Dear Therapist:

My husband has had a job in finance for around 15 years. He is very good at it and makes a nice living but it is a stressful job and he is under a lot of pressure. He has recently begun complaining a lot and is overwhelmed by work. He took off a few weeks recently and that helped, but only briefly. He is talking about changing careers but I don’t know why he suddenly can’t handle it. He says he just isn’t interested and can’t take it anymore and that he never really enjoyed it. It certainly never seemed like that—he used to thrive off the pressure. I want to be supportive but it’s a huge move to leave his job at this stage. I’m not really sure what’s going on and if it’s really related to the job at all. There are no glaring issues in our lives right now that would seem to be causing this. Do you recommend that I just be supportive or is this something that will pass and I should push him to stick it out?

Response:

From a simplistic perspective, our taste for challenges can change as we get older. When we’re young and energetic, we are more likely to welcome new challenges. As young adults transitioning from lives of few responsibilities to ones that include new kinds of responsibilities, we often find new challenges exhilarating. A demanding job can seem more interesting than a sedate one. 

As we grow older, however, our perspective often changes. We find that many aspects of life can be challenging. We need to juggle relationships with parents, spouses, children, associates, and others. Our responsibilities tend to grow, forcing us to cope with numerous issues. This can lead to a desire to simplify our lives. When trying to decrease stress, we generally look to the areas that we feel we can control. It can be difficult to feel a sense of power within our relationships and other areas in which others have significant input. Our jobs can seem like the area of least resistance, in which we feel that we have the greatest degree of control.

Your husband may simply want to choose a career that will help him feel less stressed in general. Or perhaps he actually wants to feel more challenged and he feels that his current job is monotonous. Or he may feel that he has little power in other areas of his life, and this is an attempt to exert some type of control. Maybe complaining about his job is simply his way of expressing his frustration about the stress in his life. It can be a combination of these and other aspects.

I can think of a few factors that are important to mention: consistency over time; stress (or disinterest) in other areas of life; and consideration of consequences. Your husband may have been consistently considering a career change for a while and has seriously considered the consequences. If this is the case and this is the only aspect of his life toward which he feels this way, this likely points to a logical and calculated decision. However, perhaps his feelings about his career tend to waver, and he has similar feelings in other areas. Maybe he hasn’t really thought much about possible consequences. If this is the case, your husband may be trying to compensate for general stress (or lack of control) by focusing on the area that he feels he can most easily change.

It doesn’t seem as if you’ve had an in-depth discussion with your husband about his feelings and motivations. You may not know how long he’s been considering a career change, whether he wants to feel more empowered, or whether he simply has interest in a more challenging position. Discussing with your husband the reasons behind his interest in changing careers can help you obtain a better idea of his motivations. This can lead to better communication about issues and stress in this area. It can also help set the stage for better future communication about feelings and concerns.

-Yehuda Lieberman, LCSW

  psychotherapist in private practice

 Brooklyn, NY   |   Far Rockaway, NY

 author of Self-Esteem: A Primer

 www.ylcsw.com / 718-258-5317

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