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Join host & trauma therapist, Lindsay Faas as we start a new series on supporting front line families. Today we tackle the challenges of being a partner and skills to navigate front line life as a couple.
Created for First Responders and Front Line Workers to tackle the challenges of working on the front lines. Dig into topics on burnout, workplace dynamics, managing mental health, balancing family life...and so much more. Created and hosted by Lindsay Faas, clinical counsellor and trauma therapist. View the show notes, and access bonus resources at https://my.thrive-life.ca/behind-the-line.
Hey, and welcome back to Behind the Line.
I’m your host Lindsay Faas. If you are new to Behind the Line, what you should know about me is that I am a clinical counsellor specializing in trauma therapy, and after over a decade working with First Responders and Front Line Workers around issues like burnout, compassion fatigue, PTSD and related OSI’s, I have become a passionate wellness advocate and educator for those who sacrifice so much for our communities out on the front lines. Behind the Line is a place for us to talk about the real life behind the scenes challenges facing you on the front lines. I created this podcast with the hope of bringing easy access to skills for wellness – allowing you to find greater sustainability, both on the job and off.
You guys, there has been a lot going on in the background of things and I want to take a minute to celebrate some pieces, take a quick look back, and share about where we’re headed. Can you believe it has been 7 months since we launched Beating the Breaking Point?! It kind of feels to me like it’s been the blink of an eye, and hard to believe that we’ve spent 7 months learning and growing together. When I first started Behind the Line, I was TERRIFIED. I remember feeling so anxious the night before the first episode aired, wondering what if people hate it…or possibly worse, what if no one listens?! Here we are 7 months later and the podcast has had THOUSANDS of downloads from all over the world. I have had the joy of hearing from many of you, sharing your thoughts and reflections, and I am grateful for those who take the time to reach out – it really means a lot and helps keep me motivated to show up here week after week. It’s also been fun to watch many of your share the podcast with those you know and see the reach of this resource grow beyond anything I could have imagined. Many of the messages I receive start with, “a friend sent me your podcast” or “I stumbled on your podcast from some comments in my unit’s facebook page or what’sapp feed” and this always makes my heart so happy. The last 7 months have been an absolute gift, but I’m going to admit that this podcast has been WAY more work than I expected at the start. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing it, but I want to let you know that I am planning to take a short hiatus during July and August. I’ll be using this time to listen to your feedback and suggestions and will be working on crafting kick ass fall episodes. During July and August I will be sending out weekly email newsletters to those who have signed up for our mailing list, either by subscribing on the podcast page or by signing up to receive the free Beating the Breaking Point Indicators Checklist & Triage Guide. If you haven’t signed up and you’d like to hear from me as I continue to focus on front line wellness and tools for building resilience, google Behind the Line Lindsay and sign up now to make sure you get all the great tools I’m putting together…and to hear me rant about all the things that bug me on your behalf!
I also want to remind you that the Self-Care Dare 5 Day challenge for First Responders & Front line workers opens for registration next Tuesday morning, June 15th. Participants will receive daily videos talking through 5 key domains for self-care, bonus worksheets and tools to help personalize a plan, access to a private facebook group where we can connect, problem solve and celebrate, and fun prizes along the way to keep you motivated to do the work. If you know that your self-care game could use some work and you’ve been putting off focusing on it – this is a great time to join with some awesome people to do the work together. I really hope you’ll join us. We do have a waitlist that you can sign up on, on our podcast page – again, google Behind the Line Lindsay to find it – and you can sign up to get early access to registration.
Ok, let’s get into today’s topic. Today we are shifting gears from our series on Daring Leadership and we’re refocusing on front line families and the impact of front line work on the various relationships we have within our family system. During this series we are going to be talking about the impact of front line work on partnering, parenting, engaging as a family, and the toll over time. I know that this one is going to get real for a lot of you and I really hope that you’ll share this series with others, because I think that our families is where the work tends to hit us hard, and to some extent every front line worker can stand to benefit from the discussions we’re going to be having.
Today our focus is on partnering. I would actually encourage you to listen for yourself, and if you feel like it would be helpful to spark some conversation with your partner, listen to it again together. The truth is, this is a dense topic and we’re not going to get through everything today, but I promise we will do more on this topic down the road. What we know is that for many front line professions, the rate of divorce is higher than the general population, which is a significant metric to alert us to the fact that regardless of marital status the reality is that caring about and being cared for by someone who works on the front lines isn’t a walk in the park. Let’s be real, relationships regardless of profession are complicated, and every partnership faces tumultuous times and hurdles to overcome. That said, relationships where front line work is a factor face a disproportionately high rate of struggle. There are a lot of reasons for this – shift work is hard, the pay usually isn’t spectacular which can lend to financial stress within the relationship, the risk for mental health concerns is higher, engaging in addictive behaviours to cope tends to be higher, disconnecting emotionally is common coping, and there can be a disconnect between what the front line partner experiences all day versus what they come home to when the day is done and that transition can be tough. Add to that the typical disagreements about division of labor within the home, efforts to appease one another, standard communication issues and so on, what are “common relationship challenges” can quickly become exacerbated.
