“I Wish I Hadn’t Worked So Hard” Was The Regret of Every Dying Man, In Bonnie Wares Book The 5 Regrets of The Dying
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
Was the regret of every dying man, in Bonnie Wares book the 5 Regrets of the Dying
Bonnie worked with dying patients in palliative care. At the end of their life, she asked them if they had any regrets.
Bonnie says
“The regret ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’ came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
Bonnies quote tells the tale of the exact scenario I find so many dads in.
The question is: why?
Why do some dads work so hard and not spend time with their wife and kids?
It turns out, there are 29 reasons.
10 minute read
Asking Dads This Question
“Why do some dads work so hard and not spend time with their wife and kids?”
When I started to ask dads this question, the funny thing was they didn’t exactly know ‘why’ they worked so hard.
I was curious. Why didn’t they know?
What else is at play here pulling them into working so hard?
Is it unconscious? Is it unspoken? Is it on autopilot? What don’t they know?
I had to find the answer.
What Do I Mean By Working So Hard?
“Working so hard” means “working long hours.”
Every dad is juggling work/career on one hand and home, wife and kids on the other. They are trying to find a work-family balance. That’s a reality of life as a dad. I feel for dads - It’s a bloody tough gig.
But, for some dads the scales get tipped too far in the work/career direction.
The scales get out of balance. Working long hours becomes the norm; working late, evenings, weekends, public holidays or working away from home for weeks or months.
The problems come when:
Dad comes home and the kids are already in bed. Dad is away for his sons graduation. Dad misses kids birthday parties on the weekends.
The wife says things like “you’re not present with me.” “I don’t feel supported.” “You don’t know what it’s like for me being alone with the kids.” “You’re always thinking about work.” You’re prioritising work over me.” “All you do is work.”
The kids say things like “dad is always working.”
The family breaks down which may end up in resentment, infidelity, separation, divorce, mental health problems, addictions or challenging behaviours in the kids.
So, while a dad has a wife and kids and genuinely works his heart out for them, why can he end up losing them in the process?
Research
I researched why some dads work long hours and not spend time with their wife and kids in three ways:
First, by asking dads
Second, by reading relevant blog posts online
Third, by researching psychological processes
The research pulled out that there were conscious or spoken reasons dads may work long hours. This is the stuff that’s socially acceptable to talk about.
Then there were the reasons that were unconscious or unspoken. This is the stuff where dads don’t know why they’re working long hours or it’s not socially acceptable to talk about.
Give Dads The Power To Change It
My intention in writing this blog is to present:
Part 1 - the 15 no. conscious or spoken reasons dads may work long hours and;
Part 2 - the 14 no. unconscious or unspoken reasons dads may work long hours.
So that dads can read both parts and identify why they may be working long hours.
Which then gives them the power to change it, so as to make their life happier with their wife and kids.
And on their death bed they won’t regret working so hard.
Part 1 - The Conscious or Spoken Reasons Dads May Work Long Hours
1. Making It
A man is conditioned to believe that life is about a successful career and “making it.”
“I want to be a Project Manager on big jobs in the city, so I work long hours to climb the ranks and make it.”
2. Make our Parents/Grandparents Proud
“My grandfather was a Lawyer. I wanted to become a Lawyer too so he would be proud of me.”
3. Their Dads Role Modelling
“I was inspired by my dad's tireless work ethic and passion for his business.”
“I credit my dad for my work ethic”
4. I Don’t Know Any Different
“I don’t know a different way of operating than working long hours.”
5. Industry Expectations
“In this industry, it’s expected you work long hours.”
6. Company Expectations
“The company culture is to work long hours.”
“People are expected to work long hours here.”
“If you want to work for one of the big four firms, this is what you have to do”
7. Role/Title/Project Expectations
“The unwritten rule book – if you want to be a Planning Manager it means you work long hours.”
“I have to put in extra hours to meet project deadlines.”
