Being Married to the Boss

Pros and Cons of Being Married to the Boss

You always have to think before you speak when you're married to the boss!

I have been part of an expat teaching couple for many years and it often feels like I'm married to the boss.  I am married to the Secondary Principal of a school I used to work in. This came with advantages and disadvantages that I think that lots of teaching couples, close friends or married people working together in any profession can relate to. It’s not always plain sailing.

 Remember the moment when:

• Your husband suddenly gets a promotion and colleagues who have passed you in the corridor before, without acknowledging you, turn into Mary Poppins level friendly, chatting about this and that, enquiring after the kids and being nicer than pie.
  • The same Mary Poppins approaches you a few days later and casually pulls out of her magic bag a whole list of recommended changes that ‘your husband’ might be able to implement – hint ‘put in a good word please.’
  • Mary Poppins blanks you a few weeks later because you seemingly haven’t taken the hint. When passing you in the corridor they now bear more of a resemblance to Cruella deVille than Ms Poppins.
•  You enter a room of friends you’ve gossiped and laughed with over the years and the atmosphere freezes. ‘What on earth has he done now?’ It's not always fun being married to the boss! 
• These same colleagues suddenly also become more cautious than a Volvo driver when around you. Conversation turns bland and if things were to be believed, the school is more welcoming than immersing into a hot tub with a glass of prosecco on a balmy night. (I don’t have a hot tub and don’t drink alcohol but you get the idea!)
• Every conversation seems to start with ‘Your husband should…’, I didn’t know I was employed as a messenger!
• You want to punch a colleague in the nose for point scoring against your husband in a public forum when he has little right of reply.
•  You want to punch your husband on the nose for being a bloody idiot.
•  You ask your husband advice on some dress code issue. When he gently replies that  your new clothing might not adhere to it and shouldn't be worn for school you fume, resent and storm. Everyone else breaks the dress code so why do I have to be such a 'goody goody'. I’m fully aware I sound about 14 years old there! Sometimes it must be like that when you're the teacher's kid too! 
•  You squirm for the colleague who is lovely and inadvertently puts their size 14 foot in it, not knowing you are married to the boss.
• A colleague assumes you spend every evening discussing school and practically accuses you of lying when you declare your ignorance regarding a particular issue. The reality is that my husband’s number of coherent words per day output is very limited and most of them are used up during the school day.
• When everyone thinks that something you worked really hard to push through was achieved because ‘you just get what you want’. If only ..
• You feel prouder than punch because the old man has stuck to his principles, but there isn’t a person in the world you can share this with as confidentiality is your middle name.

When I got married I didn't sign up for being married to the boss!

When you do work with a spouse there is a shared understanding that is just there and doesn’t need talking about. In international schools it is such a common phenomenon that most people do ‘get’ the potential awkwardness of the situation so that it really isn’t a problem. I did though sometimes used to be secretly pleased when people at school only knew me as a teacher or Head of Libraries and didn’t make the connection that I was married to a colleague. Perhaps I did have an identity in my own right!

Enjoying a Blyton ice-cream with the old fella, who happens to be the boss!

Advantages of Being Married to the Boss

Advantages of Working with a Spouse
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Whilst I could go on with the grumbles about being married to the boss, overall I think the pluses of working with a spouse have far outweighed the negatives (it’s just not as much fun to share them!) A coffee appears on your desk unexpectedly; a colleague understands your awkwardness and makes things easy for you; you burst with pride at your spouse’s educational vision even if it is delivered in a gruff, no-nonsense way; you receive affirmation that your husband is a proper good guy; and you catch a glimpse of a handsome vision, in one of numerous identical M & S white shirts, passing by several times a day which cheers you up (oh you think I’m still talking about my husband – don’t be daft!)

Now I’m not working I am still married to a Secondary Principal but not the Secondary Principal. I'm posting this with some trepidation as I have a sneaky feeling that plain old Saint Mick of Thana won't altogether approve. With this in mind I better end by buttering him up and add that I wouldn’t swap being married to him for the world! Yep I know ... pass the bucket!!

It can be annoying when you're full of praise for your husband, who happens to be the boss - but he deserves it!