Should you ever tell your partner to quit their job?
How a question from my husband changed my career - and what Jill Biden should do next
Two years ago, my husband said something that changed my career. I had been going through a tricky time at work; my role had altered and I wasn’t sure where my future lay. For months, I’d been fighting for what I wanted - or what I thought I wanted. Until, after another exhausting week of stress, uncertainty and tears, came his momentum-shifting question: “if you could ask for any job there, what would it be?”
The answer came none. A wave of realisation hit me at that moment: I didn’t want the job above me, the one above that, or even the one I’d been pushing for only weeks earlier. Right then and there, I couldn't think of anything they could offer me that I actually wanted to do. And so I knew that I had to walk away. I handed in my notice a few days later.
Which sounds, on the face of it, maybe quite ballsy? I don’t know. That’s what a few colleagues told me at the time. But inside I felt like a little girl who had thrown all her toys out of the box in search of the one she wanted, when she had no idea what that actually was.
I was nervous: of giving up a regular salary, healthcare, status, a job title, cherished co-workers. I was worried about being judged for quitting and giving my peers the impression that my drive and ambition had gone (I thought that because one told me as much). The idea that people might think I was no longer hungry, in an industry where I had spent almost two decades pursuing ‘success’, was paralysing. Tim had been telling me for months that I ought to go freelance, but sometimes you need to reach that conclusion yourself. That, ultimately, I couldn’t answer his question was the only answer I needed.
That’s what we do for our partners, and sometimes our friends, right? Often, it’s easier to see when someone is being hurt by their job from the outside. You can’t write the resignation letter for them (don’t worry, that’s what AI is going to be for) but you can try to offer guidance and reassurance. You can gently explain the ways in which you see their work impacting on their happiness and health. I’ve done the same, when I’ve noticed work stress taking its toll on those I love. It happens to us all and we’re fortunate if we have someone paying attention and who has our best interests at heart.
Do they always want to hear it? No. And nor did I, for a long time. Even if they’re in the same industry as you, or close to your work in some other way, there’s an innate defensive and feeling that no one at home can understand exactly what’s going on for you, day to day. Even when it did begin to impact my health - I ended up taking much longer than I should to recover from an operation, a story for another time - my instinct was to keep buggering on. I needed a loving reality check.
I thought of those times this week, when I read Jill Biden’s defiant message about her husband Joe in an interview with American Vogue - awkward cover line ‘We will decide our future’. After the 81-year-old president’s car-crash first debate against Trump last week - through which he stumbled and shuffled, and prompting much Democrat hand-wringing as to whether he should make way for a younger candidate - the Bidens reportedly held a family summit and, as Jill told Vogue in a post-debate update, have decided not to let one 90-minute debate performance “define the four years he’s been president.”
Now, I’m not comparing my job stress, or yours, to sitting in the Oval Office. I’m also aware that this entire conversation has a tension at its heart, because I don’t believe that it’s a woman’s responsibility to manage her partner’s ambitions. We have enough ambition problems ourselves, frankly - I’ve already seen Jill accused of being the ‘back seat driver’ behind the couple’s lust for power; that she loves being First Lady too much to give it up. Ah, the old Lady Macbeth stereotype, right on time.
But there is a moment to step in. To do something. For Jill Biden, this is it. It’s not easy to tell your partner that their job is hurting them. It also takes strength to admit to yourself (let alone the world) that there are things too difficult to overcome. But getting on the microphone to cheerfully cry “Joe, you did such a great job! You answered every question!” following a professional disintegration is not an act of kindness.
Power is never relinquished easily. Status is a tough thing to walk away from. Dreams even more so. Yet so many of us are faced with these situations, whatever job we do. We have those tough conversations. The stakes might be lower, but we all have a duty of care to those we love. There is probably a defining that Jill could ask her husband about his future as president - but as far as we know, she hasn’t yet.
“My husband took a new high profile job, which seemed exciting and like a brilliant opportunity,” one friend tells me. “But the reality was different - longer hours, an unreasonable manager - he wasn’t enjoying it, but didn’t want to admit it. One day, I just asked him straight whether he hadn’t preferred his previous role and he admitted, with a sigh of relief, that he had been thinking about asking to go back to it but was nervous of looking lazy or unmotivated. It was the best conversation we could have had and he’s much happier now, back where he actually enjoyed work.”
Of course, you can’t actually solve their work problems for them, nor is it your job to do so. Taking on the full extent of someone else’s stress isn’t going to help anyone.
But you can listen, encourage them to enjoy their friendships and interests outside work, and you can sometimes see - as my husband did - the bigger picture; what they can’t recognise themselves or are afraid to vocalise.
It’s those gentle questions, which bring you out of the granular detail of those tough professional moments, that can clear the clouds and allow for a different sort of future to appear. That’s not unkind, it’s life-changing.