We all know that a strong relationship takes work. It’s important for a couple to find time to connect with one another. Yet a dual-income family faces some pretty tough challenges. When a couple are both income earners who spend 40-50 hours or more of personal energy on the job, they have little time to relax and focus on their relationship. A couple with children will have even less time for themselves and each other. So what happens when juggling home, family, children, relationship, job, and social lives leaves a couple depleted? Don’t let your relationship take a back burner. Check out these tips for dealing with the challenges of a dual-income family.
Consider Your Marriage a Partnership, Not a Rivalry
When both partners work, it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling like one partner is doing more than the other to contribute to the family. Maybe one of you handles more of the housework than the other. Maybe one of you feels like your job is more valuable to the family than the other’s. If you and your spouse start keeping score on how much, how long, or how hard you each work, you’ll start resenting each other. Try working with each other to find solutions to the challenges a dual-income family faces. If you always divide and conquer, you’ll conquer nothing and be left divided. Tackle the challenges as a team, and you may be surprised how much more you can accomplish!
Set Boundaries Between Home and Work
When raising children and pursuing a career, you can easily find yourself overextended. It’s not possible to give 100% of yourself to both work and family, so how do you deal with the challenges of trying to be a full-time employee and a full-time parent? Setting limits will help you find a balance between your commitment to work and your commitment to your family. As much as possible, try to leave your work “at the office.” If you work from home, set time limits for when you are working and when you are tending to your family. The temptation to multitask is strong, especially as the workforce becomes more mobile and people are less confined to their desks or office in order to get their jobs done. Spending quality time with your spouse and children means you aren’t texting, emailing, and taking phone calls every five minutes.
Stay Flexible in the Way You Spend Time
Trying to give equal time to your children, your spouse, your job, yourself and all of the other responsibilities in your life will leave you feeling like you’re not giving enough time to any of them. Instead, understand that sometimes your family will need more of your attention and time. Sometimes, you will have busier times at work that demand you spend more time at the office. The key for working parents in a dual-income family is to come up for air regularly, and assess priorities. Don’t assume your spouse is picking up your slack at home, and don’t depend on your spouse to make up for your absence. If you ignore your family long enough, you may find that one day they no longer care whether you’re there or not.
Find a Better Balance
Do what you can the night before: clean up the kitchen, prep the kids’ lunches, plan breakfast. Lay out your clothes, as well as the kids’, before you go to bed. Plan and pre-cook meals over the weekend to reduce weeknight stress. Set as many bills on auto-pay as you can; in fact, automate whatever routine tasks you can. See if your job can be more flexible. Can you work from home one day a week? Cut back your hours, if you can afford to and your employer will allow it. Make a family calendar. Work together to accomplish household chores.
Give Up on Perfection
One of the many challenges a dual-income family faces is how to keep the family home in order. Stop worrying about it! So the clothes don’t get put away, or the beds made every day. Maybe you can’t make a home-cooked meal every night. It’s ok to find shortcuts, to order a pizza once a week, to make scrambled eggs for dinner. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, either! If you’re worried that your neighbors or friends will think less of you for reaching out, swallow your pride. Chances are they have been in the same place a few times themselves.