Every couple finds it challenging to maintain a successful relationship, but couples who have dual careers can face even greater challenges.
In today’s busy world, connecting with your significant other can be tough, especially with both partners working full-time and juggling numerous commitments. So, what’s the secret to successfully balancing dual careers?
- Make home and work zones.
Dual-career couples may find it difficult to maintain clear boundaries between work and home. The guilt couples feel about children at home while they’re at work leads them to resist picking up their laptops and completing work tasks while at home. Setting up time zones and home zones can help break this cycle.
You and your partner can use time zones to mark when you will discuss work, rather than letting it leak into every conversation. You can use home zones to do some extra work or keep up on your emails – such as an office or a den in your house.
Setting aside certain spaces for work helps create a powerful separation between work and home life. It also reinforces expectations – a partner’s time and availability will be protected when in the home zone.
- Say no more often.
As your and your partner’s careers progress, you may become more influential and receive more requests outside of your day-to-day work duties. While these activities are rewarding, they require time and energy.
You cannot do it all – and neither can your partner. That is why you should always accept requests with a significant value-added component. When it comes to maintaining a healthy work-life equation, you have to learn to say “no.” However, it’s not always easy to say no.
Take the time to consider the value-add of each request you receive, asking yourself the following questions: What will I gain from attending or joining? What impact would it have on my spouse and home?
- Maintain a regular look-ahead schedule.
Eventually, you and your partner will have to negotiate expectations and decide who will take the lead in terms of their careers. You can accomplish this by keeping in constant communication with your partner.
Regular lookahead meetings can help you plan and set expectations for the future. This will allow you and your partner to stay actively involved when making big career decisions, projects, or goals, as these meetings are times for open, honest communication. Lookaheads are also a great opportunity to ask your partner for support while staying on the same page.
- Connect deeply.
Couples with dual careers are smart and go-getters who naturally seek logistical solutions when challenges arise. Though understandable, this focus prolongs their struggles by ignoring the underlying psychological forces – such as their struggles for power and control, as well as their own hopes and fears – that in the first place create their challenges.
Relationships work when couples decide openly and deliberately what they want their life together to be and who they want to be together.
- Set up a contract.
The reason couples unravel isn’t because they don’t support each other; rather, it’s because they don’t know exactly what they are supporting and why. Psychological contracts are agreements between couples that establish shared values, define boundaries neither will cross, and define how their careers will fit together as a couple.
Due to this contract, they know what a good life means to them, what they need and want, and what they should pursue regardless of the cost.
- Ignore external influences.
It is surprising (and comforting) that dual-career couples cannot find a one-size-fits-all solution. Couples can thrive when one takes the lead and the other takes the secondary role, when both are juggling careers and family obligations, and when they take turns advancing their careers and supporting one another.
When couples are working together, they choose priorities that are important to them and stick to them, regardless of whether there is agreement among the other members. On the other hand, when couples become enslaved to cultural ideals of what a “good” couple ought to be, they struggle.
The key to a successful dual career relationship is prioritizing your relationship, establishing open communication, practicing self-care, and having fun together! When a couple with dual careers works hard and makes an effort, they can have a harmonious relationship filled with success and love.
