Tag: career

There are few things more heartbreaking than someone hating their job. Work is where most people spend the majority of their waking hours. And if your spouse is the breadwinner, they feel this responsibility—they have to work, they have to make money, or the whole system breaks.

If you’re in a relationship, there will come a time when you need to make a compromise. After all, you can’t be in a relationship strictly on your own terms. However, compromise isn’t always easy. Here are the healthy and unhealthy accommodations we make for our significant others.

Healthy Compromises

Dinner
Can’t decide what’s for dinner? Come to a compromise. A simple way to do this is by splitting up the weekday dinners evenly. She gets to choose what to cook on three days, he's also in charge of meals for three days. For that last remaining day, dine out.

A recent report from the medical journal JAMA Neurology highlights the fact that women represent nearly two-thirds of all elder care and says, "the best long-term care insurance in this country is a conscientious daughter." That may be good news for older Americans who are lucky to have an adult child caring for them, but could spell bad news for their daughters. "Daughter care," as some have coined it, can be risky business for a woman.

It’s one of the main reasons older couples get divorced yet it’s not on the radar or thought about at all when we first marry—growing apart.

Makes sense. When we are madly in love and constantly engaging in new experiences as a couple, we cannot imagine growing apart. On top of that, when our lives get hectic, complicated and busier than they should be, we are too caught up in the non-stop to realize how much we might be growing apart. Until we are living separate lives under the same roof. Yikes.

Being married for any length of time is truly an accomplishment. Just last week a woman asked how long I had been married and when I said 40 years this July, her eyes got huge and she said, "To the same person? How is that possible?"

When we got married people were taking bets on how long our marriage would last. The average bet was between two weeks and two years because of our age difference and personalities. Let’s just say, my husband is calm, wise and conservative and I am the exact opposite. I do remember feeling really shaky when I said my vows. … "for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health, till death do us part." Now that’s a huge promise! Could I really do this?

Is your company in a bad mood? The signs aren’t always overt. People aren’t biting each other’s heads off or glaring sullenly across the conference table. (That’s home, not work!) Instead, it feels like everyone is just… coasting. Rather than digging for solutions, they make a cursory effort and then lay the problem at your feet. They’re not cage-rattlers and idea-sharers; they’re "yes men" and passive compliers. If you could be the proverbial fly on the wall (instead of the boss in the hall), you suspect you’d hear far more bitching and blaming than the faked enthusiasm you usually hear.

It seems our society has turned dodging responsibility into an art form. From celebrities who insist that a brush with the law was all a big misunderstanding to political figures who use spin and double-speak to blame everything on the other side, no one wants to admit it when they mess up. If you’re a business leader, the temptation to use this strategy is huge. After all, your customers are paying you to get it right, so the last thing you want is for them to know that you’ve made a mistake, right?