Should I Choose a Career or Love?

Balancing a successful career with a happy love life isn’t always the easiest. Inevitably, there will be compromise along the way, and sometimes the two just aren’t compatible. So, when it comes down to it, what do you choose: love, or a career?

Choosing Love Over a Career

As the saying goes: “love is all you need”. There is no price to be put on happiness, and finding the right partner can set you up for a long and happy life. While a career can be fulfilling, coming home to someone in the evening, discussing your thoughts and ideas, making plans for the future, and starting a family are something that work simply can’t provide.

There’s a reason that so many songs, poems, novels and movies have been written about love. It’s inspiring and it's important to most of us. The right relationship has our back when times are hard, and celebrates when things go well. We all need that kind of support in our lives.

Choosing a Career Over Love

On the other hand, we all need to earn a living, and a healthy career brings us valuable challenges, engagement, and a wide network of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. All of these are also important, and if you’re particularly ambitious, then having a career could be a vital key to your long-term happiness.

If you choose love over a career, then there’s no doubt that you’ll be able to get a job doing something, but that’s not the same as a career. You may not be able to have the lifestyle you want, because your earnings aren’t enough. Your ambition will be stifled. You might even end up resenting the person you choose because love wasn’t enough. So a career may be more beneficial to your life than a relationship.

The Best of Both Worlds?

Ultimately, this is a very unique and personal choice. If you really do need to choose one or the other, it will take some measured consideration. Will you be happy coming home to an empty house in the evening? Perhaps you’re relieved to have some alone time? Maybe you fulfil your social needs with close friends and events. Or maybe the empty house echoes ominously and you wish you had someone to discuss your day with.

On the flip side, are you an ambitious person who will resent having a mediocre job, or no job at all? If you choose love over a career, will you end up resenting your partner, eventually losing the love, too? Or is the lack of a career something that you’re willing to live with in exchange for a happy and content relationship?

Generally, the advice is, when you’re young - in your twenties - then choose your career. You’ll learn lots, advance more quickly, and get a better idea of what you want from life. In your thirties and beyond, when you’re more established, then you’ll have a better idea of what you want and need from a partner anyway.

At Bowes-Lyon, we find that most of our clients are well established after (or at the top of) a very successful and fulfilling career. Work still plays an important part in their life, which is why, when we help them seek love, we look for people who are equally ambitious and understand the pull a career has on someone. Those two people can come together in a happy relationship that values both love and career. It is the best of both worlds, so what’s not to like?

To find out more about our matchmaking service for ambitious individuals, get in touch.