8. Understaffed, Workload, Getting The Job Done Properly
“We are understaffed. I have no choice but to just work the hours to get the job done or otherwise I might lose my job.”
“The only way I can get my workload done is to work extra hours.”
“I have to work long hours to get my job done properly.”
9. Reputation
“Some people also work long hours out of fear: they think that their reputation will take a hit if they're not working late like everyone else.”
10. Fulfil the Dreams for ‘Their’ Dad
“My dad always wanted to run his own business. He started one, but he went broke. It really affected the family growing up. So, now I run a businesses like my dad always wanted to.”
11. Growth, Learning & Progress
A dad may work long hours because he wants to: “learn new things” “start a business” “become a leader” “grow skills” or “build tools.”
12. Meaning & Influence
A dad may have reached a position in a company where he is able to put “his spin” on how the company operates. He can “influence culture” “make things happen” or “point the company in the right direction.” So he works long hours to keep that up.
13. Relationship Role “The Breadwinner”
When a man decides to have a family, there is a fork in the road. It’s work/career or kids. He’s committing to one or the other. In many cases a man will commit to work/career and a women will commit to the kids. They are defining their relationship roles.
This means two things:
First, parenting falls to the women. The women stays at home to raise the kids and takes pride in how she mothers.
Second, the man becomes the “breadwinner” providing security. He brings home the bacon. In short, he provides the paycheck. A man likes the simplicity and uncomplicated nature of his role. There is a sense of pride providing for this family. He gets a kick out of it. So he works long hours to make that happen. At the same time dads may feel exonerated from any child-related responsibility and avoid the stigma of the stay at home dad.
14. Future Financial Security
Following on from “breadwinner” comes earning money to financial secure the future for their wife and kids. Things like school fees, weddings and retirement.
So, a dad may “put in the hours now” to financially secure his families future.
15. Family Role “The Rock”
A dad may play a role of ‘supporter’ to his family’ - to parents, an uncle, auntie or sibling. This could be a practical role like financial support, 1:1 caring, or it could be emotional support like advising on life direction and making decisions. A dad in this role is the security, foundation and stability that supports the family. He’s the rock that people lean on.
This role has a dose of family expectations. The dad feels like he needs a certain salary, title and career in order to meet the approval of the family member(s).
On one hand there is a sense of pride to “look after the family.” But, on the other hand he may feel trapped and may resent the role. It’s likely he played the supporter role as a child. Today, he may feel guilt or shame if he doesn’t fulfil this role. Because of this, he works long hours to make sure he can continue to provide the support the family needs. This role may be linked with Self-Sacrificing Schema - see Part 2, no. 13.
Part 2 - The Unconscious or Unspoken Reasons Dads May Work Long Hours
1. Feel Guilty
A dad may feel guilty that they’ve been the one to have the career and their wife had to sacrifice her career to look after the kids at home.
Because they are feeling guilty, that they are not home with the kids, they over compensate by working long hours.
2. Feel Unimportant or Not Needed at Home
This is the case of when 2 becomes 3. At the birth of his first child, the mother: (A) Is essential to raising the child and; (B) gets tremendous love and physical pleasure from their newborn child, and so dad may feel feel immediately unimportant, like they are not needed or required anymore. They are at the bottom of the list causing them to feel isolated, excluded and lonely.
To avoid feeling unimportant, not needed, excluded or lonely, a dad may return to what he knows - work, and work even longer hours.
In society, this is seen as normal or even encouraged.
3. Feel Inadequate as a Dad
A dad may feel a sense of inadequacy because:
Parenting may not come as naturally to him, than it does his wife.
He doesn’t have the skills to connect emotionally with his child or with himself when his child is born.
The kids don’t open up to him.
He doesn’t have a close bond with the kids.
To avoid the feelings of inadequacy, he may withdraw and bury himself in working long hours.
