Latest / Birth at Work / S2 EP20 | Partner Dynamics & Why They're Important
Transcript
- Krislyn Powell: Just excited to be here today. I know I say that every episode, but I think that this is one of the most important things that I do is have this conversation and keep it wide open. And normally I am on the host side, but in these seasons I like to pepper in a few handful, several episodes of my own experience since I am actually living it and I think it is... beneficial to share what it's like being the person that is going through it on the day to day and having thoughts and opinions and getting continuing education on these topics and meeting with the greater network of guests that we bring on and then sharing transparently the lived experience. So today's episode is going to just be on partner dynamics. And I want to speak about this from a couple different lenses. I think one being the lens of working and home life and balancing traditional and non-traditional roles and sitting with the thoughts and feelings and routines that come up with the way that society has sort of shaped. how we exist in home and at work. And I also want to acknowledge the birth experience as well and how that plays into things because I am very passionate about birth and about work and... I have the lived experience of what it's like to be a woman in both instances. And I've had really extensive conversations with my partner, who is a man. And we have navigated. So let's chat first about kind of the dynamics and nature of sort of how we grew up and then maybe some of the expectations and foundations in our lives and I invite you to take what you will or what you need from this conversation and just... I also invite you to think openly and critically about your situation and possibly how you could advocate a bit more for the support that you need and also tune in to the unseen mental load, not only for yourself, but also for your partner. And I think also the invisible labor dynamics that go between both mother and father roles. So. With that being said, I want to say that my husband and I are both millennials. We have lived, I feel, many lives over the changing dynamics and wavelengths of societal norms. But I do feel like, at least from what I noticed and how I got curious, I feel like I saw my grandmother's generation is primarily being at home, cooking, cleaning, caring for the children while grandpa went to work. And then with my mother's generation, it was very important for her to get an education. That was like very stressed. And maybe she and others in that generation were kind of the first to do that more prominently to like consider, I want to work, I need to work, and I also want to be able to take some time off to have kids and raise them, but I want to have that degree so that I can go back to work when the kids are growing. And that is, in a sense, what my mom did. And then it was very much stressed to me that that is important. that I needed to get my education and finish my degree, which I did. actually, I have a master's degree, so I got two degrees and several certifications. And, but for me, it was not so much like, I need this to provide for my family and for myself as a means of survival. But like, yes, I mean, I guess that is innately, you know, what we all kind of. do, like why we work, but I think there's a deeper layer to that and a deeper meaning, a wider lens, and I just want to ruminate on the fact that I felt really called to work. I really enjoyed it. It was a sense of pride for me and a sense of belonging and a place that I met friends and colleagues and felt called to a greater purpose and stretched my mind and my talents and became more knowledgeable and wiser and also I was able to communicate better and I had energy for life and enjoyed hearing others experiences and also solving problems like it was really exciting for me and I remember Like I did well in school. had leadership positions in high school and opportunities in college. But I remember like finishing my undergraduate degree and being like, yeah, I just really never want to go back to school. Like I'm done. I was kind of burnt out. And I remember starting my career and just being like, this is so much better. Like I hated being... in a chair all the time and just like listening to lectures, although I do now have a deeper appreciation for education and I believe that we all learn differently and experiential education is very important there was not a variety of ways that I could receive my education when I was going through my undergrad. It was very much like go sit in a lecture and this is what you do. And online was just getting started. So I attribute some of my... unexcitement for education at that time to the fact that I was stuck for hours and hours and hours of my day indoors without the ability to roam around and actually put things that I was learning to the test. And that actually became a greater reason why I switched to a recreation management and leadership degree in my undergrad because I wanted to get outside. I was like, I live right now in the great state of Utah and there is so much to do outside and I'm stuck inside almost every day all day. So it was yeah really interesting but when I I digress when I finished that and started working I was like this is so awesome like I can travel and explore and talk to so many different people and learn new things and I just like blossomed. And then I was also coaching basketball at the time when I was managing corporate jobs and varying my career and zigzagging and being a generalist in all areas, know, just kind of trying all of these different things that I was excited about. And I loved that I could, you know, with the bubbly personality that I have and the way that I was able to kind of soak up knowledge and fit into different, you know, square peg round hole, but like, not so much like fit into whatever people needed me to mold into. I was very good at that. I just loved it. And so then when I got my master's degree, it was like, what, like, how can I enhance the experiences that I'm already having? What can I do? What can I create for myself? How can I? brought in my career in and have different lanes that I travel in. So that was kind of like the thought process there of like, like it became, I mean, work became my life in a sense of like, I was very proud of my career and I, I want to kind of like lay that as an underlying foundation because I feel like my husband was too. I mean, he, I won't get into as much with his experience. But he did a lot of things in a short amount of time and he loved to work. And then we started talking about having a family and I was very much a proponent of like, still want to work. I don't want to give up my career. I very much enjoy my career. And so with our first, we did just that and we had an in-home nanny come in. I worked a remote role so I could, you know, still be around and I did manage the bulk at the time though. I also want to mention, at the start of our marriage, I was the breadwinner for several years. And then when we started having children, he became the breadwinner. I was still working and making a good salary, but he just had some opportunities that came up and had a little bit more availability since our schedules changed. So... we did have that kind of like dynamic layer where we realized like, okay, I am going to be spending more time with our son. I am going to be at home a little bit more. I can do more things at home. And that sort of is where it kind of started to shift. That was something that my husband and I had to kind of work out and navigate and figure out on a few different fronts. We really tried to find the middle ground for a lot of things and we realized that it worked for us to of like trade off