Q&A Forum - August/September 2018

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My wife and I have been married for many years; and in fact have two teenaged children. Throughout our marriage we have developed a sort of division of labor regarding the domestic issues that arise, generally according to our professional training and experience. For example, she works in education, so she generally takes the lead in that area and since I work in finance, I generally take the lead in money matters. It's not that we don't discuss the various issues; it's more like we are department heads in our areas of expertise and we make the recommendations that are generally agreed to by the other.

However, our areas of expertise, or departments, if you will, do not necessarily extend to all the domestic issues we encounter; and therein lies the rub. Now my wife is a very intelligent and capable woman, but that doesn't always prevent me from attempting to be preeminent regarding those "unassigned" areas that do not fall into either of our departments. It's not that I don't trust my wife's judgment, in fact I do, it just seems that due to my profession, which involves decision making all day long, I've developed the habit of automatically attempting to make the decisions for both of us.