very end what is the thing that feels like?
Speaker 2:Where they get stuck or where they get activated. Activated, yeah stuck.
Speaker 3:I think the one that you said for Devante really resonates for me from that, like for the Devantes in this conversation, which is the like don't call me selfish and don't say that I'm doing and honestly sacrificing a lot time, energy, brain space, emotional energy a lot of stress because I'm trying to be selfish.
Speaker 3:Yes, because I think the Devante's Devante here feels like it is for us, Like everything I'm doing is for us so don't call me selfish and that I think is a real, typically a real shut down space for Devante and the Devantes we talk to Like I'm not, I'm not, I will lead. Devante has left the conversation when that starts to get touched.
Speaker 3:That line of questioning or comment, yeah, and then I think that for the Kalees though I liked what you said about I feel like I have to go to work, I have to try to excel, I have to try to advance and be present there, but I also have to do that here.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily get to come home and send one more email or stay on a call Like I and just trust and you've got it. Right.
Speaker 3:Because you're trusting, I've got it and that's a real.
Speaker 2:That's that mental load piece that they struggle with, a big mental load piece.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a huge part. But the other thing I think for the Kalees is this idea of and I think where it gets really hot button is like don't say that just because I can acknowledge that, like you are contributing to our family and you are doing this for us, that that doesn't mean I'm supposed to like it or just accept that there's this cost and burden to us that we just have to be like oh well, that's just part of dad having a job or mom having a job.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's this part and you were mentioning this when we were kind of talking about doing this a little bit more Like one of the sticking points for Kalee can be the fact that she feels Devante dismisses the impact that of how he interacts with work. He dismisses the impact that that has on the family and kind of says, well, because it's for the good of the family, the family's just gotta deal with it. And Kaylee is trying to say like maybe the good of the family should be considered and we shouldn't just have to tolerate what work does to us or to the family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that that's why this conversation and conversations like it which for you and your partner could be a lot of things I think it almost doesn't matter what the topic is this one's about work but when it feels like to bring something up, so I think, Kaylee, bringing this up, I think very often and we didn't actually talk about this in the case example, so maybe Devante's not feeling this but very often we hear from the Devante's like you're asking me to quit my job, Like that's not what I'm saying, Like could that be an outcome of this conversation?
Speaker 2:Maybe, but like that is not the necessary outcome of you saying yes, let's talk about this, or you're saying you don't appreciate what I'm doing, because I don't think that that's the case either Kaylee's attention at all, right like yes, we Although that may be exactly how it comes out.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then are you right? But, yes, I appreciate what you're doing. Yes, what you're doing is necessary for the family. Yes, it is providing benefit to the family and, to Kaylee's point, just like what I'm doing is also providing benefit to the family and helping. So, like, first of all, like some balance in that regard. But just because all those things can be true and it can also be true that the level of energy, effort, brain space, emotional, you know kind of cost that work takes from you, devante, is negatively impacting us as a family and we need to think about what we're gonna do about that, and I think that's exactly what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3:So we are not saying this doesn't have to be a decision conversation. Saying I'd like to talk about work doesn't mean that there needs to be some big decision made. This doesn't have to be a decision type of conversation. This just needs to be a. We need to talk about this Like this. We both have to be able to express what this is like for us. Kaylee has got to be able to say you are not yourself for a little while when you get home from work, or I feel like this job is costing you more than you know, and if it's costing you, that's costing us, cause all the kid and I want is your presence.
Speaker 3:Or like you know, in this particular example too, like Kaylee's getting ready to have a kid and like I don't want more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're about to add another human to the family and this already feels tough.
Speaker 3:When I don't have much of you. And then to Devante's point. We're about to add another kid to the family. If ever there was a time I need to make sure that I'm, like you know, irreplaceable at work. It's now, and you know it goes round and round and round. But the point is is that Partners have to be able to talk about this. We have to be able to acknowledge a negative impact, even if it doesn't mean we're gonna necessarily make some massive change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or even if there's some positive things that come from it. I mean that's the thing. Yes, we all have to go to work. We all have to do work, but also going to work does impact our families. It impacts time, it impacts availability, it impacts the energy that we have for our family, and I think that that's another thing that we can often hear like couples talking about. I feel like work gets the best parts of you, all your focus, all your energy, and then home gets what's left.
Speaker 2:And then, basically, that's what Kaylee is trying to say. She's trying to say like hey, I think that work is getting the best of you and we're not getting the best of you. And she's trying to say like and we want the best of you, and I think that.
Speaker 3:Or at least I want you to acknowledge that there's cost to us. And because, again, dynamics can't always change, just because I don't like your job doesn't mean we get to like have all this, like you know, privilege to like. Oh well, then I'll get a new one tomorrow. Like, that's not how it works sometimes and a lot of times. So I think it's really important to acknowledge it doesn't have to mean something will be different, but we do have to be seen mutually in what these kinds of things are.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's the difference in something like let's say, devante and Kaylee have this conversation, and this is what we're talking about. It's hard for couples to even broach this conversation without conflict. So we're saying Kaylee and Devante have had this conversation and Devante has been willing to acknowledge you know what, you know what I get it. I get like, even though there's good stuff going on at work, I get that it's also there's some negative impact here at home and so it, with that understanding it like to your point, it doesn't necessarily mean anything's gonna change. But let's say Devante comes home after work and he turns to Kaylee and he says I gotta send this one email Because, honestly, this is how work goes.
