These are not two words that seem to go synonymously together and when you are married to a workaholic, you may find that you were right – those two words do not go together. A spouse who is a workaholic is more likely to be neglectful of their loved ones as they seem to spend all of their time at work or working at home. The spouse and children of these workaholics may be understanding at first, but when dinner is missed five nights out of seven and school plays along with other events are overlooked – understanding may not be enough anymore.
Overtime can create a stranglehold on a relationship and even the best of intentions cannot correct the issue with a nice dinner or a few minutes spared from a hectic schedule. So whether you are the workaholic or your spouse is, there are some things you can do before your relationship makes the journey from troubled to damaged. Remember, in any discussion that you have with your spouse on these topics – don’t point fingers or offer accusation. It’s important that you share your thoughts and your feelings without attacking your spouse. Here are some ideas to help you and your spouse cope with being a workaholic and married:
- Your relationship should be the number one priority for both you and your spouse – often we use the need for financial security as the excuse or the reason for why we are working so hard or so often – but it is important to recognize that if all you do is work and you are never together with your spouse and never spending time together – then what you are working for is not shared joy in your marriage
- Workaholics may genuinely love their job and enjoy what they are doing, but enjoyment needs to be tempered by the fact that they also love their spouse and should enjoy being with their spouse too. Making time for your spouse and your children should never be a chore.
- Working to add things to your home or to pay bills and assuming that all the overtime will pay off in the end can fall flat if in the end, there is no spouse waiting for you because the distance between has drawn too far open
- Make time, weekly , for just you and your spouse and plan to be home every night – even if you can’t eat dinner with your family, your children deserve to have you as their parent in their life and not as some shadowy figure that kisses them after they’ve gone to sleep and is gone before they wake up
- If overtime is needed, do it early in the day rather than later – even at the height of my working schedule, I’d rather be up and working by 4 a.m so that by 3 in the afternoon I’ll be done for the day. This will be a great schedule when my daughter starts kindergarten
Now, I have a confession to make. I am a workaholic. I can fill my day with hours and hours of writing work – easily. Especially when I am enjoying the writing and it is generating income. I love the fact that I can work from home because it lets me be here with my child. But the drawback is that as a workaholic – I can abuse the fact that I work from home and forget – just being physically present is not the same as actually being with the rest of the family.
It’s taken a lot of adjustment and constant communication to prevent the workaholic in both of us from distracting us from what’s really important – after all – what’s the point of working for a better life for the two of us if we’re never together and we’re never with our daughter?
Related Articles:
Your Spouse, Your Image & Your Career