How can we make this work? 4 Qs to help primary-secondary dual-career couples thrive.

Do you and your partner ever find yourself asking ‘How do we make this work?

Juggling career, home, care responsibilities, maintaining relationships. It’s a struggle to do it all, and even when we are succeeding in one domain, we often feel like we are falling behind in another.

There are no easy answers. It’s a constant juggle. But there are glimpses all around us for how we might make it work - particularly for couples where one partner's career usually comes second.

This week I saw one such dual-career couple in action.

I was co-leading a workshop for medical trainers. The room was full of wise, experienced, senior doctors, except for one – a young, female GP trainee from a young leaders programme.

During the breakout activities, this trainee made some fantastic observations and questions that brought lots of insight and energy into the room – her contribution kindled some great conversations (me and my co-facilitator were very grateful).

During the workshop break I walked into the airy foyer of the conference centre.

There I saw the young GP trainee with a man, standing next to a buggy with a large, heavy nappy bag draped across the handle, and a very cute baby boy peacefully looking around from his soft, reclined chair.

The trainee introduced the man, her husband, as a ‘real’ doctor, (he was young as well, but had finished his GP qualifications) and said that he was doing the care today so she could take part in the event, while she just popped out of the day's workshops occasionally to feed her baby.

This young professional couple found a juggle that, on this day, worked for them.

How we design our work lives - together

Jennifer Petriglieri, in her fantastic book Couples That Work, shares her research on dual-career couples.? She identifies three main ways couples who share responsibilities organise their relationship to both work and home / care:

Primary-secondary (where one partner is career-forward and the other partner adapts their career around other responsibilities, like care)

Turn-taking (where partners take turns in both the primary and secondary role, based on the demands of their roles, opportunities for growth, and care demands at home)

Dual-primary (in which both partners are career-forward, and share, or juggle, the care demands at home).

Petriglieri points out that there is no 'best' dual-career couple design - she found successful examples for all three dual-career designs.

However, the couples that thrived did share a common approach:

‘...they all had explicitly discussed and agreed on how to prioritise their careers, rather than leaving the issue unexplained and unresolved…they were deliberate in addressing the question ‘How do we make this work?’

When I saw the GP trainee and her husband, they were clearly a couple who were, in this moment, attuned to each others’ goals, and needs. This was an important day for her professional development.

Even if she currently had the secondary career in their partnership, on this day her work was their primary focus.?

Successful dual-career couples make space to listen

So what about us – how can we have better conversations to access some of that same harmony for our dual-career partnerships?

Petriglieri recommends a practice she found in many successful couples, called ‘couple contracting.'

These conversations aren’t for short-term logistics challenges:?(‘Who is making dinner on Thursday?')

Rather, these conversations create space for both partners to share their values, boundaries and fears, with kindness, attention, space and curiosity.?

These conversations then shape the choices that the partners make for career and home – and the logistical challenges and plans that flow from the values-based career conversations can then get answered (because someone has to cook on Thursday).

Important Note:

This. Is. Not. Easy.?

But it is so important for career and relationship health and equity.

Why couple contracting can make a big difference for secondary careers

A challenge for primary-secondary career couples, is that the ‘secondary’ part can often get emphasised more than the ‘career’ part.?

Yes, the secondary-career partner is likely the lead carer, and the juggle of work and care is often theirs to carry.

But the secondary career is still a career - there is still work to be shipped, colleagues who need support, learning to be gained – all squeezed within the daily grind of essential, hour-to-hour domestic labour (thinking, planning and doing).

An approach like 'couple contracting' can help give space and voice for the dual-career partners to highlight that, within the primary-secondary setup, some days the secondary career needs to be the primary focus - for growth, for progress, or just to meet the demands of the work.

4 Qs that primary-secondary dual-career couples can use for better conversations

Here are 4 questions, adapted from Jennifer Petriglieri's work, to consider talking through with your partner - especially for primary-secondary partnerships.

It includes a bit of planning, strategy, and mental time-travel.

Q1) Thinking back from the future, how might you feel about the career / parenting / life choices we have made in 1 year / 3 years / 5 years?

Q2) Thinking about both of our careers from a future perspective, are there 'career doors' that might be at risk of closing? For the secondary career partner, what are work activities in the next 1 year / 3 years that might help keep options open in the future?

Q3) For the secondary career partner:

Are there specific moments, events, conferences, or opportunities that seem significant, or meaningful, or offer a chance for growth, that you would like to make a priority - micro-moments in the next 1 year / 3 years where the secondary career would really benefit from having the primary focus?

Q4) For the secondary career partner:

What does your secondary career need to look like so that you can 'speed up' again in the future if you want? What steps would ensure that it does not slow down to such an extent that it would be difficult to move to a turn-taking or dual-primary approach in the future?

These questions help shine a spotlight on the secondary career, to amplify their needs, to de-risk the slowdown that can occur during a secondary phase and to protect time for important growth and learning opportunities.

Also the primary-career partner will be able to highlight key milestones and times when their work may demand extra effort and investment, which can help everyone share a view of challenging times on the horizon and plan for those moments when 'the juggle is real.'

Where can I find more about the dual-career juggle...

If this has been helpful and you'd like to dig deeper, I recommend reading Jennifer Petriglieri's work, as well as two books with nearly identical titles - Equal Partners? by Jaclyn S. Wong and Equal Partners (with no question mark) by Kate Mangino. If you're feeling very keen and I/O psych is your thing, you can dive into the scholarly work-family and career design literature.

For your earbuds, Anne Helen Petersen's podcast Work Appropriate also has some good content on the practical demands of dual-career work, as does the Squiggly Careers podcast and the Psychologists Off the Clock podcast - look through the archives for episodes that resonate with you and your current challenges, they're all full of useful insights.