4. It’s Easier To Be At Work Than Be At Home With The Kids
At home with the kids a dad may feel there is no appreciation, no thanks, no validation. It’s hard, lonely, miserable, emotionally stressful and the job list is never done. He may also feel uncomfortable about doing school runs, playgroups, childcare and coffee mornings. “This is a women’s world” a dad may say.
So, a dad may find it easier to be at work.
5. Avoiding Home Life
A dad may not enjoy life at home, so he stays at work.
It could be they:
Feel criticised for their parenting
Are unhappy in their marriage or relationship
Feel nagged, shamed or demeaned by their wife
Fight with their wife and/or kids
Are not attracted to their wife anymore
Feel they don’t want to be in a relationship with their wife anymore
6. Distraction from Thoughts and Feelings
A dad may have unwanted and intrusive thoughts and feelings arise, like:
Feeling bored, stressed, loneliness, guilt, shame, anxiety, anger, alone or depressed.
He doesn’t like these feelings, so he avoids the experience of these feelings by distracting himself with work.
Written the other way around, he distracts himself in work to avoid feeling.
7. Can’t Say No
A dad may end up working long hours, working weekends or late-nights because of never learning how to say “no” and speak up for themselves.
8. Rectifying A Childhood Story
Say, an immigrant family come to Australia. The dad gets a job in a factory. Some days the dads boy goes to work with him. The boy watches his dads back as he punches out items on the factory floor. The boy feels sad that this is the only time he gets to spend with his dad and he looks at his dads back all day. The dad tells his boy that he always dreams of running a factory instead of working in one.
The boy grows up to be a dad himself. To rectify his childhood story, the dad works long hours and opens his own factory. The story driving him is “I don’t want my boy to experience what I did. I want him to have a dad around.” But, the dad now running the factory has many things to do and works long hours with the intention of “working is heart out for him.”
But, the story unconciously repeats. The boy plays in the dads office, looking at his dads back as he types away on the computer.
Rectifying the childhood story has come at the expense of his son.
9. Lifestyle
Money provides a lifestyle; cars, boats, clothes, holidays, houses, fancy dinners.
Once a dad has that lifestyle he doesn’t want to lose it. He may become “locked in a lifestyle” working long hours in order to maintain that lifestyle.
A dad may trade the lifestyle over spending time with the wife and kids.
10. Status
“There’s no escaping status. We’re hardwired to be aware of it, to monitor it, to seek it, and to feel pained when forced to surrender it. Neurons fire and hormones are released whenever we lose or gain status. It’s an involuntary process that we share with our caveman ancestors.”
Today, we seek “status” on the “social ladder.”
Job title, position and how much money a man makes is an external measure of a mans “status” on the social ladder.
The bigger the title, position and the more money he makes, the higher social status he holds.
The higher social status he holds, and the higher up the social ladder he is, the more prestige, power, influence and authority he has and the more respected, competent, important and “worthy” he is in the company and in “society eyes.”
For example:
If a man makes $30 bucks an hour sweeping the sheds, he’s with the masses. He feels small. He’s “no one.” He may be: “dismissed” “belittled” “ignored” or “demeaned.”
If he makes $300k a year as a director of a company, he is in the elite. He feels bigger. He’s “someone.” He’s: “very important” “taken seriously” and “deserves respect.”
For millions of years status meant one thing: survival. The higher up the pack, the better your chance of survival. So, today seeking status on the social ladder is hard-wired from our evolution.
“The brain sizes up the social setting before acting on its urge to feed. In this sense, status-consciousness is more primal than hunger.”
- I, Mammal: How to Make Peace With the Animal Urge For Social Power
It seems status is important!!
Researchers have proven there is brain circuitry associated with the social ladder:
“Researchers have found evidence that our brains may actually be hard-wired for hierarchy. We are primed to climb the social ladder. We may be wired to value the "top dog" over the people who rank below us. Because social rank is so important, certain [brain] regions do seemed to be wired to interpret it.”
