Work Promotion
Dear therapist,
My husband just got a promotion, which is great for us financially, but it’s been really hard on me. He’s working long hours, and when he is home, he’s drained and distracted. I feel like I’m losing my partner, but whenever I mention anything, I feel ungrateful or unsupportive. How can I communicate with him?
Response:
Having new and increased responsibilities at work is a transition, and in marriage, a transition for one partner is a transition for the relationship. Transitions create stress, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. It sounds like you are struggling with navigating feelings about the benefits of this change and the challenges involved.
I’d like to divide my response into two parts.
First I want to help you manage your feelings around this change, and then I want you to express those feelings to your husband.
What stands out to me in your question is that you’re experiencing pain over how hard this change has been, to the point that you feel like you’re losing your partner. And yet, despite how much you're struggling, you find it hard to share your feelings with the person who matters most, because you worry that doing so makes you ungrateful or unsupportive.
Internal conflict
This is important because that way of thinking creates an internal conflict. On one hand, you’re grappling with painful emotions, and on the other, you feel like acknowledging them might be wrong. I wonder how you came to that conclusion. Is it that your husband's behavior- perhaps unintentionally- has made you feel like expressing your emotions isn’t acceptable? Or is this a belief you hold yourself? For the sake of this article, I’ll assume it’s the latter, but either way, it’s something that can be explored and worked through.
Struggling with this transition and feeling a sense of loss doesn’t mean you are ungrateful or unsupportive. You can be deeply appreciative of how this promotion benefits your family financially, fully support your husband, and still find the emotional impact of this change challenging. These feelings can coexist. Although it may seem paradoxical, the more you can accept both as true- that you're struggling and that it doesn't define your worth- the easier this transition will be, and the easier it will be to have an open conversation.
The discussion
Once you accept the range of feelings that you are experiencing, you can begin working on communicating with your husband. A key foundation for effective communication between partners is compassion- both for yourself and for each other- along with the assumption that you both have each other’s best interests in mind. Compassion is crucial in conversation because it helps both of you stay off the defensive and allows you to communicate more authentically. The most effective way to extend that compassion to your husband is by first practicing it toward yourself. Can you acknowledge the challenges you’re facing with kindness? Can you assume best intentions from yourself, just as you would want to from him?
When you establish this foundation of self-compassion, you create space to express your emotions more openly. I want you to share the full range of feelings you’re experiencing with him- the excitement, the worries, the desire to support him, and even your hesitation about sharing these emotions. When you express all parts of your experience, you invite deeper intimacy into your relationship.
When one person shares vulnerably, usually, the other people start to share in the same way. You can ask your husband to share fully what is going on for him at these moments as well.
Practical strategies
In addition to what I’ve mentioned above, it's also important to have practical strategies for staying connected during times of change. When you're spending less time together, it can be helpful to find ways of connecting in bite-sized chunks. Think about what things you’ve enjoyed together, and try to schedule 5 minutes during the day to incorporate it in a small way. If you enjoy conversations, set aside 5 minutes to ask each other a thought provoking question. If you enjoy nature, take a quick walk outside together, even if it’s just around the block.
Another strategy is to increase gratitude. It is always nourishing for relationships to focus on what you appreciate about your spouse, and I’d recommend upping the amount that you do that during challenging times. This can be done by sharing what you’re grateful for or just taking a moment to acknowledge it for yourself. Regardless of how you do it, getting into the habit of focusing on the positive aspects of your relationship expands your contentment in your relationship and life in general, and increases resilience during hard times.
The more compassion you have for yourself, the more you’ll be able to use it to express yourself in a productive, connecting way with your husband, the more you’ll be able to come up with ideas to help you in navigating the change. Each of these things plays on the other, and you’ll soon be in a vicious positive cycle of connection and closeness. You got this!