I know that I am not technically a front line worker – I am not out there interacting face to face with someone’s worst day. That said, I do spend every hour of my work day reflecting, sometimes in graphic detail, on the multiple worst days in every clients lifespan. Given that exposure, I’m going to share a piece of my experience with you. My husband and I have been married 15 years this August. More significantly than that, we met when I was 14 and started dating when I was 15 years old. He has known me for the most significant aspects of my life. Having known me so long and grown with me during some of the most pivotal aspects of life, he would tell you how much the work has changed me. As I’ve said, no one comes out unscathed. Once upon a time, I was very extraverted. I loved having people over, going and doing things, interacting wherever I could. After a few years in the work, that changed. Now, I need more time to myself. I need to limit the amount of “people-ing” I have to do when my work has already demanded so much “people-ing” of me. I like calm and quiet. I’d rather spend my Friday night watching a show by myself than go out and see anyone. He would also tell you that my tolerance for certain things has changed. I used to watch the news, and I could watch more intense movies – now I refuse to watch the news, and I tend to be really picky about the movies I’m open to watching. He would also tell you my capacity to show compassion has changed. Not that it’s not there, just that it’s sometimes a bit tripped up. When you’ve heard the worst things all day, it’s hard to go home and have deep empathy for your partner’s problems when they seem so mundane and small in the scope of things.
Because of the work I do, I tend to like to sit and reflect and ponder what is happening for me and for my partner and for our relationship dynamic. As a result, we’ve been able to identify a lot of the hurdles we’ve hit as a result of the work I do and it’s influence in our partnership. As I’ve said about SO many other things on the show – growing awareness is the most significant part of the battle. When we can have awareness of the changes happening for us, for our partner, for our relationship – we can more meaningfully work at intervening. And when we have awareness TOGETHER, we can work more meaningful at intervening TOGETHER as a team. At the heart of it that’s what I hope to talk about today – some of the common stumbling blocks I hear about for front line couples, ways to draw awareness to when we’re facing difficulty, and some tools to try to course correct to more meaningfully support the relationship we’re invested in growing.
Before I say anything else, I want to make one thing explicitly clear about where I stand, and that this stance is a pre-requisite for really getting anything meaningful out of todays’ episode. I believe that relationships are constant, never-ending work. If you are someone who believes that a relationship should just work because you love each other, or because you committed to this; if you think that relationship should be easy – I’m not sure you’re going to benefit from today’s episode. We’re going to talk about how we invest energy into drawing awareness to our stuff, how we invest energy in drawing awareness to how our stuff impacts the person we claim to care most about, and how we invest energy in working to make improvement to our relationship every single day. If you’re not interested in putting in the work, just stop here. And let me clarify – I don’t think every relationship will work or is good for those involved – and some of you might not presently be in relationship, and that’s fine. There is good stuff packed into today’s episode that can stand to benefit for the future relationship you long for. I’m talking specifically to those people who are in relationships that they are committed to but whose perspective is anchored in a belief that they shouldn’t have to contribute work to fostering growth in the relationship.
For those who are ready to do the work, let’s go.
When I speak to the partners of first responders and front line workers I generally hear 4 major concerns:
My partner struggles to be present with me and our family. Even when my partner is home, it feels like they aren’t connected.
My partner struggles to talk about what is happening with them. I get that they are trying to protect me from what happened in their day, but I feel like I’m losing connection to knowing them.
My partner struggles with emotions. They seem to rage or be numb, without much in between.
Given my partner’s struggles, I feel like I carry the weight of keeping everything at home afloat, and I feel like my partner doesn’t see how much I take on or have compassion for how hard it is on me at times.
I’ll say right now that if there are others that come up often in your home that you would like me to tackle in another episode, shoot me an email at support@thrive-life.ca and let me know.
In all four of these areas, and really in any interaction you are having with another human being who cares about you, I want you to try to hear what’s at the heart of it – the message under the content of what’s being said. We’re going to take these one at a time, and we’ll talk about the message underneath as well as some tools for navigating.
