"I'm currently dating a first year associate in a small boutique law firm and we've had the rockiest eight months together. He's constantly busy, inattentive, and argumentative. I'm used to dating engineers or guys in corporate, and it's always been a lot easier with them. Thanks to your articles. I know have a better understanding of where my boyfriend is coming from. I didn't know billable hours and shutting off any semblance of a personality were so important before. I didn't realize how important it was for him to focus or at least pretend to focus on his work whenever he crossed the plexiglass plates of Mordor. Lastly, I realize now why it's so difficult for him to admit he's wrong because it's counterintuitive to way his work brain works. In his mind he probably feels that if he's wrong, he loses face and has reasons to terminate my services. My question is how can we better partners those we love and have chosen this profession?"
That's a very interesting question. And I will tell you that certainly I got divorced early in my life. And I think that everything that you're saying is true about attorneys, and why they're very difficult to be attached to, and also to stay married to. When I was in my first law firm, I think all of the partners there were divorced, which I thought was very interesting. I think what happens is when you're at work, you're right, you have to be right all the time and take a side, and then you go home, do the same thing with our partners and that just doesn't work. The other thing that happens is that their mind is so active all the time that you're constantly thinking and thinking. And then when an attorney goes home at night, they really don't want to talk anymore, they just want to like vege out and not think. And the idea of listening to someone else's problems and talking about a day can be very difficult.
I know a lot of attorneys cope with that by drinking, using drugs and all sorts of things. At least when I was in law firms, that's what I saw a lot of. And because they just, they have to slow their mind down at the end of the day and they want to be able to connect to people and connect with something outside of themselves. And so it's very difficult for people who are attorneys to have good marriages and good relationships, especially if they're in large law firms.
I understand where you're coming from. If you are an attorney and you're having problems in your relationships, the best piece of advice I can give you is you have to find someone that you're going to be able to connect with in the right sort of way. Typically in relationships, there's different types of people. One party is dominant the other party is not dominant. Or one party's nurturing.
And I found that if two people are very type A and dominant, that can be very bad, and different types of people need different types of people to be with. The marriages and the relationships that I've seen work — I know a very powerful woman lawyer and she has a husband who stays at home and takes care of the kids and is probably more feminine than masculine and she's very masculine.
It's very difficult to make relationships work, but two people have to compliment each other. And it's very difficult for attorneys to turn it off, especially ones that are in big firms. And it's just very difficult. Many get married many times, and I would be very careful or just think about that, but it's hard being with attorneys. I agree.
When I got divorced earlier in my career, I'm sure it had to do with the demands of a law firm and a career. I see so many attorneys get divorced and it has to do with the way the career is and demands on us.
