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Saturday, October 12, 2024

My partner is jealous of my successful career

Each week i asks experts to answer readers’ questions about love, sex and relationships

I have an unsettling feeling that my partner is jealous of how well things are going for me at work. When I told him about my promotion, he basically picked a fight and told me that I was too obsessed with work and that’s all I talk about. It really isn’t – but work matters to me and I want his support. His own work isn’t going well. He is unhappy in his job but doesn’t want to leave the safe salary, which I understand but I feel like it threatens him that I’m doing something I love which makes me happy.

I earn more than him now too which we don’t talk about but I think it bothers him. What can I do about this?

Let’s start with the tricky stuff. Jealousy is a big word and most of us shy away from the idea that we could be envious or jealous. We’re supposed to love our partners, not occasionally fall along the wayside a little bit especially when it comes to celebrating their successes. Yet a smidgeon of jealousy does seem to have made an appearance in your relationship.

So let’s have a look at this potentially from his point of view; what you are saying is that he doesn’t like his job but he’s worried about money and so he’s staying in something that is obviously not fulfilling him. Work is not going well for him and he is not setting off every day or sitting in front of his computer or doing whatever it is he is doing with a spring in his step. He probably reassures himself at least he’s bringing in some hard-earned cash. This gives him some motivation at least. But then something happens. You get promoted and, more than that, you love your job and you want to talk about it and you want him to celebrate you and yet somehow your experience of him is that he isn’t.

What we need to know is that, despite our best intentions, sometimes we fall short of being noble about things. We might love someone intensely. We might want them to be the best version of themselves they can be. We might be devoting ourselves to that cause but sometimes, just occasionally, the green-eyed monster appears and sneaks in for a little bit and we succumb.

I think this is what has happened to your boyfriend. Your success in many ways probably underscores to him his own failure. He may have an entire story going on but the fact is, maybe the only thing that has kept him going in a job that he doesn’t enjoy is that he is a provider. He might be telling himself that people aren’t supposed to enjoy their jobs but as long as you’re bringing in the money then you are an upstanding citizen of the world. This is probably how he gets by and how he gets through.

I don’t know what his family history is but it maybe there’s insecurity around money and he may have been given the message that you must stay at the same job and you must have a steady salary and work isn’t something you enjoy, it’s something you just tolerate in order to pay the mortgage.

So your success and your enjoyment of your job might actually be seriously affecting his inner world. What if he’s got it wrong all this time? The fact that you’re doing well and that you really want to express this to him might be like rubbing his nose in his own slightly failed sense of self.

How do you get around this? If you’re brave and a forward thinking person, which it sounds as if you are, you need to find the capacity to walk in his shoes for little bit and imagine how it might feel for him.

If he has gained some sense of self-worth in the past by earning the money but now you are earning more than him it might really sting. The key thing is to talk about this and it’s interesting that you say you haven’t done. We all find it very difficult to talk about money and success. But if you don’t sit down with him and say ‘listen my love I think we need to have a conversation about this so we can be open with each other and we can really name what we’re feeling’ I fear the two of you will get stuck and the dissatisfaction will grow until one day you both wake up and wonder who you’re lying next to.

He wouldn’t be the first man to feel emasculated by a partner who earns more than him. But is it possible to ask him about this and to really delve into his feelings about himself and his job and his worth in the partnership? Then you can talk to him about how you feel about money and your job and earnings and hopefully some understanding will happen. Remember validation – which goes along the lines of ‘it makes sense to me that you feel threatened by my earning capacity’ or ‘it makes sense to me that maybe you feel a little bit jealous sometimes that I’m enjoying my job and you’re not’ goes a long way.

Things never have to stay the same. We are adaptable, mutable creatures that is one of the amazing things about being human. It might be you can inspire him to think about changing jobs or relax little bit about money. You can also tell him it upsets you when you feel that he isn’t really supporting you as you would like to be supported.

Then, let him support you when he is good and ready.

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