When Your Partner Isn’t Giving You the Support You Need | Women at Work | Podcast

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When you're advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
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**Amy Bernstein** (1:02)
You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein.

**Amy Gallo** (1:06)
I'm Amy Gallo. If you've been listening to our show for a while or reading our newsletter, you know that we regularly ask listeners and readers to tell us about the workplace challenges they're facing.
In this one particular email landed in our inbox recently about a dilemma that we think is very relatable and yet rarely discussed.

**Amy Bernstein** (1:27)
The woman who wrote that email gave us permission to read it out loud. Here it goes. Hello. I'm not sure this has been covered before, but I personally am being challenged in a way that may be an issue for others as well. It's difficult to get my husband to wholeheartedly support my career and its development. He's an excellent partner. We make a great team and he absolutely intends to be supportive. But when I face additional demands for my job, he tends to grumble a bit about the longer hours or extra stress I'm experiencing.
Then she gives some background about her career and family life. She's in biotech, working in research and development. She and her husband have been married for seven years and have two kids. He's an attorney and earns a higher salary than she does, but her total compensation package is larger and includes a family health insurance. After their first baby, she switched from the technical scientist track to program management in order to have greater control over her schedule and be able to work from home more often.
I'm not underpaid, underappreciated, or unhappy in my career, she writes. We generally communicate openly and well. There's never been an expectation or desire for me to be a stay-at-home parent, yet if I need to travel for a day or two or if I need to work past 5 p.m., he grouses. She goes on to say that when she's earned promotions in the past, they've discussed how to manage the additional demands together.
He still doesn't seem to understand how to support my career development, she continues, which can make me feel as though he's being dismissive. I'm wondering if it's a result of some unconscious bias. His own mother never desired or pursued a career outside the home and cared for him and his sister full-time. He also works in a different field, which makes it difficult to contextualize struggles I'm facing in a way that he can easily grasp.

**Amy Gallo** (3:20)
She gave an example too, right?

**Amy Bernstein** (3:22)
She sure did. Here it is. I recently expressed discontent with decisions made by leadership and shared my concerns with my husband, wanting to talk through my approach for responding appropriately in the office. He did not offer any guidance, support, or commiseration, but responded with concerned questions about whether I would leave my job and reduce our household income. I'll keep quoting her.
I always employ strategies to garner his support for business trips or late work events, including coordination with family or friends to ensure he has a hand with child care while I'm gone if he needs it. He still fusses.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:00)
This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com/spotify.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:31)
When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.