My Job's Bigger than Your Job
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[1 Comment]"Boy, am I tired."
"Me, too."
"I thought my workday would never end. It seemed like every phone call and every memo just dumped another problem on my desk."
"I know what you mean. I must have dealt with 25 angry customers since lunch."
"At least you don't have productivity quotas to meet. You have no idea what a headache those are."
"No, I just have to figure out ways to keep the customers happy without giving away all the company's profits. No pressure there."
"Talk about pressure! Jean called in sick today, and she was supposed to do the month-end reports, so I had to do them."
"That's nothing. We just found out there's going to be a special inventory review starting next week. Do you know what it's like to get ready for that?"
"It's not anything like trying to meet productivity quotas and do the month-end reports at the same time; I'm pretty sure of that. I'm exhausted. What are we doing about dinner?"
"Don't look at me! I'm too tired to fix anything."
"So am I. Guess I'm not all that hungry anyway."
"I'm going to the gym."
"I'm going to walk the dog."
Does this conversation sound like:
- two contestants battling it out for the title of Hardest Working Person in the House?
- spouses who both desperately need each other to recognize their efforts?
- a couple who are both feeling overwhelmed by the combined demands of work and home?
It's all of the above, of course. At the end of the day, when workplace frustrations are still fresh in their minds and the evening's domestic tasks are looming, the setting is ripe for The Contest to begin—or to resume where it left off on a previous night. If one spouse begins describing how hard he or she worked today, the other spouse may feel a need to balance the scales with a similar recital in order not to feel lacking in industriousness or worth. If allowed to go on very long, this unhealthy competition can cause hurt feelings, growing anger and festering resentments that may take years to repair.
My husband, Dan, and I fell right into this trap about ten years into our marriage. Our child was in school, our careers had progressed and both of us were in high-intensity jobs in which we were trying furiously to prove ourselves. At the same time, we were struggling to keep up with chores around the house in the face of these daunting new work responsibilities. Our competitive conversations became so frequent—and so predictable—that if one of us uttered the words "I'm tired," the other automatically tuned out, knowing another salvo in The Contest was about to begin.
Why does this pattern arise in so many marriages? Blame it on good old human nature. All of us have a fundamental need for recognition. Of all the people in our lives, our spouse is the one whose appreciation we most need. We need our mate to respect what we do and to value our efforts—from folding the laundry to earning a promotion. If we don't receive the recognition we need and want, we start devising strategies to evoke it. Unfortunately, these attempts often come across as trying to make ourselves appear harder-working or more put-upon than our spouse—not at all the result we wanted.
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1998, Winter
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lynne
How sad when one spouse actually does work much harder than the other, yet the spouse who refuses go to work is the one who wants to play the "one-up" game. The working spouse will have to find their encouragement, comfort, affirmation, appreciation someplace else. Or go without. How sad it is to live this way.
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