What’s more important to you – your work or marriage?
Nobody dies wishing they had spent more time at the office
Modern romance often means no-one is home to make dinner – or if someone’s at home, they suffer loneliness and neglect from the one at work. Quality time can be hard to find. This struggle can cause frustration within marriages, because it is difficult to strike a good balance between career and marriage.
The biggest mistake a couple can make is to sit back and wait for things to work themselves out. When you do this, the marriage is most likely to suffer. Even worse, most people don’t realise they aren’t paying enough attention to their marriages until they begin to fall apart. But you mean well, right? Of course you do. Your mind is always occupied with financially securing your family’s future and providing for them now. And that’s no less important than actually paying attention to them, strengthening relationships with them and ensuring that you’re present in their lives.
Your spouse, more than anything else, wants to feel like they are your priority. “But they are my priority,” you might argue. That may well be true, but that’s not the point. They want to feel like they’re your priority. It’s not enough for them to be your priority if they don’t feel like they actually are.
One husband we were recently coaching on this subject kept assuring us of how much he loved his wife and kids. We interrupted him and said, “The problem is you love your family in your heart but you don’t love them in your schedule. They can’t see your heart.”
Are your life goals clearly communicated to your spouse? Building your career would be an awesome experience with your spouse’s support. But you have to journey with them to earn that support. Take them into your confidence. Engage one another and agree on the lifestyle you wish to live, the kind of future you want and how to get there. Lead your spouse, don’t walk ahead of them. Where do your priorities lie? Your marriage is the most important commitment you have – even above your children. You’ll enjoy more prosperity at work when you’ve learnt to make your spouse feel like the best thing since sliced bread. But woe unto you if you make your spouse feel neglected, lonely and abandoned.
Are there bridges you need to burn? Are there accounts you need to hand over? Are there some out-of-town meetings that need to be handled on the phone or online? Is there an offer you need to refuse? A promotion you need to relinquish?
Yes, your marriage is that important. But once you’ve made up your mind, it will become all too clear what stands in the way of your being able to focus on your commitment to reprioritise.
Do you have boundaries at work? Is one of them leaving the office every day at 5pm, regardless? Does it mean never missing one of your children’s performances or games? How do priorities look like in your world?
What’s really important in your life? Let’s face it. One day you will come home from the office for the last time. Nobody retires from his or her family to spend his or her final days in the office.
Your last day may be at 60 or 65 when you retire. Or it could be at 47 when you are retrenched. Either way, you are coming home.
The kind of person you come home to will be determined by how you choose to treat them between now and then.
Many people cheat their spouses and children of giving them enough of their personal time, only to find that the companies they worked for were not nearly as faithful to them as they were to the company.
Loyalty in the workplace is conditional, and is rarely reciprocated. One of the saddest sights to witness is when someone is forced out of an organisation they bled for, to return home to a spouse and children they neglected.
Why give your ultimate loyalty to an organisation where your value is conditioned on your ability to perform? Why betray those whose loyalty is unconditional? Why devote so much of yourself to something you know you will leave? And why give so little time to someone you will eventually come home to? It doesn’t make any sense, does it?
Nobody gets to the end of their life wishing they had spent more time at the office.