- ABC News
Seeking status is not always intentional. It runs mostly unconsciously on autopilot, completely under the surface, setting us up today to compete for positions within a company.
Think about it - why do we spend so much of our lives trying to get promoted? I write more about the social ladder in this blog
Competition:
“Status = Competition. Status is really just another word for competition.”
Each man is trying to out do each other in competition for higher status - to get ahead of other blokes; to earn more money, to get a bigger office, title or position.
So, a dad may not want other people to beat him to roles that are higher up in his company. He may say “I don’t want Jim to get the General Manager job, I want it.” He wants to be seen as the right person for that role so he will output the work by working long hours, so it proves he is the right person. It’s a case of “If you wan’t the promotions, you have to be seen to be putting in the big hours” or “If you want to get ahead of others you’ve got to put in more hours than them” or “if you want to be successful in your career, it involves working long hours.”
Status becomes a priority for him. When one thing becomes a priority, other things are de-prioritised. So his wife and kids become de-prioritised.
How it affects the family:
If you look at work/career on one hand and family, wife and kids on the other. The work/career is like being connected to a never ending ‘teat’ fuelling the increase in a dads “status” (including: authority, power, respect, importance and worth) on the “social ladder.” As sad as it is, the family, wife and kids just don’t provide that.
So, a man may sacrifice health, family and marriage for status. Gabor Mate, an esteemed physician and author talks of this from personal experience.
“My own workaholism as a physician earned me much respect, gratitude, remuneration and “status” in the world, even if it undermined my mental health and my families emotional balance.”
A man may trade being being a CEO earning $400k a year, even if it means he’s working away from his family for 6 months a year ‘over’ spending time with his wife and kids.
It’s a case of - only the “elite” gain the status of being a CEO, but “anyone” can have a wife and kids.
So, the work/career becomes more important than his wife and kids.
This is often not intentional, he’s just on auto-pilot following his evolutionary status drive hard-wiring.
In this blog, a wife describes her husbands unconscious status drives:
“Around six months back my husband got an offer to work abroad for a year in another country 6,000 miles away! I didn’t have the option to leave my job to be with him, as I had started working after my Masters degree. I didn’t want him to take up the offer as I couldn’t imagine a life apart from each other. Also, our current salaries leave us with financial surplus every month. But, he decided to take the job to meet his financial goals. It seems like my husband loves his job and making money more than he loves me.”
- The Adventurous Writer - Does Your Husband Choose Work Over Family?
11. Identity
“For thousands of years of deeply ingrained human history, In every culture around the world, masculinity was defined by three imperatives: protect, procreate, and provide. Men have an innate drive to be useful, to be effective, to provide value to their tribe.”
The best available option for men to protect, procreate and provide is through their job. This means, a mans identity is primarily derived from his job. In other words, a mans job is his identity - his job defines who he is.
Let me explain how a mans job defines his identity.
First off lets look at identity. Identity includes: status, the role of being the “breadwinner”, job title, the story of how they got to their position, qualifications, job security, job benefits & perks, credibility, income and power.
Then we can see how his job links to his identity.
If his job is high status it means he’s high status. If he had to “work hard to get there” it means he’s a hard worker. If his job is secure it means he’s secure. If he has a powerful position it means he’s powerful.
He’s internalised the external job factors to form his identity.
But, it doesn’t stop there. His job is not just his identity, but it’s that his job increases his sense of well-being.
“One of the most comprehensive studies on masculinity was conducted several years ago. It sought to uncover what gives men a sense of well-being. The survey found that the very biggest determinant in a man’s well-being wasn’t a factor you might expect like relationships or health. It was work - “job satisfaction.”
Let’s summarise what we’ve established.
A man will put his job first and work long hours, because:
That’s what his evolutionary protect, procreate and provide wiring tells him to do.
It gives him his identity - it defines who he is as a man.
It improves his sense of well-being.
“Men fear that if you do childcare rather than paid work, you lose a sense of who you are.”
