Dear Madeleine,
This isn’t so much a work question as a “my work is affecting my relationship” question.
I met my husband in grad school when we were both studying to work in the same field. He got an amazing job with a good salary right out of school. I was happy for him and grateful that at least one of us was working, because I struggled to get hired.
I ended up taking a job in an adjacent field. It was for a start-up, which felt risky—but I knew beggars can’t be choosers. A job is a job.
I ended up loving the job. The company kept growing, and I got promoted rapidly. I am now a department head who gets to travel to really interesting places and run teams of wonderfully smart people. I am constantly learning new things, invited to speak at conferences, and I’m making the kind of money I never dreamed of. I know how lucky I am.
In the meantime, my husband was let go from his first job and it was never entirely clear why. He said it was budget cuts but no one else was released, and he didn’t stay in touch with any of his work friends.
He got another job quickly, but he complains constantly about how bored he is, how underpaid he is compared to his colleagues, and how little room there is for advancement.
I have invited him to join me on my work trips, which I think would be super fun. He always declines and says he is going to use his alone time to work on a book he is writing.
I have volunteered to help him with the book, brainstorm ideas, and be a reader for his pages, and he takes that as an insult.
I am beginning to suspect that there is no book. This has been going on for almost a decade now. He has stopped asking me about my work and tunes out when I want to share news with him.
The last time I was promoted, he sulked for a week. When we are out with friends and the topic of my work comes up, he immediately finds ways to change the subject. He also has stopped talking to me about his work, or, if he does, he makes it clear he doesn’t want any input from me.
He never really cared about money, but now that I am making so much, he is spending it in alarming ways: an expensive car, a complex speaker system for our house that seems like overkill to me, etc.
Neither of us were big drinkers when we met, and I don’t drink at all anymore (it makes me feel sick). But he has become a wine connoisseur. He has created a temperature-controlled wine room in our house and filled it with rare bottles at enormous cost.
I would like to save some of our income for the future, but his spending is preventing us from doing that. When I object, he points out that he “carried us” financially when we graduated from school. It was only for six months, but he never lets me forget it. He also points out that I get a lot of first-class travel and other perks from my job, so he should get to enjoy what he likes.
The bottom line is this: I feel that he is jealous of my job and envies my success. He is finding small ways to punish me for being happy when he is not. I feel like I have lost my best friend. It is very lonely. It makes me so sad, I have considered quitting my job to make him happy.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
Lost
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Dear Lost,
Oh, I do indeed have thoughts. My first thought is: whatever you do, DON’T QUIT YOUR JOB. Please. Please. Please.
My second thought is: GET HELP!
Okay. Now that we have that out of the way, I will try to be gentle—but it is hard because I want to track you down and shake some sense into you.
You are very vulnerable right now, and I don’t want to be mean, but this is going to sound mean. You already have lost your best friend—and you are in grave danger of losing yourself in the toxic soup of your relationship.
Your marriage is in deep trouble, and you need professional help. STAT. I am not a marriage counselor or a couple’s therapist, which is the kind of expertise you really need right now. If there is any way you can swing it, you might attend a Gottman The Art and Science of Love seminar. If your husband won’t agree to do the work that needs to be done to save your marriage, it is already over. And the professional you are going to need is a good divorce attorney.
As a coach, I can share a few principles that may help you find some perspective and apply some common sense in a situation that has muddled your thinking.
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- There is no circumstance in which making yourself miserable to make someone who loves you happy will work.
- If quitting your job and depriving yourself of what feels like meaningful, interesting work that generates a good income does make someone else happy, it means that person does not have your best interests at heart.
- If you aren’t generally paranoid and don’t often think others envy you, you should trust your intuition when it tells you someone does. If you are not someone who normally feels like you are being punished, but in this case you feel like you are being punished for loving your job, it is because you are being punished.
- Sacrifice, unless it is undertaken for deep spiritual reasons, always breeds resentment. Should you choose to sacrifice your career to save your marriage, it will not go well.
Talk to five people who genuinely love you. The fact that you are so uncertain that you’re asking a stranger to weigh in on this means you already know what those people will say and you have been avoiding the truth for way too long.
Finally—and these truths are some of the hardest to metabolize:
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- You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.
- You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.
- You are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness.
The situation you describe has eroded your sense of self over a long period of time, and you must put a stop to it. And forgive me for repeating this—but for the love of all that is good, do not quit your job.
I am so, so sorry that you are where you are right now. You will cry a lot in the next months as your head clears. But either you will find your best friend again, which is my hope for you, or you will see that the friendship was irretrievably lost a long time ago. It will be hard and it will be painful. But as you begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you will still have a great job.
Love, Madeleine
About Madeleine
Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.
Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.
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