Speaker 2:You send that one email because you know what you need to have this client meeting and you need to set it up. And now is the time to set it up because if you get that client meeting, guess what? You get paid, and you need to get paid. Like there is a reality to those kinds of things. But Devante can look at Kaylee and say you know what? I've gotta send this one email and I know that me doing that is exactly what you're talking about, about work, getting the best part of me, i-.
Speaker 3:I just got home I know I just You're not ready to say goodbye.
Speaker 2:This stinks whatever, and then maybe even giving a little, because I think what happens oftentimes is there's no explanation. Devante is just like I gotta send this email and then Kaylee says like why can't you send it later?
Speaker 3:He's like I can't. Before there wasn't even a thing. All of a sudden, Devante is just in his office on his phone.
Speaker 2:Right, or he's like I can't send it later. I gotta send it now, Like and there's no understanding, whereas if he's like no, he's like this client has reached out, this is a $10,000 deal. Like they wanna meet tomorrow afternoon and you know it's end of their day and they sent me this email, so I need to respond to it so that I can have it like. Even something like that can like the understanding can allow for you and your partner to have a different kind of conversation without the feelings of being blamed and criticized. It's Devante saying this is a legitimate concern. Kaylee, I get it. And Kaylee can say like I get that you feel stuck between a rock and a hard place here.
Speaker 3:Do you know what also helps build capital with? That is the times when Devante says, hey, I need to send an email. This isn't a right now situation, I can do this in two hours. I can do it before I go to bed. Would that be better, so that when if everything's always urgent.
Speaker 2:It's hard to take urgent seriously, sure, but oftentimes you make everything urgent in that situation just because you're your, your um well, it feels urgent. Well, well, it feels urgent. But also if you're having conflict about this kind of conversation, you just want to go away yeah, there could just kind of be a little pushback, like you know. Oh, kaylee's always on me about you know what every?
Speaker 3:it's all important, it's just all important like to try and get the conversation to end, and that's not useful either so I think that that actually brings up another vitally important part to this, which I think is like um so for Devante, everything might feel urgent and for the question is is it really? Yes, and I think, and, and what about? It is making everything feel urgent you do that.
Speaker 2:So I would say like, just personally, I feel like.
Speaker 3:I cannot wait to see where this is going you you have.
Speaker 2:I well, I feel like we've had that very conversation, because I feel like I can make things feel urgent yes, the email client situation he was talking about.
Speaker 3:That was Steven. Steven was like Aaron, this is my life.
Speaker 2:I do that sometimes but because I think what happens for me is I have like a running list of all the tasks in my brain that need to get done. It's overwhelming. I get stressed out about it. I feel better if I feel like I've worked through that task list and it's done and, but you feel better.
Speaker 3:What I think you mean is like I, I can connect, I can be present, I can be engaged.
Speaker 2:I'm not, you know, I don't feel like my brain's going somewhere else, and so, in a way, I can create this sense of like I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done so that I can. And you have sort of challenged that idea and been like that, the very thing you were saying, like it, are there some things that might need to get done immediately? Yes, but you're like I can't imagine that everything is at that, at that level of urgency, and that's really caused me to, you know, kind of be like you're probably right, yeah, like it. Like this email I might need to send now.
Speaker 3:These other four I don't like these are ones that can be sent whenever and I think that that goes into sort of like a new conversation of well, I can respect that urgency if and when I feel like you can respect that sometimes I need to be urgent. I need you to think that we're urgent, because I think, ultimately, what the Kalees are trying to say is this is urgent, we are urgent. How do I get to be an email? Yeah, the kids and I, like, do we need to book into your schedule and again to Kalees point.
Speaker 2:She has a job too. She is working full time too, she is contributing to the family too and she feels like she has that same responsibility and call for her of my family and my partner need to be important, and she feels like she is responding to it. And there is oftentimes in this conversation also an inequity in that where she's like Devante, you need to be held to the same standard. I feel like I'm being held to and like that's legitimate 100%. That's a legitimate call.
Speaker 3:And I think that that is where story comes in, where I think a couple has to understand what work means, what family time means, what missing things mean, what stress means. We talked about this a long time ago I don't even remember in the context of what, but I was raised by a single mom. My mom had a job, but it was pretty flexible and I expected that from both of us in our jobs, and my first job was also pretty flexible, well, very flexible, and Stevens wasn't, and I had no patience for that.
Speaker 3:Like you don't, it's flexible. And he's like no, it's not flexible, it's in and we have to get.
Speaker 2:Like our values and the way we perceive things like work, the actual physical act of work and how we think work integrates with family, come from what we've experienced.
