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Your job has a huge impact on your life. It also has a significant impact on your marriage, your wife, and your kids. I fear many men fail to properly consider these things. Work is how we provide for our family, and that means a well paying job is important. Yes, it is important. But if our job kills your marriage, makes a mess of your kids, or drives your wife crazy, that’s also important.
What I want you to do is to take a big picture look at your job. Is your workplace emotionally or mentally unhealthy? Is your job destroying your physical health? How does it impact those closest to you? Will you look back some day at a broken marriage and realise you choose your job over your marriage?
One reason we don’t consider these things is falsely thinking we have no better options. But we live in a time when most folks have an amazing array of options. It might mean going back to school. It might mean changing your lifestyle so you can live on less. It might mean moving.
If I could prove to you that your job will kill you in your fifties, cause your children to avoid you when they become adults, or destroy your marriage, would you be motivated to change jobs? What I’m asking you to do it to ask yourself if you are at significant risk for any of those bad outcomes.
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This hit me this morning. I have some regrets with respect to my career and how it effected my family. What I regret was relocating for a job. I look at some folks I know now and admire their having stayed in an area they liked for much of their lives, and having those small town connections for decades. I think back to one area in particular where we lived, where we slid right into a fantastic group of friends shortly after arrival. After a couple of years there my work project was canceled, leaving me out of a job in that small company. My job search centered around the type of job I wanted. Instead, I should have centered it around doing whatever it took to remain living there in an area we loved and in a life we were enjoying. We finally ended up in a state and climate (weather and otherwise) that we are not all that fond of, but it is home because our daughter and grandchildren are here. I sometimes find myself wondering how life would be had we just stayed put in that previous location.
@K. – An excellent point. When I said move, I was thinking to a less expensive home.
I have always worked jobs that were very physical and sometimes had to deal with toxic chemicals. I am almost 50 and I never figured I would even make it this far. Most of the places with chemicals were well before I met my wife and at the time I had never dated or even considered that I might get married some day. I just assumed it would never happen and so I didn’t worry about sticking my bare hand in buckets of acetone and worse. I wound up with nasty blisters on my back from something I was exposed to. I did what I had to do to make a living. Now I am a electrician and I know full well that any day at work could be my last. I make a good living but I know my body is almost used up. Everything hurts on a daily basis. That doesn’t stop me from pushing on. I honestly don’t know what else I would do for work. I know my wife can be upset that I am gone for a long time sometimes each day. But that is what it takes to live how she wants to live. My guess is I will not see retirement and I need to be fine with that. I did what I had to do to make it to where I am. As a kid no one thought I would make anything of my self. I am far more successful than anyone I was friends with as a kid. Unfortunately I have basically no real friends left. All that is left is work and my wife and son.