Finding Balance Post-Career
By MyNextSeason Co-Founder and Senior Partner Dr. Leslie Braksick
When a couple takes the vow of matrimony, they bring hopes and expectations to their new union: eternal love, prosperity, good health, and perhaps a family together. Generally, those topics get plenty of airtime with explicit conversations, both pre- and post-nuptial. Couples also bring a host of implicit expectations to their marriage that go unvoiced—until those expectations are unmet. Specifically, I’m talking about expectations for work-life balance.
The most common example is “putting work ahead of family.” It starts with working late, missed children/family events and dinners, and shortened/interrupted family vacations. All of these increase in frequency as the executive ascends higher in the organization. What starts as tension often turn into strife, damaged relationships, and long-term changes to relationships. At a minimum, family members become highly independent out of necessity, and grow accustomed to the absence and unreliability of their spouse/parent.
To the family, the absences are often interpreted as “you care more about work than your family!” The executive, however, would describe it very differently. When the executive said “I do” to his/her corporate role, it was just like a marriage: there were explicit conversations about pay, job duties, and reporting relationships. But there also emerged a host of implicit expectations, including attendance at corporate events, customer outings, and board meetings, even the willingness to relocate to other states or countries, regardless children’s ages or a spouse’s personal priorities.
Returning to civilian life
The general expectation of the corporate “I do” is to perform whatever it takes, at any personal or family cost, to support and serve the company’s interests. The higher the executive rises, the more frequent the demands become, and the more critical it is that the executive always be present.
This work-life juggle/struggle persists until retirement, when for the first time, the executive resumes control of his/her calendar. Simultaneous to this transition back into “civilian life,” the executive often sets a new priority: explicitly demonstrating family first. This is envisioned as constant physical presence, attending events of their children and grandchildren, and making up for the many missed family affairs while fulfilling their corporate duties.
Not surprisingly, this new priority causes trepidation for both executive and spouse.
By this time, the spouse has his/her own life, and has become highly independent and accomplished—without the constant companionship of their life partner. And there are new dynamics and new rules of conduct as the executive re-enters the lives of his/her grown children and their families. Both executive and spouse are entering a next season.
Finding balance
Much like pre-nuptial conversations, a couple’s successful next season together begins with explicit conversations about goals, hopes, dreams, and concerns. It starts with listening for understanding, finding commonalities, and sharing ideas. The gift of a shared history can enable incredibly high-quality dialogues when they are approached with mutual respect and genuine openness.
The couple’s next season is a golden opportunity for togetherness. But the togetherness needs to be surgically managed and not dispersed like an aerosol spray, going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A healthy independence is as essential to a successful next season as time together, and it is that balance of togetherness and independence that lays the best foundation for long-term happiness.
The executive’s post-corporate season potentially can be the very best years of a couple’s life together—when conversations about that phase are not left to chance. For perhaps the first time, a couple can share the driver’s seat about the future, their priorities, and how to spend their most precious shared resource: their next season, together.
Portions of this article were previously published in Smart Business Pittsburgh.