So let’s circle back to the first common concern: My partner struggles to be present with me and our family. Even when my partner is home, it feels like they aren’t connected. Under the content of this message, the heart of it is I miss them. There is this person who means a lot to me, who I chose to be connected to in this life, and they seem to be disappearing even when they are in the room with me. And I miss them, because that’s how much they mean to me. This piece is connected to the “they’ve changed” concern that I shared about from my own marriage story. It’s a reflection from your partner that they see you but you aren’t showing up the way you used to, and the way they are used to having you. Now, the reality is that this is going to be a double sided issue – on the one hand you have some responsibility to find some tools to help yourself be more present at home. After all, you work hard to be able to have your life, so when you are in your life outside of work you should be able to really be IN it and not just tuned out waiting for the next emergency that demands your attention. This connects to much of what we talked about in early episodes of the podcast around grounding and anchoring and mindfulness. Engaging in tools to help counter-balance the stress rollercoaster that your brain is riding on the daily is imperative to be able to remain connected healthfully to relationships that matter to you. The other side of this is that your partner needs to shape their expectations of you. Is it acceptable for you to be tuned out most of the time you’re home? No. But is it fair that sometimes your brain is going to tune out or override your efforts to be present – absolutely. Helping your partner to know what triggers tend to send you into disconnected can be helpful to shape their expectations of you. For example, I find that increasingly busy spaces are not my jam. My partner knows that I am more likely to disconnect and be less present when the kids are jabbering about something and there’s music on and the dishwasher is running and the neighbours dog is barking and he’s trying to talk to me about something. I often use the term sensory-overload to describe how my brain feels in those moments and I can often just look at him and say “sensory overload” and he knows that his expectations need to shift – he either needs to stop talking to me until things quiet down and my brain can process what he’s saying more effectively, or we need to move the conversation elsewhere to be able to be present in it together.
Alright, the next frequent concern is: My partner struggles to talk about what is happening with them. I get that they are trying to protect me from what happened in their day, but I feel like I’m losing connection to knowing them. The reality is that we spend a significant amount of time at work. A tremendous amount of our living is spent working. And for a partner who is invested in us, cares about us, shocker that they long to know about us. Again, at the heart of this concern is I miss them, and probably some version of also feeling missed by them. Because it’s hard to share openly with someone who comes across as closed off or restricting information. It’s like wanting to give someone a hug but a brick wall being in the way. Again, this is going to be a two-sided piece to work at resolving. As the front line worker, you are responsible for cultivating a sense of connection in your relationship and contributing meaningfully to making that connection a two-way street. You have to bring something, regularly, and not just complaints. I get if it’s hard or uncomfortable or not allowed to talk about work – certainly I share virtually nothing about my work with my partner due to confidentiality. That said, part of how we build safety and longevity in relationships is by finding connection, shared interests, and mutuality. We have to bring something. If you’re struggling with this I actually have a fun activity for you – in the show notes I’ll link to an app put out by the Gottman Institute, or you can search for Gottman Card Decks. Now, for those who don’t know, the Gottman’s are researchers and couples experts – they have written multiple best-selling books on the topic of marriage and couple connection and one of their most important tools is called Love Maps. I know, it sounds totally cheesy, but at the core it’s really just about investing time semi-regularly to get to know each other, connect about silly things together and share a sense of direction. The app includes their love maps prompts as well as several other tools to connect and explore topics together. It’s a great conversation starter and can generate some really interesting, meaningful and connecting discussions. I dare you to give it a try. On the flip side, your partner is going to need to again adapt expectations. When we enter a partnership we have ideas of what we think it’s going to look like – and often for the average couple the fantasy doesn’t match the reality. This is even more true for front line couples. We have to be able to adapt our expectations to know that my front line partner is going to be changed by the work, and that this does impact their ability to communicate at times. That they might reserve talking about their work day because it’s triggering or re-traumatizing. That they may struggle to know what else to talk about given how big and heavy their day feels. Again, finding common ground and some ways to connect around topics outside of work can be really valuable to try to bridge the gap together. I love when instead of asking about my day my husband asks my thoughts on some random topic – it gets me thinking, it gets us talking and it tends to be a lot of fun.
