Men, Work And Sourcing One's Identity

As people, one of the core needs we develop is to have a strong sense of self. We need to be “somebody” in the world, and developing a sense of identity is central to developing our sense of self. For men, often times this sense of self or being somebody comes in the form of identity formed through work and career, especially in our Western (and American) culture.

We have always prided ourselves on the work we do, and how others see us professionally. We derive a lot from our work and career: economic benefit, a sense of pride, a sense of belonging, a sense of who we are and our place in the world. Our sense of competency, of meaning and value, or purpose can often come from our career, and how others or society see us in that career. In short, we place a lot of value on what we do, and who we are as a result.

With this in mind, sourcing our sense of identity from just our careers can be problematic, because we are not what we do, and many times, especially for men, we get that confused. We come to think that all of our worth and value come from the jobs and careers that we hold, which is false, and only are confronted with an alternate reality when our job or career is over, like in retirement, or earlier, when it is lost or compromised in some way.

Learning Early To Base Self-Worth On Performance

For some men, the is a high value on worth as a function of what one does and what one produces. I talk with many men who, growing up, came to understand that there sense of self, their value in the family and with their parents or caregivers, was contingent on their performance. They started to compete and excel, whether it was in sports, academics or getting into trouble, and would come to fuse those things with their sense of self and worth to their parents, and consequently others such as teachers, peers and the like.

Specifically, I think that a man’s relationship with his father can be the source or formation of this sense of worth as contingent on performance. A lot of men come to see performance, competition or achievement in their father’s work as something more valuable than it is. They would assimilate messages (either verbally or not) from their fathers about how they are worthy only through achievement, because that’s how their dads run their own lives.

There is a generational fallacy in this thinking, because we never get off the treadmill to challenge this orientation to life. We just end up passing it down through the generations to our kids and so forth, rather than breaking the cycle of self-worth attached to work and achievement.

Effects of Work on a Relationship or Marriage

Too much dedication to one’s career can impede and harm one’s primary relationship over time. Usually, when something in a relationship or marriage is wrong, it can be the accumulation of issues that have built up because of an overcommitment on a guy’s end to his work and career.

Some men fall into taking that to be a provider or breadwinner, that’s what a marriage or relationship needs, but this is thinking falling short. A marriage needs much more than just financial provisions, or to put food on the table. That may have been true of men in the 1950’s, but these days, more is expected of men who often don’t know how to step into those responsibilities or marriage requirements.

Specifically, men swap out emotional connection and intimacy for their work, and lose out on the kind of connection that their partners need and crave of them. Men who don’t know how to engage emotionally usually divert their energy and attention to their work, where they feel competent and draw their esteem and identities from. If they don’t know how to engage emotionally, and give their partner that in their primary relationship, they’ll feel like a failure and not want to try to do this. They might further withdraw into their work, setting up a vicious cycle over time.

Again, these things don;’t happen overnight. They often take years - or decades - to become problems, or their marital partners have just had enough of their not being available. Usually, something comes to a head, which is often when the kids are grown and the focus then comes back to the primary relationship or marriage instead of being on the family or the business of the family.

The Benefits to Sourcing Identity Elsewhere

Learning to find out who we are aside from our work, we can expand and evolve as human beings. We are not simply the products of what we do. We’re so much more than that, but sometimes we’ve forgotten this and gotten so caught up in sourcing our identity in our work or career that we think that’s all we are. At the end of our lives, what do we really have to show for it all if that’s the case?

One other way to source our identity is as a husband or father. A lot of guys these days, especially younger men like millennials, have come to see the problems with their own fathers being so driven and absent from their growing up, that they want to create a different situation for their own families, wives and kids. They want to be more present in their marriages, and with their children, and are taking steps to draw boundaries with their work and careers, and not get swept up in their work so that it becomes detrimental to their marriage and family life.

The economic shocks in 2008, and now in 2020, have reformulated the workplaces in so many ways, and have left people reconsidering their lives, including how they want to live their lives, who they are, and what their purpose is in the world. Their is real pain and reformulation now through COVID, but I think it also provides a powerful sense of opportunity to confront these forces, and to really figure out if you’re living your best life on your terms, and look at other options or changes that would need to happen if work is not as fulfilling or meaningful as you once hoped it would be.

Strong identities are important, and getting our needs met, such as a sense meaning, income, importance, sense of self, pride, status and validation are all important and all part of sourcing one’s identity. Work can bring all of these things to us, but if we’re not careful, we can derive too much of our sense of self from work. We can fall in the trap of not expanding ourselves in other ways, such as personally, in our marriage, spiritually, emotionally or in other aspects of our human experience.

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