Dear Carolyn: I’m very lucky to live close to my sister, whom I love being around, but I am having a hard time with her husband. He talks often about his stressful career and all his money. He works from home at a very lucrative tech job that provides him ample time to be around his family.
My husband works with at-risk youth in a job that has become even more physically and emotionally taxing for all of us during Covid. I’m really proud of the sacrifices my family has made so that my husband can do the meaningful work he does, and I want to be sympathetic to whatever stress my brother-in-law feels in his day-to-day, but my well has run dry. I think he’s trying to impress us but he really doesn’t get his audience.
Is there a way to tactfully bring this up to him? Or can you provide some motivating new perspective so that I can be more sympathetic? —All out of [Figs]
All Out of [Figs]: Maybe he’s trying to impress you, sure. He could also hate his job, though. Genuinely. Good money and good hours are nothing to scoff at, of course, but they alone can’t give a job meaning, purpose or a soul.
They don’t take stress away, either, necessarily; they just factor into the calculation of how much stress to put up with for how long.
In fact, good pay and flexible hours can become the “golden handcuffs” that keep, say, devoted parents in jobs they loathe — because finding work with the same kid-friendly schedule that supports the family and builds the nest egg and that’s also morally rewarding can feel like hunting unicorns.
So instead of assuming the worst — then resenting him for it — shake things up by assuming the best. “Sounds like your job is getting to you. What do you wish you were doing?” If you get a brushoff: “I mean it. Dream a little.” You’re either bonding or calling BS, win-win.
Also consider the who’s-impressing-whom energy runs the other way. Your husband sounds like an everyday hero — and maybe your brother-in-law is not feeling so great about himself by comparison, and maybe that comes out of his mouth as, “Ugh, my stressful job!” Because many of us aren’t great at identifying exactly what we don’t feel great about, much less articulating it.
It’s a theory. But even if it’s way off, I doubt your relationship with this couple will suffer for your effort to see him in a kinder light.