And, looking at these three aspects we’ve distilled, that is true.
12. Weakness
A man’s no. 1 shame trigger is being perceived as weak.
Working part-time or less hours may mean “not being taken seriously” or “seen as slacker.” All of which may be perceived as weakness.
If the opposite of weakness is strength - how does a man define strength then? Answer: By working long hours.
Working long hours is correlated with strength and toughness.
It’s about “putting in” “getting the job done” “doing the hard yards” “being first in and last to leave the office.”
So, a dad may work long hours so he’s seen as strong and tough, and not perceived as weak.
13. Schemas
What are schemas?
Schemas is a psychological term for self defeating beliefs about ‘self and other’ learned at a young age, that run in the background of our awareness causing an unhelpful effect to our sense of self, our expectations about life, and the quality of our relationships.
How are schemas formed?
“Children have core emotional needs as they are growing up. These include: safety, nurturance and acceptance. When these needs are repeatedly not (adequately) met, children try to make sense of why this is happening and thus create certain beliefs about themselves (i.e. “My opinions, preferences, and needs are not important to others.”) and about relationships (i.e. “Others will inevitably leave me/hurt me/take advantage of me.”) These beliefs are called schemas. There are 18 schemas.”
There are two schemas that tend to keep men working long hours
Self-sacrifice Schema is about giving up your needs and focusing on the needs of others. This may sound like “Feeling responsible for others” “Not wanting to let people down.” “Feeling selfish if you take some time for yourself.” “Taking on things at the expense of your own well being.”Having to work hard to prove your worth.”Feeling unable to rely on others.” For more about Self Sacrifice schema click here
Unrelenting Standards Schema is about the belief that whatever you do is not good enough, that you must always strive harder. The motivation behind this belief is is the desire to meet extremely hire self-imposed internal standards for competance, usually to avoid internal cricitism. Clients who wok long hours describe this as: “I’m a perfectionist” “Obsessive attention to details” “Critical of myself and others.” “Do things my way.” “I’m a type A personality.” “I’m driven.” “I’m hard on myself.” “Self-created pressure.” “A need to accomplish more.” “I have high standards of myself.” “It’s a badge of honour if I’m here later.” “Worried will get the boot.” “Fear of being let go.” “Fear of being found out.” For more about Unrelenting Standards schema click here
“Operating out of these schemas feels natural and good, as this is what we know. Not operating out of our schema would be unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and unnatural. The human brain prefers to go with what it already knows.”
So, even if a man genuinely wants to spend time with his wife and kids, these schemas operate in the background self-sabotaging and undermining his attempts to achieve his goal by returning him back the familiar schema of self sacrificing or unrelenting standards. They may not even be aware they’re doing it.
To read more about schemas, check out these links: The Ultimate Guide to Schemas and What is Schema Therapy?
14. Workaholic
“Workaholism is an addiction to work. Those struggling with workaholism prioritise work above family, friends and any other meaningful relationship or commitment. Some with work addiction wish to stop working but find it impossible to do so. They often have a great fear of failing at work, and of being seen as imposters.”
- Choosing Therapy.com: Workaholism: Signs, Symptoms & Treatments
From my research, workaholism may come from two places:
First, from unrelenting standards schema above.
“Often, patients with the unrelenting standards schema are workaholics, working incessantly within the particular realms to which they apply their standards.”
Second, from a sense of lack that “I’m not enough” or low self-esteem.
“People turn to work to occupy their time and energy as compensation for what is lacking in their lives, much as the drug addict employs substances.”
- Gabor Mate In the Realm Of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction
If I don’t feel enough on the inside, I will fill my cup from the outside. Essentially, it’s about external validation. High rank, status, remuneration or achievements on the outside, makes up for not feeling enough on the inside.
Which ones do you identify with?
Which ones made sense?
Which ones resonated with you?
Which ones applied to you?
Which ones would you like to know more about?
