Is Your Corporate Relationship on Life Support?

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One of the things that I have constantly been surprised about is how, even if I go through all the logical reasons why you need to plan for your 2nd Half Career, people like you are very slow to act.? It may be clear why you’re not able to sustain your corporate career for the rest of your working life and why a Portfolio Executive workstyle makes absolute logical sense for you.? However, you must engage with your heart, soul, and desires to make the right decision.

At a deep psychological level, the corporate relationship is meeting some significant personal needs. I have talked to and reviewed the experiences of many people in full-time employment in larger organisations.? They tell me about the way their corporate relationships work, the nature of the culture, and the sense of being bound by golden handcuffs or trapped in a gilded cage, and I’m beginning to ask myself this question:

Do I need to start to consider that many individuals in corporate employment are best-considered victims?of an abusive relationship?

Those who have either been involved in or known people who’ve got locked into relationships with an abusive partner will understand that there is a dependency that the relationship creates, which, even though the victim is suffering, keeps them trapped in the relationship even when the abuse becomes life-threatening. I’m beginning to ask myself whether this is a useful model when we’re trying to consider why people get stuck in a corporate workstyle, even though they know they are suffering day by day and that it will end in tears.

How often have you had a manager or a leader say, ‘I need you to do this’? The ‘I need’ statement is the classic approach of an abuser to claim, ‘I can’t carry on without you.’ How often have managers and leaders made you promise that it’ll get better, which turns out to be empty? ?‘Just make one more push, and we’ll get this project over the line, and then we can relax.’? ‘Just hang on in there, and we will hire the person you need to support you.’ ‘Just demonstrate persistence in your performance, and you will get a promotion.’ Implicit in these promises is that it will get better. ?Just continue to suffer for now, and it will get better.

For many people, lockdown was the trial separation that made them rethink their relationship with corporate life. They started to see that life could continue without being a victim of an abusive relationship.

But any of you who have had a friend or been involved in an abusive relationship know that that dependency created by the abuser goes very deep.? In corporate life, too, often, they will undermine your confidence to step out on your own.? They will tie you in financially.

Often, the good cop and bad cop routine will keep you emotionally confused.? They’ll treat you badly and then offer an apology or perhaps some reward: a bonus, staff away day, or the fulsome praise that keeps you yanked back and forth between hope and despair, fear and comfort.

And sadly, many victims of abusive relationships return to their abuser.? After the lockdown, you may have seen a different way of living, but when your employer said, ‘you must come back.? We need you to come back.? If you don’t return, all these dreadful things will happen.’? Did you return to a toxic culture, to overwork, to endless promises that it will be better sometime… never?

Perhaps you’re wondering why you’re staying on a corporate treadmill.? You realise that logic demonstrates that your 2nd?Half Career could be more rewarding, enjoyable and sustainable, but you have yet to make the break.? Then, ask yourself to what extent you have taken on the role of victim in an abusive relationship.? To what extent have you bought into the belief that without your abuser, you can’t make your life work?? To what extent is something deep within you being fed by how you’re being treated in this relationship?

Is the relationship reinforcing your sense of lack of worth, so you suffer from Imposter Syndrome? ?Or is it because you feel that while you’re needed, you’re valued, but if you’re not, you will have no value? ?Are you still believing in new promises, even though your experience is that they are unlikely to be fulfilled?

If you doubt whether you are in an abusive relationship, just go and have a look at websites that seek to help people who are on the journey of exiting an abusive relationship.? Look at the indicators of co-dependency and ask yourself to what extent you are making bad choices. Consider if you are imprisoned in the toxic culture of an abusive corporate relationship because you are too afraid to leave. ?Do you believe at a deeply subconscious level that you can’t survive without your abuser?

Maybe you believe I am overstating the case. ?Perhaps you think I am dishonouring the trials of victims of violent domestic abuse with this comparison.? But I remain puzzled by the emotional pull of corporate employment that too often defies logic.? Perhaps I should expect to be attacked for these ideas: the Karpman drama triangle warns of how easily the roles of victim, persecutor and rescuer can be interchanged.? ?Check out?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle?and reflect on your reactions to my suggestions. I challenge you to consider your immediate response.