Speaker 3:Either because we want to repeat.
Speaker 2:Or we want to have something very different.
Speaker 3:Or repair exactly. And I think if we don't know those things, if we don't know, you know we could read a ton into Devante and Kaylee here, but it might be very important, which Kaylee didn't know until it wasn't happening, for them to eat dinner together as a family, because maybe her family did that every single night or maybe her family didn't do it very often. And she desperately wanted that, and so it's like how is this not happening?
Speaker 2:Or there was an expectation, like in Kaylee's family, that when you know she had the experience that when her parents came home from work, like that was it, work was put up Like there wasn't any you know like there wasn't, it didn't invade life in any other way.
Speaker 2:Or maybe you know a lot of a story that we hear oftentimes from from one partner or both. There's either a certain level of maybe poverty in the family, not financial security, and so one partner is working so hard and so much and so focused on work so that they never have that experience for their family. Or there's even that idea of maybe work was part of a family legacy, or work was it's a family business, or you're in the same profession as your parents were.
Speaker 3:Or you come from ridiculously high achievers and the expectation is perfection or nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so you're just trying to lean into and live into that kind of family expectation and legacy, these kinds of things, because I think that that's different, because, let's say, that's Devante's you know, you work hard. He lean into that family legacy of achieving, like he is following something that's not selfish. In a sense, he's following like this is what I learned, this is what I was taught, this is what how my parents showed love, this is how I knew things were important.
Speaker 3:And a value I want to pass to our kids. This may or may not be it's not the point but yeah, but there's story, Matt.
Speaker 2:There's always a story behind.
Speaker 3:There are always stories, and especially in stuck places. We typically don't know what it is that is the stuck place, but we don't hold on to something or defend against something unless it's important, unless it means something to us, unless it's somehow touching either a wound or like a place of real and I mean this in a good way, like pride, like no, I will do this, like this means something to me. This is who I want to be, and the point of knowing these things is so that you get, as a couple, to know those places in each other and then together to choose. Without that, we don't have choice. Our stories are running our lives in ways we don't even know.
Speaker 2:So I think, about this conversation around parenting partners and work, there's a two step process and I think the first step is to recognize and acknowledge that your work impacts your family.
Speaker 3:Period 100%.
Speaker 2:That can be positive, that can be negative, it can be a little bit of both. It's almost always both. Yeah, you have to acknowledge work impacts what is happening in my family and we as partners need to understand how we perceive that, like what we think that cost is and what feels okay about that and what doesn't. So that's the first part.
Speaker 3:I have to add one little anecdote which just feels important to me. But I do think there's also a perception, especially of the Devontes here, where, like you don't want to say you had a great day or you liked something about your job, or even to like, say like a professional accomplishment, because somehow it then perpetuates this narrative of like work is a vacation and this selfish dream, and I do think that they're ending in terms of impact Just because I like it or just because I'm good at it, or just because yeah, it doesn't mean work's easy or creates stress or selfish Like yeah, that there isn't cost or that it means that I'm not doing it for us.
Speaker 3:But I think a lot of partners miss out on those pieces of their intimacy and knowing one another because it becomes such a shut down, closed conversation we don't even get to know sort of the joys.
Speaker 2:Like I can't share that. Yeah, work is just a problem. Yeah, it has to be. We just leave it there.
Speaker 3:I don't want to share that with you. Then you'll tell me again how much I love that more than anything. So I think that that's part of it.
Speaker 2:A part of that first initial thing, which is what is the impact of work?
Speaker 3:Positive and negative, good, the bad, the ugly all of it.
Speaker 2:And then I think the second part of this is equation formula. Whatever you want to say is that both of you, as partners, think about what was your experience of work and family, that these two dynamics growing up Like. What were the expectations you had about what work would look like? What were your expectations that you had about family life? What were your expectations about work and work life, family life balance what did you see? And then, how does the way you interact with work and family reflect that, or how is it impacted by it? And I think that when partners begin to do that, what they begin to realize is oh, I'm maybe living in a more of a reactionary place than I knew.
Speaker 2:Than I knew. And then you can say like, oh, how can we begin to have a conversation about how do we want work in family life to be perceived by our kids in our family, and how do we then make the choices right now in our family?
Speaker 3:so that happens, and I think that that is Even if the choice is simply that we are allowed to talk about this and we are allowed to Sure To say it is hard, even if there is also goodness in it yeah yeah, but I think that that is how you move towards, like a connective and a collaborative conversation, rather than a disconnected and conflictual conversation. Well then, it's also how you have your choice as a family and one person isn't feeling controlled by the others, narrative or whatever you know choices.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Really, I mean reactions, yeah, so it's how we get a. We choice in this.
Speaker 2:Today's show was produced by Aaron and Steven Mitchell. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit the follow button and leave us a rating. This helps our content become more visible to others who might enjoy it, and it lets us know how we can keep improving the show. And, as always, we're grateful for you listening. Thanks so much for being with us here today on Couples Counseling for Parents, and remember working on a healthy couple relationship is good parenting.