Lessons in Love and Marriage

Let’s get a little vulnerable. If you’re anything like me, when we go full-force into our careers, we make sacrifices. We sacrifice our health, our friendships, and also our relationships…including our marriage. For some of us, there’s an underlying sense of pride in the fact that our marriage is suffering because we subconsciously (or maybe even consciously) subscribe to the belief that “…when your whole life goes up in smoke…t’s time for a promotion.” (cue scene from “The Devil Wears Prada”, where Anne Hathaway’s character is complaining to Stanley Tucci’s character about how her relationships with her friends and boyfriend are falling apart).

Now that our home is our office, we can no longer avoid what is directly in front of us. Our relationships with our families are now staring right back at us, and no matter what we do, we’re not escaping it this time. So how exactly did we get here? Thing is, the traits that make high-achieving, career-driven women successful in corporate are also the silent killers of our marriage.

Hear me out for a minute. In corporate, we’re rewarded for meeting deliverables, getting things done, and bringing value to the table. In order to exceed these expectations (because let’s be real – high achievers are more than just about “meeting” expectations), we succumb to our need for control so that we can minimize the possibilities of things going wrong, and as such, we anticipate how things will happen and how people will respond (also known as “expectations”), and we’re constantly finding areas where we can add value and improve the process, while deciding who can help us accomplish these goals (aka “criticism” and “judgment”).

Well, when we do this long enough at work, it’s inevitable that these “skills” start to seep into our personal lives too. We start to judge the person we married, find flaws, and then try to control their behavior so that they start to meet our expectations of how our husbands should behave. As the quality of our marriage starts to go downhill, we start to judge ourselves, as well. We start to view this as our failure, which makes it even more important that we fix the situation and get our husbands back in shape! Well, this self-judgment and self-criticism create an unhealthy and vicious cycle that eventually pushes us to stick our head in the sand and pretend that it’s not our fault.

Truth of the matter? We are contributors to the situation…that’s the “bad” news.

Good news is that by working together at home, we can also start to mend our marriage. While we may enjoy the instant, “all or nothing” fix (similar to those pesky little tech issues at work), the road to recovery is a “step-by-step” process that involves your commitment to making a series of intentional decisions each and every day (especially if your marriage has been on the backburner for a while). Despite what you may think, the first step starts with you! It’s not about our husbands at this time, although I get how easy it is to place blame there (and yes, that even includes the times when you almost fell into the toilet because the seat is up, and yes, I have been there too!).

So if you’re serious about creating the type of marriage you’ve always desired, here are some questions to start asking yourself:

• Where are you critical of yourself?
• Are these criticisms yours or do they belong to others?
• Where are you afraid to let go of control in your marriage?
• What are your fears in your marriage, and why?
• What is the worst that can happen if your fears were to come true?
• Where are you refusing to see and appreciate yourself in the marriage?

So take comfort, my dear high-achieving friends, that you CAN still hold onto your need for control; however, it stops with you and your choices. You can only control your decisions and how you want to move forward in your life. When you start to accept this simple little fact, you WILL start to bring in more balance, joy and fulfillment both personally and professionally.

For more information on how to find balance, joy and expansion in your career and your marriage, contact me at jeantien@hotmail.com.