BALANCING WORK AND MARRIAGE

“It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones”. (Psalm 127:2, NLT).

The man or the wife rise up early to go to work and come home late evening. Gradually, the bonding between spouse and children start losing its grip.

Balancing career and family is one of the greatest challenges facing newly married couples. Just when you thought marriage was going to simplify your life, you start to realize that there are decisions ahead, such as:

Whose career takes priority?

Will both of us continue to work outside the home once we have children?

Is it fair for me to be stuck in a dead-end job in order to put you through school?

Will the spouse with the higher income have more say in how our money is spent?

If you WORK and I WORK, who does the HOUSEWORK?

For some people, dedicating themselves entirely to their career may seem like the right thing to do, but others close to them may see it as a problem. Leaving work at the office is more difficult than it seems when we can work virtually anywhere and anyone can reach us at any time. Setting boundaries between work and pleasure can be difficult, but working too much can have an impact on your marriage.

What Is a Workaholic?

A workaholic is someone who works compulsively at the cost of sleep and spending time with loved ones.

The book of Psalms 127:2 (NLT) says, "It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest (other translations use "good sleep") to his loved ones".

Working too much will affects your marriage negatively.

Spouses of workaholics can feel estranged and disconnected from their partners. The spouse who has become well aware of coming in second in a list of priorities begins to lose confidence in her own desirability. A power struggle can ensue in the relationship as the workaholic becomes more autonomous. A workaholic could potentially experience angry outbursts over little incidences as a result of their guilt for working too much, and these outbursts take a toll on a marriage and a family. Additionally, a partner who expresses their feelings about their spouse working too much could be met with hostility and anger. Finally, workaholics could begin to expect a spouse to cater to their needs, as they are the ones busy and working all the time. As their entitlement grows, discord in the marriage could result.

This climate of financial uncertainty has forced some people to maximize their earning opportunities and sacrifice quality time that could be spent with their partner and loved ones.

Understandably, this type of situation may be unavoidable as people seek to secure their families’ homes and futures. However, it is one of many situations where a disproportionate amount of time and focus on work can lead to breakdowns in communication, sexual intimacy and tension between couples.

In some instances, individuals can be so focused on career advancement and or money that it affects the quality of their personal relationships and consequently happiness.

So, how can you balance career and marriage?

Signs You Might Be a Workaholic

It's important to understand that being a hard worker is not the same thing as a workaholic. A hard worker can still have a balanced life, leave work at the office, and be emotionally present and engaged when home or away from work. If you have several of the following traits, take a critical look at your relationship with your career:

- Work is your number one priority.

- You miss out on life events for work.

- You are financially stable, yet work excessively anyway.

- Your family complains that you work too much.

- You try to find ways to make more time for work.

- Being unable to work seriously stresses you out.

- Missing work due to illness or injury puts you in a panic.

- Hobbies and leisure are sacrificed due to work.

- The amount you work has impacted your health.

- You find a way to work even if sick or injured.

- You rarely take vacations, and if you do, you still work while out of office.

- You always bring work home with you.

- You find it hard to be "in the moment" because you are thinking about work.

HOW A COUPLE BALANCE CAREER AND MARRIAGE

Here is the story of a couple who balanced career and marriage to save their relationship:

Doug and Laura both had jobs that were important to them. Until now, they had managed to put enough time and energy into their relationship to have a great marriage. But recently, Laura was becoming more and more engrossed in her work. She was very excited about the new project she was working on. She worked 12-hour days, brought work home with her, and worked most weekends. All she could talk about were her ideas on the project and where her career was heading. Laura was totally consumed by her work.

Doug was beginning to feel left out and resentful. In general, he was very supportive of Laura and proud of her accomplishments. But lately she had no energy left for him. Every time they went out, she talked about her work. She never asked him how he was doing and never seemed to think about their relationship anymore. She even stopped doing small, nice things for her husband.

Her commitment was exclusively to her job. Laura was married to her work and was putting her marriage to Doug in serious jeopardy.

When Doug brought up the issue about her work, Laura would always say, “Don't you care about my career? It's so important to me, and I thought it was important to you, too.” Doug really felt like he was being taken for granted. After a particularly bad argument about their situation, Doug blurted out, “Don't assume I'll always be there for you. You haven't exactly been there for me lately!”

Laura was shocked. She had been working so hard and had made the false assumption that her marriage would survive the stress with no extra effort from her. Doug and Laura had a very serious talk about how Laura could invest a lot of time in her work and still have time for Doug. What was most important to Doug was that Laura really put work out of her mind when she was with him and focus solely on him and their relationship.

Laura needed to manage her time at work more efficiently. She realized she could save an hour a day, five hours a week, by making business calls while driving to work. And she changed half of her dinner meetings to breakfast meetings.

By making all of these changes, she had more time to invest in her relationship. Laura was much happier and so was Doug. They really improved their marriage once Laura learned she needed to put time and effort into the relationship, even when she was busy at work.