I get it. You took time off to have the children and look after them at home for their early years.
In that time your partner rightly made best use of your support, allowing them to put their career first overall and on a day-to-day basis.
They were the main breadwinner so it makes sense.
But now you’re back at work you find you’ve lost some ground and your career comes a clear second.
How did this happen? Is it something you agreed when you got together? That you’d prioritise their career over yours?
So what happens now to your professional fulfilment? Your partner has a career, do you have a career too or is it just a job now? Would you like one if you weren’t so tired all the time and had some headspace for yourself?
If you’d like a career, if you’d like to use work as one of the ways to be all you can be, you’ll need support from your partner (if you have one) – to share domestic chores equally, for them to spend as much time at your work functions as you do at theirs, for them to get their one meals when they need to.
Everyone in leadership needs support so they can thrive and frankly not fall apart under the strain.
Have you had a conversation about how this needs to work for you?
It’s easy for people who have experienced the support of non-working partners to not question that it may need to change. It’s not their fault. Most of us continue on the same track till something jolts us.
It just needs a conversation. Are you going to have it?
