When Providing Isn’t the Same as Being Present
A man writes in, frustrated and exhausted. He works long hours to provide for his family, yet his marriage feels increasingly strained. He believes his sacrifice should be understood but the arguments keep coming.
Dear Douglas,
Today, my wife and I had a big argument. They have been getting more frequent lately. I have been working non-stop to meet the deadlines for a project at work, which includes doing emails at home after dinner. She said she is tired of me being so busy and preoccupied with work. I don’t like it myself, but my job demands a lot from me and pays me well. Why can’t she understand that I endure all this stress for her and the kids?
Can’t win
Dear Can’t Win,
I want you to know that your experience being under time pressure and family stress is quite common for professionals living abroad. In places where jobs are competitive, pay is good while the cost of living is low…employers often have high expectations for their employees. Fulfilling those expectations can require extra time and energy, both of which are limited resources. It sets up a natural conflict with your wife and children…as they would want your time and energy also. I am not surprised that bringing home good money doesn’t make up for an absent husband and father in the mind of your wife and kids. Working too much might be necessary, for a short while, but doesn’t really work as an on-going pattern of life. Still, it is difficult to be sacrificing for them and to feel little appreciation and additional pressure.
You are in a tough spot, which is challenging you to know and to protect your priorities. If the culture in the workplace is that people are willing to work long hours, it is difficult for you to set the boundary you need, to carve more time for your wife and children. You are faced with a set of risks. From the outside perspective, you are getting pinched in a systemic problem. Because the expectations are high and the work culture is compliant, a system is formed that might cost people more than they gain. Finding the right balance is not easy, but work environments that desire to be sustainable must consider the impact their expectations have on the families of their workers. The only way they are likely to do that is workers are willing to set boundaries and limits as to the work they will do. Setting work limits is vital for an organization to correct itself and to find a sustainable balance. Urgency and deadlines can make it difficult to address the way the system is functioning and if the turnover is high it can leave the problem unaddressed.
What happens most is that workers and families live with a “for now” mindset, coping with the demands of the present and ignoring the need for a solution with a vague hope that it will appear in the future. Coping, while it is an important ability to have, is not the same as living. Coping is always meant to be a temporary solution to buy time until a long term solution can be found. The problem is that often people are coping as a life style and they may not understand that one’s’ ability to cope will run out. This may be happening with your wife…she can no longer tolerate waiting for you to become an active husband and father. True living is accepting the responsibility for ones’ life and seeks to find deeper, more sustainable methods and mechanisms to solve life’s’ problems.
So…Can’t Win…it is time to win. You have to find a way to bring your life into balance. That might mean facing some difficult decisions, and setting some a new framework of limitations. It clearly is a process where you find out what your priorities are and let them guide the way you live.
