Finding fulfillment in both love and work isn't easy--but it's possible. The majority of couples today are two-career couples. As anyone who's part of such a relationship knows, this presents big challenges. Yet most advice for two-career couples fails because it treats the challenges as a zero-sum game in which one partner's gain is the other's loss. This pits partner against partner and frames solutions in the language of sacrifice and trade-offs. This book is different. In Couples That Work, INSEAD professor Jennifer Petriglieri shifts away from conventional, one-size-fits-all solutions for two-career couples and instead focuses on how couples can tackle and resolve the challenges they will face throughout their lives--together. She identifies three key phases of exploration and personal growth in every couple's work-life journey, showing how couples must navigate these together in order to strengthen their bond. Based on a five-year research project including interviews with couples from over thirty countries--from executives to entrepreneurs and from twentysomething newlyweds to two-career grandparents--Couples That Work is filled with vivid real-life stories as well as keen analytical insights. There are also engaging exercises and activities designed to help couples develop their own unique answers to that most pressing question: How can we successfully combine love and work?
Content
The three transitions of a dual-career couple -- Transition 1: How can we make this work?: When the honeymoon ends -- Struggling to do it all -- Achieving interdependence -- Transition 2: What do we really want?: Hitting the wall -- Turmoil and conflict -- Transitioning to a new path -- Transition 3: Who are we now?: Loss and limits -- Exploring wider horizons -- Couples that work
