How do you and your partner support each other in your careers?

We live where his job took us, even though it meant moving away from most of our family. His is paid enough to visit several times a year so it’s a win-win.

He was on a so-called management track, but the strain was too much for him, so after discussing it with me, he accepted a lower position, which required much less responsibility, but not really much less work.

It worked to his advantage, because the company put a freeze on middle management salaries, and not senior office workers, so he got a demotion and a raise in salary at the same time.

We waited to have a second child (I came into our marriage with a son), until his work was well established, and I then quit work to become a work at home mom.

Do you talk about your work with each other often, and in detail? Yes, but we try to make them productive conversations. Not just bitching.

Do you want to get advice or reassurance? Do you want your partner to push you to achieve more? Yes, Yes and she does.

Do you think your partner is good at his/her job? Does that matter to you? She is amazing at her job, and while im proud of her, i dont really care. I didn’t marry her for her resumè.

Is it important that your partner thinks of you as good at your job? Yes, and she does. She actually thinks I’m much better at it than I probably am.

Do you ever feel competitive with one another? No. We both work in education, but we do different things. She’s a dean and I’m a teacher. Plus I’m primarily a graphic designer (teaching is my other gig). We even worked at the same college for four years, and it went very well. I’d live to work with her again.

This is an important part of our relationship, an important part to us being equals. We are supportive of each other’s paths and needing to change those paths no matter how far we’ve come already. We talk to each other about work a lot and know the ins and outs of each other’s jobs. Of course I want his advice and he wants mine but, generally, we basically reinforce to each other than we should go for it, take risks and that we will succeed. I don’t think he can do more to help me achieve more. When I was able to work, he raised the baby at home. Now that I am in my PhD program, he is figuring out how to change his job up so that he can make more money. I know that together he and I can figure out any situation and, if necessary, we would sacrifice for each other’s trajectory, career-wise.

I think he’s excellent at whatever he does, that’s just how he is – he is good at whatever he does. He’s his company’s MVP, so to speak, their ‘golden boy’, their ‘secret weapon’ and I am glad they understand his capabilities and support him. Yes, it does matter to me that he’s good at his job because I want him to be happy and to be happy he needs to feel challenged. Yes, he thinks I’m excellent at whatever I do as well – he’s a big support.

We’re in different fields – he’s in tech, I’m in academia so we don’t feel competitive with one another.

My husband moved for me for my career and happiness. I returned the favor some 20 years later and am still following him around as he advances his.

My husband likes to leave his work at work and not talk about it. I’m the one who talks about my job as I decompress.

He’s supportive but he makes no bones about wanting me to something else. I support him a lot because he had a rough patch where he felt burnt out and his life was going to pieces. Bit by bit he’s gaining his confidence back.

I admire my guy for being a top performer and that he will never be without a job even if we move and move and move. It’s important to me I respect what he does because in past relationships, I saw the deterioration that came from feeling insecure with a partner’s job. It’s important to me that my partnber thinks I’m good at what I do and accepts why I choose to do it more than they like the particular job. We don’t compete.

I was a cop and she was a nurse. The most compatible jobs out there. Both cops and nurses understand each ones position and each one supports the other.

By both of us being in the emergency services, we have supported each other for many years, She has had to work a double shift and I took over the wifely duties at home with the children and the cleaning. I had to work many double shifts and she took over my role at home. It’s understanding and respecting each ones job that makes it work.

By bothe of us working, we both contributed to the family both financially as well as being good mentors for our children. Our children came first…..period. Early in our marriage, we both decided that I would be the main source of income and she would be the keeper of the house and children. This worked for a while, until my income was not enough and she went to nursing for a few years, until our children were out of high school. Then she retired and I again was the main source of income.

It has been a team effort, in order for a marriage to work. Both contributing and supporting each other is a key factor in a relationship and for it work for both people for a common cause.

I let my hubby vent on me when ever he needs to about work. He’s not someone who dwells on anything so I don’t have to worry about going over the same stuff time and again. When he has gone for big promotions I make sure he knows that I believe in him. When he gets those promotions I make sure we, er, celebrate.

My job is raising and educating our children and taking care of my sister. He provides real hands on support when ever he’s home. My sister can be very frustrating but he deals with her very well.

Do you talk about your work with each other often, and in detail? Or do you leave your work behind you when you get home?

No, we are each other’s sounding boards. He used to work for a large, international company and now has his own business so less peer interaction, so I suppose talking to me helps there. He is very logical and grounded so he is a great person to run things by. We do try to have a cut-off point though in terms of talking about work.

How would you like to be supported? Do you want to get advice or reassurance? Do you want your partner to push you to achieve more?

Pretty much as I am. I get both advice and reassurance and plenty of both. No. I can do enough of that myself. I just want him to be my cheer squad (and I his).

Do you think your partner is good at his/her job? Does that matter to you? Is it important that your partner thinks of you as good at your job?

I think he is exceptionally good at his job. He is amazing with people and is great at finding, obtaining and keeping new business. It matters only because I want someone in my life who loves what they are doing or if they aren’t, will do something about it. It matters that he thinks I am good at my job. If he suggested I wasn’t, I would believe him. I think he is a very good judge of such things.

Do you ever feel competitive with one another?

No. We work in totally different fields. No competition at all.

It’s never been an important aspect in my relationships. I had one girlfriend offer to help me with my math homework but that’s it. I never talk about my work because it’s the same everyday, and I always ask how the other person’s workday went, but everyone does that.

I think we are both very supportive of each other’s careers. I’m a nurse, he’s a soldier. We talk about our days at work sometimes, but other times we just leave the day behind us. We support each other as we work on continuing our pathways in our career and help each other as much as we can. Right now, I work full time (plus lots of overtime) and my husband stays home with our children. While he’s home, he’s working on his Master’s degree and he has his drill weekend once a month for the Guard. When I get home from work and on my days off, I take care of the boys so my husband can have some down time and focus on his school work if he needs to. In addition to my working, I am doing a lot of education stuff for my work, so I often have a lot of work to do at home as well.
We discuss our overall career plans and constantly evaluate them to make sure they are right for our family and our overall plan in life.

Do you talk about your work with each other often, and in detail? Or do you leave your work behind you when you get home? Depends on the day. When something is going on that either of us feels like talking about, we talk.

How would you like to be supported? Do you want to get advice or reassurance? Do you want your partner to push you to achieve more? We rarely ask each other for advice, because our fields are very different, but sometimes a logic or emotion check is needed, and we act as a sounding board for each other. Reassurance is nice, but doesn’t really help if it’s not real… if reassurance is really not warranted, I don’t want it. (Except the general reassurance that, whatever happens, we’ll be ok.) It would piss me off if he pushed me to achieve more, and I’m pretty sure he’d feel the same way. We cheer each other on, but we don’t push for more.

Do you think your partner is good at his/her job? Does that matter to you? Is it important that your partner thinks of you as good at your job? He’s great at his job (well, he’s unemployed at the moment, but he’s great at his life-long career). It wouldn’t matter to me if he wasn’t great at it, but it would matter if he didn’t try to be great at it. A strong work ethic is important to me. Similarly, he thinks I’m great at my job, but what he thinks of my work ethic overall is more important to me.

Do you ever feel competitive with one another? When we first started dating, we worked for the same company. He was a landscape manager, and I was an office manager. I made more money than he did (and knew it, because I did payroll). I worried that he’d be hung up on that and feel competitive about it (he comes off as such a manly kind of guy), but the worry was needless. Once he found out, he was totally fine with it, thank goodness. I would have been very disappointed, otherwise! Our fields and our strengths are very different, so competition has never been an issue at all.