10 Sep I’m With a Workaholic

This blog post was written by Recovery Help Now’s, Vanessa Blaxland, MFTi.

Nights and dinners at home by yourself.  Waiting…..waiting some more.  Debating whether to see if your partner will come home in time to spend time together or if you should make your own plans.  Does this sound familiar?  Even though you might appreciate the financial stability of having a partner that is a workaholic, it often leaves you feeling lonely and overwhelmed.  You might even feel like their job is more important than you, like they are cheating on you with their career, leaving you to deal just not with everything at home but with feelings of anger, resentment, and disappointment.

Of course you love your partner, but how do you make it work?  How do you balance the amount of time your partner puts into their career and maintaining a healthy fulfilling relationship?

1. What I found doesn’t work is enabling your partner to continue their workaholic behavior by delaying meal times or postponing activities and events to meet their schedule.   Instead, try having a calm conversation with your partner about implementing boundaries.  Boundaries such as if they aren’t home or available when they said they would, it is understood that you will follow through with what is planned despite their absence.  This will also help them experience and understand the natural consequences of their workaholic behavior.

2. You can also find things that you can do together that your partner enjoys outside of work.  Even if the activity is not your favorite it’s the time together that counts.  And, hopefully the more your partner enjoys themselves outside of the work the easier it will be to get them to put work aside more often.

3. Lastly, if you feel that nothing has been working, you can always try couples counseling.  Counseling can help you learn to deal with workaholism as a couple and also help your partner work on the core issues that feed their need to work excessively.