Both career and family are important parts of life. However, many working couples struggle to find the right balance between the two.  This struggle can cause frustration within marriages, especially because it is nearly impossible to pay equal attention to both career and marriage.

The biggest mistake a couple can make is to sit back and wait for things to work themselves out. When people do this, the marriage usually gets less time and attention. Even worse, most people don’t realize they aren’t paying enough attention to their marriages until they begin to fall apart.

Tips on Balancing Marriage and Career

Have an open discussion about your priorities to ensure that you are both on the same page. Don’t assume that because you have similar values regarding career and marriage, you are automatically going to have similar priorities. You need to talk to each other about your expectations as well as your short term and long term goals.

Have a plan for how you are going to divvy up chores and responsibilities. If one of you has a very heavy workload at work, the other can take up more responsibilities at home. Kids can also help with some of the chores. The focus should not be on distributing chores and responsibilities equally but on making sure that you both have time to give to the marriage.

Separate your work and your family. Ideally, your work should not intrude on your time with your family and vice versa. Your work is meant to support your livelihood but what use is it if you have no livelihood to speak of. On the other hand, allowing your family to intrude on your time at work can make you less efficient at your job. It can also mean that you get less work done and have to bring work home. The easiest way to achieve work-life balance is to have clear boundaries between the two.

Set aside time for your marriage. Many working couples schedule everything else other than time with each other. They just assume that they’ll spend whatever time is left over with each other. Unfortunately there is rarely any time left over so they end up not spending time together. To avoid this, you need to schedule time for your spouse and your marriage.

Working couples need to make a conscious effort to balance their careers and marriages. They can’t just sit back and wait for everything to work itself out.