My wife is having a crisis of confidence in her career -- how to help?
May 20, 2024 1:24 PM Subscribe
My wife (early 40's) is self-employed in a creative industry, and a huge part of her identity is wrapped up in her career. The slog of scraping together your own gigs, pursuing grant funding (so paltry in the U.S.), and a general sense of life having fewer "big break" opportunities for artists at her age and post-Covid is burning her out and her sense of self-worth is precarious. She's seeing a therapist she likes, but what can I do to help her regain her confidence (without getting sucked into a whirlpool of anxiety and hopelessness myself)?
As someone in a similar field, I'd be most open to my spouse turning it into a conversation, asking her, "Hey, I wonder if you're feeling burned out by work. I'd like to help you if I may. For example, I could ... {fill in the blank with ideas from this thread]}.
But I think it's important to have a conversation with her and let her guide your actions.
posted by hydra77 at 2:29 PM on May 20
But I think it's important to have a conversation with her and let her guide your actions.
posted by hydra77 at 2:29 PM on May 20
Best answer: If she's already got a therapist to deal with this issue, you don't have to do anything at all other than being her partner the way you were in the beginning: have fun with her, date her, spend time with her, appreciate her, get some chores done, put dinner in the oven, and perhaps most importantly, live your own life well.
I say that's perhaps most important for you because you wrote: "without getting sucked into a whirlpool of anxiety and hopelessness myself". OP, I know a self-abandoning statement when I see one! Let's just say I have been there and been sucked in. And speaking as someone who has thankfully grown out of getting sucked in, I'm telling you that your solution is to start focusing on living your own life well. Leave a therapist's job to an actual therapist.
Some gentle ways to extricate yourself from the pressure to become an emotional support animal for someone else (even if the pressure is coming from you):
- Limit listening sessions to 5 or 10 minutes, tops. Discuss this beforehand, don't spring it on her when she's already in the throes of telling you all her woes and worries. You can say, "Let's set aside 10 minutes after work every day to comfort each other about the day's happenings. We'll both take 5 minute turns. And then we'll do something fun to make the day better. Deal?"
- Start focusing a little more on yourself and your hobbies and your work and your friends. Try to live your best life. Just because your SO is miserable doesn't mean you have to be. Just because she is depressed and anxious doesn't mean you have to be. Embrace your joy. Make time to do yourself justice.
- Fully inhabit your own skin; stay out of her head. Monitor your internal experience. Awareness of your own feelings == guaranteed method of keeping yourself safe from overwhelm. At the very first twitch of an "Oh no, I feel so bad for her I could cry..." you can shake yourself and say inside your head, "Whelp, it's time for me to go for a walk and listen to some music." And you can say to her, "Honey, I'm so sorry. I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. I've hit my limit. I'm going to take a walk and listen to some music. Let's do something fun when I get back."
Yeah? Pay attention to yourself and care for yourself. Don't try to be her therapist. She already has one.
posted by MiraK at 2:30 PM on May 20 [10 favorites]
I say that's perhaps most important for you because you wrote: "without getting sucked into a whirlpool of anxiety and hopelessness myself". OP, I know a self-abandoning statement when I see one! Let's just say I have been there and been sucked in. And speaking as someone who has thankfully grown out of getting sucked in, I'm telling you that your solution is to start focusing on living your own life well. Leave a therapist's job to an actual therapist.
Some gentle ways to extricate yourself from the pressure to become an emotional support animal for someone else (even if the pressure is coming from you):
- Limit listening sessions to 5 or 10 minutes, tops. Discuss this beforehand, don't spring it on her when she's already in the throes of telling you all her woes and worries. You can say, "Let's set aside 10 minutes after work every day to comfort each other about the day's happenings. We'll both take 5 minute turns. And then we'll do something fun to make the day better. Deal?"
- Start focusing a little more on yourself and your hobbies and your work and your friends. Try to live your best life. Just because your SO is miserable doesn't mean you have to be. Just because she is depressed and anxious doesn't mean you have to be. Embrace your joy. Make time to do yourself justice.
- Fully inhabit your own skin; stay out of her head. Monitor your internal experience. Awareness of your own feelings == guaranteed method of keeping yourself safe from overwhelm. At the very first twitch of an "Oh no, I feel so bad for her I could cry..." you can shake yourself and say inside your head, "Whelp, it's time for me to go for a walk and listen to some music." And you can say to her, "Honey, I'm so sorry. I'm getting a bit overwhelmed. I've hit my limit. I'm going to take a walk and listen to some music. Let's do something fun when I get back."