Alright, third common concern: My partner struggles with emotions. They seem to rage or be numb, without much in between. This is a really common way of coping for those in first response and front line work – tuning out, dissociating, and then oscillating dramatically to the opposite extreme as soon as things get stressful. We’ve talked about this a bit before around the nature of adrenaline and crash that first responders and front line workers experience within the work all day long. When I come home after living in that high high, where even in my down time I have to be on alert for the pager to go off or the next thing to pile on, transitioning into my home environment that has a mixture of demands and expectations can be difficult. In the work we know the rules, the expectations feel somewhat clear – at home it’s a mixed bag. A jumble of supposed sanctuary for me to return to in order to come down off my day, mixed with household chores, the emotional needs of others, problems to be solved, and so on. When we’ve been in the work for awhile, the normalcy of life at home can become physiologically underwhelming – our stress system has moved the bar for our baseline level of what’s normal to something that amped up because of the time I’ve spent in high states of stress at work. We want to feel and feel connected to others, but our bodies actually struggle to let us. On the flip side, when something does happen at home – a demand, an urgent need, too much sensory input and hubbub – our physiology then overreacts to that and swings too far in the other direction. To some degree this is part of the no one comes out unscathed piece I keep coming back to – but there are tools to mitigate this. The early episodes of this podcast worked to cover a lot of these pieces – mindfulness, grounding, anchoring, self-care, and so on are the foundational skills that help allow us to transition and support our physiology in being able to access the range it needs to make that transition well. Additional skills can also be helpful – in our house there’s a rule that no one is allowed to make big demands or ask lots of questions of mommy when she first gets home for about 10-20 minutes. I’ll even set a timer sometimes. After spending my day meeting everyone else’s needs and responding to demands for those I meet with all day, I need a few minutes to settle into my home space and my wife/mom/non-counsellor headspace before I can effectively navigate more needs. I need a bit of quiet and a little space to let me physiology come down. I know that after that few minutes I am usually pretty good to go, so I get clear with my family about what I need and I reset that boundary if those in my home are forgetting about it. I know a lot of people who use their commute to come down a bit and support their transition. Some I know drive home but still don’t feel totally ready to re-enter their home life, so they’ll park the car and do a lap or two around the block to get some fresh air, clear their heads and prepare to adjust and transition. I think when we have conversations about how we are doing and what we’re needing, generally the people who care about us want to help in that – especially when they get the benefit of having you be more present and connected when you are around and have been more effective in making the transition home. I often encourage couples and families to come up with a code word, like cantaloupe or pickles – it can really be anything you agree on, or a gesture, that we collectively understand means that things are getting harder to cope with and I need to exit the situation and take a bit of a breather to recalibrate myself and regulate. The agreement is that when I exit I will actively engage in coping strategies that help me calm down and I will re-enter and reconnect once I feel good.
Alright, last common concern: Given my partner’s struggles, I feel like I carry the weight of keeping everything at home afloat, and I feel like my partner doesn’t see how much I take on or have compassion for how hard it is on me at times. One of the things I have heard from a lot of front line spouses and partner’s is that all of the resources online around being a front line partner have to do with ways to help and support your first responder or front line worker partner. The resources and supports for those who care for a first responder or front line worker generally circle around how to keep things calm at home, how to recognize mental health concerns in your partner and how to be a resource for health and wellness to their partner. Meanwhile, who is caring for them and their needs? This is actually incredibly common and really unfair, and I would argue that it is a major contributor to the divorce rates for a lot of front line couples. Not always, but often, the non-front-line partner feels left to hold a disproportionate amount of household tasks, childcare, chauffeuring and so on in the midst of their partner’s shift work and tendencies to be numb or disconnected when at home. On top of that they feel pressure to make everything be ok when their partner gets home because they know that what their partner had to face that day was likely hard. They extend from a place of grace and care, but it gets exhausting and can feel really lonely. It can also be hard to feel understood as many of their friends likely have spouses or partner’s who work 9-5 and really don’t understand the additional pressures of night shifts and jobs that have significant risk associated with them. It is important as front line partner’s to acknowledge your partner and the significant sacrifices they make on a daily basis to serve the needs of your family. Take time to hear them, be a listener rather than a knower and allow them to share how it feels to be in their shoes. Consider strategies to reduce some of the pressure where you can – whether that is utilizing a meal service once in awhile or offering to make dinner one of your nights off. Gestures like this can mean a lot. Recognize that your hard day may look very different than their hard day, but it’s less about what qualifies as hard and more about the person feeling like it was hard – allow them space to feel like their hard day ranks and matters too. And to those who are partnering a first responder or front line worker, I would strongly encourage you to seek support. I have a lot of clients who are spouses of first responders and front line workers, who are able to come and talk through what happens at home in a space where it doesn’t feel weird or abnormal. We can talk through strategies to help support their own wellness in the midst of complex situations and high levels of demand to meet everyone’s needs. And for that time, the focus is on them for a bit, rather than how they are expected to be geared toward the wellness and stability of others in their lives.
Whew! That was a lot of ground to cover today folks. I hope that you’ve found today’s conversation helpful, and I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! As always, my contact information can be found in the show notes – you can find me on facebook and Instagram or email me at support@thrive-life.ca. As we wrap up today I also want to remind again that we’re starting to prepare to re-launch the self-care dare 5 day challenge – so if you haven’t go sign up on our waitlist on our podcast webpage (https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/behind-the-line). You can also find it by googling Behind the Line Lindsay. Be good to one another, and until next time, stay safe.