Early warning signs

When I first started writing this post, HippieHusband and I were fighting at the drop of a hat. This was largely because we had reached our threshold value of stress that both of us could handle. And his job situation just tipped the balance.

The cumulative effect was that we were angry all the time. Angry at each other, angry at his supervisors, angry at the school, angry at SmallTown, and yes, even angry at the sheep. Being angry all the time is exhausting.

Needless to say this did nothing for our science. Sure maybe I spent a few extra hours at work but then I was frustrated and tired when I came home. That tired feeling never left my body. When I got home, all we did was talk about TheBully and each day I felt myself falling deeper down the rabbit hole of anger and frustration.

I know for some people acute stress is like a energy boost drink and for these people, their science thrives, but I'm not one of them.

All I knew was that something had to change or eventually we would be talking about the custody of our broken cell phone.

Well this got me thinking back to my "good ol' days of getting divorced in grad school." What was weird at the time was how many people came out of the woodwork to tell me that they too were divorced. My own supervisor told me at the time that lots of long-term relationships don't survive academia.

If 50% of marriages end in divorce and re-marriages face an even higher rate, are academic couples more at risk because of the high levels of stress? How does our work environment exacerbate the situation?

I think that we spend the majority of our time with two sorts of groups in our lives: colleagues at work and our family. Early on in an academics' career, immediate (both physically and emotionally) family is usually the spouse. So if you pick someone - pick well, right?

A number of couples I know are made up of two academics. This may be due in part to our social group, i.e. grad students and post-docs. But the two-body situation means some compromises will have to be made and as a result for two people to both have jobs, long distance may play a part in the equation. I knew of one couple where the guy lived in New York and the woman lived in San Francisco. They told me that the distance was helpful to their relationship. Really, what kind of relationship requires distance to make things better?

Long-distance can put a strain on a relationship but then the trade-off may be that the couple suffers in trying to find academic jobs for both parties. HippieHusband and I have made a decision that we won't accept a position unless the other person has *something* lined up. This doesn't mean we won't be flexible - I think we're quite open to even sharing a position if necessary, but we want to be in the same city.

One bonus to a relationship, where both parties are academics, is at least there is some understanding about the 70-80hr work week, right? If a spouse is not an academic but has chosen a smarter path in life, then it can be difficult to explain why you are so doggone stuck to the thermal cycler that you spend more time amplifying (insert organism) DNA than you do replicating your own (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Or imagine justifying to your carpenter husband why you need to spend Sunday with E.coli and not him.

In either scenario, when the stress is intense and real, relationships suffer from what psychologists have termed, emotional transmission. "Emotional transmission," is the psychological term for how emotions are carried from one context to another and/or how emotions are passed from one family member to another. It seems that job stress and emotional or physical exhaustion can cause marital distress. Go figure?

In this one paper by Roberts and Levenson (2001), they defined emotional exhaustion as "a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job demands and continuous hassels." Wow, perhaps these people have read about academia? Exhausted and stressed out individuals are generally more angry, anxious, complain more, and are less able to communicate and problem solve effectively.

This same paper referred to previous work, which showed that an increased autonomic nervous system arousal (flight or fight response) and a higher proportion of negative emotional interactions compared to positive ones are the early warning signs of divorce. Constant ANS arousal can make it difficult to think straight and problem-solve.

In examining 19 male police officers and their wives, Roberts and Levenson (2001) showed that high levels of job stress were associated with a physiological response in both spouses. They observed elevated levels of cardiovascular activity and lower levels of bodily movement not only in the husbands but also in their wives. In other words, what they characterized as the "freeze" response associated with great fear had carryover effects in the spouse. Furthermore, and clearly not a surprise, but job stress reduced the positive quality of the marital interactions and the reciprocity associated with that positive exchange. So if you're angry at work, guess what you'll likely show impatience and anger at home.

This is exactly what was happening with HippieHusband and I. I have to say I did feel like I was in constant flight or fight mode and with the recent brain surgery, it has been more like fight. I know that our year was probably a little unusual, but I'm sure that at some level every academic goes through a battle that leaves them exhausted and beaten down. According to the above research, then their spouse also goes through a similar battle.

I think about the academic journey. If finishing a Ph.D. dissertation was not traumatic and highly emotional, then during the post-doc, the pressure to produce publications within short periods of time is huge. Only because it makes you oh so competitive for that faculty position. If somehow, you are one of those lucky people who just sail through life, then perhaps the post-doc is a joyful and carefree period for you. If that's true, then when you do get that job and that carefree period ends, as a faculty member, you will find that students or grant deadlines will put you in a tailspin. Now multiply this by two. No wonder most relationships tank in academia.

The key to surviving seems to be what the study suggested - minimize the negative and increase the positive. For HippieHusband and I, we put a moratorium on talking about TheBully. This meant that we restricted our conversations about the work-related situation (not science) to an hour a day. The second thing we did is spend quality time together doing fun things. It's so simple and yet because our work consumed us, we got lost.

Now, as I finish this post I started almost a month ago, I can happily report that things in the Girlpostdoc's household are a lot lighter. Although the work situation is still unresolved, HippieHusband and I remain steadfast in our commitment to each other.