Yeah? Pay attention to yourself and care for yourself. Don't try to be her therapist. She already has one.
posted by MiraK at 2:30 PM on May 20 [10 favorites]
Best answer: What often happens to people in creative fields (and other fields as well) is that your profession is so inextricably linked to your identity and sense of self that when something is not going well then it can feel like a referendum on YOU.
I've been in that spot before and it was really hard. One of the things that helped was thinking about all the different things that were important to me, how I wanted to spend my time, the relationships that mattered to me - spending time with family, gardening, cooking, volunteering, spending time in my faith community. And I decided that more of my "pie chart" of time and effort should go to those things and I could invest less time/effort in my work.
So one thing you can do for your wife is to help her engage in those other activities that give her life meaning. Does she like the outdoors, make time for a hike or a short camping trip. Does she like books? Get tickets to an author event. Help her connect to friends and family, by hosting a dinner party or brunch. It won't solve the crisis she's going through, but those activities can help her put things in perspective and provide meaningful relief and distraction from stewing over the career stuff.
posted by brookeb at 3:18 PM on May 20 [5 favorites]
I've been in that spot before and it was really hard. One of the things that helped was thinking about all the different things that were important to me, how I wanted to spend my time, the relationships that mattered to me - spending time with family, gardening, cooking, volunteering, spending time in my faith community. And I decided that more of my "pie chart" of time and effort should go to those things and I could invest less time/effort in my work.
So one thing you can do for your wife is to help her engage in those other activities that give her life meaning. Does she like the outdoors, make time for a hike or a short camping trip. Does she like books? Get tickets to an author event. Help her connect to friends and family, by hosting a dinner party or brunch. It won't solve the crisis she's going through, but those activities can help her put things in perspective and provide meaningful relief and distraction from stewing over the career stuff.
posted by brookeb at 3:18 PM on May 20 [5 favorites]
Best answer: Am I your wife? (I'm not, I checked.) I'm in exactly the same position and it's a real struggle. Some days are great and some are extremely difficult; I'm just dragging myself along trying to get something going. Even my friends with steady gigs are burnt out and discouraged. Bluhhh what a time to work in the arts.
Staying connected to my collegial friends is really important. Does she have collaborators? Or at least people she can talk to about her work? When I go too long without sharing what I've been doing, it's very easy for my brain to tell me I'm worthless and no one gives a shit. I need community or else I get too lonely with my own thoughts.
brookeb's advice is really good too, she needs to be secure in her value as a person apart from her creative work (something I've struggled with myself). I don't know that this is something you can do for her, or really help her with, she's got to develop a sense of self-worth on her own. As others are saying, you need to take care of yourself and not wear yourself out trying to solve her problems for her (I don't think that's what you intend anyway).
posted by daisystomper at 3:31 PM on May 20 [3 favorites]
Staying connected to my collegial friends is really important. Does she have collaborators? Or at least people she can talk to about her work? When I go too long without sharing what I've been doing, it's very easy for my brain to tell me I'm worthless and no one gives a shit. I need community or else I get too lonely with my own thoughts.
brookeb's advice is really good too, she needs to be secure in her value as a person apart from her creative work (something I've struggled with myself). I don't know that this is something you can do for her, or really help her with, she's got to develop a sense of self-worth on her own. As others are saying, you need to take care of yourself and not wear yourself out trying to solve her problems for her (I don't think that's what you intend anyway).
posted by daisystomper at 3:31 PM on May 20 [3 favorites]
Take her to shows / expose her to work in the same field that is rewarded, but not as good as hers.
Give her uninterrupted time, and remove environmental stimuli that will invite her to interrupt herself.
Make sure she's well fed and adequately rested.
Bring her into the sunshine.
posted by amtho at 6:42 PM on May 20
Give her uninterrupted time, and remove environmental stimuli that will invite her to interrupt herself.
Make sure she's well fed and adequately rested.
Bring her into the sunshine.
posted by amtho at 6:42 PM on May 20
I bet your quiet confidence in her means 10,000 times more than anything you could Do. Having someone believe in you helps you see setbacks as temporary and circumstantial.
posted by slidell at 10:38 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by slidell at 10:38 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]
Be a source of love and show you value her outside her work / production. Do things together that she wants to do. Enjoy her company and show her love "just because". Help her get out of the house / get some movement / get some sunshine / see nature / eat well: go for a walk together, cook something healthy with a lot of different vegetables or her favorite fruits, let her persuade you to enjoy something you might not always try. Show you admire and care about her and look up to her.
posted by Lady Li at 1:05 PM on May 21
posted by Lady Li at 1:05 PM on May 21
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