My partner and I have different ideas of what it means to work hard. I was raised by parents who encouraged me to put my nose to the grindstone every minute of every day. Their view: Work as hard as you can for 40-plus hours a week, and make as much money as possible. In some ways, this mindset resonates with me.
My boyfriend, however, views work as a means to an end. If he completes his work in less than 40 hours, he’ll spend the rest of the workday doing whatever he pleases — often, he’ll just take a nap. Sometimes, this makes me feel uninspired, and I wonder whether I should date someone with more ambition.
Maybe I’m just too wrapped up in hustle culture. I love my partner, but I don’t know how or if we can bridge these differences.
Do you think this is a deal breaker?
From the Therapist: What strikes me most is how you’re grappling not just with your partner’s work style, but with the deeply ingrained beliefs about worth, drive and money that you inherited from your parents. While you frame this as a conflict about ambition, I hear you wrestling with a profound question: What defines a life well lived?
Your parents taught you that constant productivity equals virtue and that maximizing earnings is an important life goal. This is a powerful narrative, and one that’s equally resonant in our achievement-oriented culture. But your discomfort with your boyfriend’s approach could be inviting you to examine these beliefs more closely.
Your boyfriend appears to have a clear sense of boundaries and work-life balance. He completes his responsibilities efficiently and then allows himself to rest without guilt. His perspective might offer something valuable — a different model of relating to work that doesn’t require constant striving to feel worthy. If worth is tied to work, what happens when you lose a job, become too ill to work or retire? This seems like a risky way to live.
You say that your parents’ views resonate with you “in some ways,” but I am curious about the ways in which they don’t. If your parents view your boyfriend’s nap-taking as a character flaw — signaling that he’s lazy or unmotivated — another person could just as easily find his approach to be admirable and healthy. Sometimes when we judge other people’s choices, there’s a hidden desire lurking beneath our awareness. Perhaps there’s a part of you that wishes you could slow down too, but your judgment (not just of your boyfriend, but of yourself for wanting a break) gets in the way. If you release the judgment, you might even discover a sliver of envy.
You can ask yourself similar questions about your relationship with money. What does “making as much money as possible” mean for you? Is it about security — a buffer against life’s uncertainties that helps you feel safe? Is it about status and recognition — tangible evidence that you’re successful? Is it about freedom and options — the ability to make choices without constraints? How would your parents answer these questions? How would you? And how would your boyfriend?
Maybe all of your anxiety about compatibility is percolating in the privacy of your mind. Or maybe you’ve made comments like “Oh, you’re taking a nap?” in a tone that implies your disapproval. If you haven’t already, it’s time for you to sit down together and have an honest conversation, not about naps and ambition but about what makes for a fulfilling long-term relationship for each of you.
Some questions to consider: Is it your partner’s job to “inspire” you, or is it enough that he loves and understands you, and that you enjoy each other’s company? If you both put your “nose to the grindstone every minute of every day,” is there room for a mutually rewarding family life? How much money is enough for your respective goals? Does work need to be a significant source of satisfaction for both of you, or can one of you view work more practically — as a means to support other aspects of life rather than being its central purpose? (It might be that your boyfriend does not lack ambition, but that his ambition is focused on the latter.)
By examining your beliefs and getting curious about your boyfriend’s, you may realize that your different approaches beautifully complement each other: Your drive combined with his efficiency and boundary setting could create a powerful partnership where financial, career, family and relationship satisfaction are all possible in a way that two hyper-driven partners might not be able to achieve. But you might also discover that the values you grew up with are limiting your own ability to find joy and balance.
Ultimately, the answer to your question lies less in whether you can be with someone like your boyfriend, and more in expanding your own definition, separate from your parents, of what it means to live a successful life.
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