Juggling Work And Marriage Study: Most Conflicts Between Couples Caused By Spillover Between Work And Marriage

Between directing a daycare, managing an auto shop and keeping up with two active teens, Cathy and Dan Stout rarely eat dinner as a family - let alone spend time together.

“Dan’s in his own world, I’m in mine, and we get together sometimes,” Cathy Stout said.

In many ways, the Stouts are representative of modern career couples everywhere, faced with the dilemma of juggling two jobs, a home, marriage and children.

A study by the Families and Work Institute found that most conflicts between working couples are caused by spillovers between work and family.

More than a third of couples said they have had no time for themselves in the past three months because of their jobs. Work also caused them to be in bad moods at home and took time and energy away from spouses and children.

By the time Cathy Stout gets home each night, she has rushed her son to a track meet, driven her daughter to cheerleading practice and spent a full day at work where she oversees 42 employees and 170 children under the age of 6.

“Life seems like one crisis after another,” Stout said. “I go home exhausted.”

For Stout and other working spouses, the juggling act often means communicating through sticky notes on the fridge and coming home from work to find dinner cold and your spouse zonked out in bed.

As for personal time together and family vacations? Nearly impossible, couples say.

“We were supposed to go to McCall for the weekend with some friends,” said Stout, who owns the Downtown Child Development Center. “I had a classroom change and I had to work late. By the time I got home it was too late to go.

“I was angry at him for not coming and helping me. He was angry because he didn’t see why I had to be at work so late. We ended up yelling at each other.”

The conflicts can run deep. Just look at the nation’s divorce rates. Half of all marriages fail. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t couples struggling to make it.

Cheryl Crockett wants to get outside help to get her marriage back on track. Ever since Crockett and her husband, Bob, started a scrap-metal business in Nampa, their marriage has taken the back seat.

“I hate it,” Crockett said. “I haven’t seen him for five days now. He’s obsessed with getting the business off the ground and it’s cutting into our marriage.”

Heidi and Shaun Daggett rarely spend an entire vacation together. When they do go, their vacation usually goes something like this: Heidi gets her four kids ready, packs the car and drives 10 hours to Portland by herself. Shaun zooms in on a plane for the weekend, making it back for work on Monday.

“It turns a vacation into kind of a bummer,” Heidi Daggett said. “I spend the entire vacation wishing he was there enjoying it with us. Then I have to drive back all by myself with the kids.”

Shaun Daggett, who owns Capitol City Lock and Key, knows his schedule is hard on his family. But he also feels a responsibility to his business.

“It’s difficult to show the urgency of the issues at work to my wife and kids,” he said.

While marital conflicts are nothing new, the dynamics have changed in the last ten years as the percentage of working mothers has soared to nearly 70 percent in 1994. Irving Tallman, a Washington State University sociology professor studying the foundations of successful marriages, has found the division of housework to be a major source of friction, even more than money issues.

“What’s happened is that women in the labor market continue to do most of the housework,” Tallman said.

Some evidence: A 1994 “Women’s Work” study found wives employed in the labor force spend about 29 hours a week on domestic work, compared to their husband’s 11 hours.

Besides arguing over who cooks, cleans or does the laundry, there also is the issue of who takes time off work to take care of sick children.

“It’s always me,” said Dianna Lineberry, a working mother of six. Lineberry, who works as a secretary, gets up at the crack of dawn so she can have time to dress and feed her six children and fold a load of clothes before rushing off to work.

By the time her husband, Paul, gets home from his 15-hour day, Lineberry has cooked dinner, washed dishes, bathed her kids and put them to bed. And her patience has run out.

“All it takes is him throwing a bandage wrapper in the drawer instead of the garbage to make me blow up,” she said. “I feel like I shouldn’t get mad because he’s the major breadwinner. But I still think he should help.”

Time restraints aren’t the only problems between working couples. Every time Gloria Anderson sits down to pay the bills, her husband, Donald, is reminded of the fact that he isn’t making as much as his wife.

“It’s hard on a man’s ego not to be the major breadwinner,” said Gloria Anderson, who makes four times her husband’s salary.