evenings of who had our son even though we were still married like we weren't spending every night together simply because it was like we both wanted to have a similar amount of free time for ourselves and then we also shared like gave each other some weekend days which was really nice and kind of got in a rhythm of that and that was something like I had to advocate for because I felt like... I love the role that I am getting to embrace, but I didn't want to lose the time that I felt I was having to sacrifice. And so my husband did things as well, like get up in the middle of the night with a baby, and we had a sort of challenging feeding journey with our first, and so we did primarily formula feed after a few months, and he... got up in fed bottles and we broke up the night together in terms of sleep. And I feel like in a sense it was a little bit more equitable. And then things changed again with our second. So for a number of different reasons, and I'll allude to the 2025 like mass resignation of the female workforce. due to several things like remote flexibility being taken away again, less tolerance for women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, pumping, postpartum. And just generally I feel like a shift to work attitudes, almost like taking five steps back or 10 steps back of like making it just like the workplaces more comfortable for men. My husband and I basically had a conversation after I had a conversation with my work where it seemed like there wasn't gonna be a lot of understanding or support for my pregnancy, birth and postpartum. I was just kind of like, I'm ready to take some time away. and do my own thing. And I don't care what anyone thinks. It's like anyone else's stigmas are not my problem. There's a problem here with the nature of corporate work and I'm not comfortable leaving my baby with someone I don't know right after they're born and going into an office. And I am not comfortable traveling at three months postpartum. and I want to be spending all day every day with my baby and I want to breastfeed and I want to have a healthy happy family. And so our roles switched again. I mean, he took on more work in a number of different capacities. He has a portfolio career as well and you know, he's an athlete and he's a director of sales and he's also a brand manager and he does a number of things which are amazing and you know I'm a podcaster, I'm a birth coach, I'm a writer, I'm a speaker. We both do a number of different things which are really fulfilling and but in order to do that we had to have a conversation of like this doesn't just happen overnight. we are still working through. figuring out the rhythm and routine and we're doing a really good job. Like we're eight months in and it's flowing and we're like getting more sleep and we're happier and we're feeling more fulfilled in our roles and I am figuring out the like my niche and where my pockets of time are that I can be productive and how I can rest so I'm not burnt out in this new role and same for him. And it's taken a lot of really wholesome conversations to get to this point of understanding. And it's also, you we've had some heated conversations as well of like, this isn't fair, like you're taking my time or you're not helping here. And I think I just want to say like all of that has a time and a place. And I think that those more heated conversations are actually important. Like some people don't. talk about that and I think we need to understand too that everyone has different kind of like personalities and types of energy and human design is actually really interesting and has helped me a lot but for reference my husband and I are actually both projectors and what that means is that we are really really good at showing other people the like a better way like how things could be better. and should be better and how to get there. And so we're really good at leading and guiding people and being coaches and teachers and that's like what both of us are doing and have done for most of careers. But in terms of energy, it ebbs and flows for projectors. So it's not like a constant state of super high energy or super low energy. It's like we have to rest and have time for ourselves to recuperate. and then we can dive in and be super creative and productive and enjoy relationships and putting our work out there. And another thing too is that we are successful when we put our creative work out there that is quality work and we get invitations and are invited to do more and build relationships with others and are given opportunities that a lot of people don't get. But it's because we've continued to work and put our work out there. But all that being said, because we are both projectors, we both need to rest quite a bit. And that's taken some time to figure out and honor between the two of us. And so I would just invite you at this point to understand that. you need to have open conversations with your partner and it is important to advocate, but you have to share the why with their best interest at heart. So I could really use your help getting up with our baby at night because I need to rest for X amount of time in order to give you rest or give you the time you need for X, Y, Z. It's almost like advocating in the workplace. Research shows that when you help here, you're more successful as well. Yeah, it's also like... I had a very clear picture of what I wanted for our birth experience and in his mind too, like with his role as a father, he wanted to provide and protect and was concerned about the nature of the birth experience that I wanted and I was very much like, I've prepped every day, like mentally and physically for this. I've done the research, I know the risks, I am confident that this type of birth experience is gonna work out perfectly. And it did. And at first I was frustrated with him early on trying to get him on board. And then I just realized like he's only going to meet me where he's at and how far he's prepared. And so I think that's just something to keep in mind is like your partner, I mean, if you're in a committed relationship where it's wholesome and loving, you most likely do have a partner who has their best interest or who has your best interests at heart, but you also need to have theirs. And so just considering like framing things so that they are more comfortable and confident in the solution has seemed to work best for us. And I just want to throw this out there that like no relationship dynamic is perfect, but ours has changed so much over the years. And I know that it's not going to stay this way forever either. And I am excited about that and confident about that and looking forward to the future changes because I know that my husband and I have done the work to communicate, to advocate for each other, to love each other, and to also like enjoy spending time together and to make each other laugh. So that's kind of like a little bit about our partner dynamics. Like I will never put work away fully and I will never sacrifice being a mother so that I can work. And similarly with him, like I would never want him to sacrifice being a father and I would never want him to put his work away fully either. So All that being said, I just wanted to share a little bit about what we've experienced, the dynamics, like acknowledging that you're not alone if you have some feelings that are coming up and the fact too that I'm open to conversation of like how to explore some of these things that you might be hearing or feeling or seeing from your partner and how to navigate in a way that is best for you. So. Eyes, ears, mouth, hands, heart, full and always open for feedback and communication and thoughts and feelings. And I'm in your corner and I know that you are doing your best. Thanks for listening.