How to tell if your Partner is a Workaholic
When you’re in a relationship, the amount of money you have coming in can be a big deal, especially if you have a mortgage to pay off and a baby on the way. Consequently, if your partner starts to work longer hours, maybe even taking a second job, you may not even question it. You obviously have more money coming in, which makes you feel more secure and less worried about not being able to pay the bills. However, if your partner continues to work into the early hours then you never get to see him, which clearly puts a great deal of strain on your relationship. You may not even realise that he is becoming a workaholic.
After all, if you rarely get to see your partner, you never get a chance to talk and so you can’t assess the state of mind he is in. When you’re only able to grab a few minutes here and there between your husband coming in from work and going to bed you’re unlikely to uncover what’s worrying him. You don’t know whether he’s working because he feels he needs to, or because he’d rather be at work than spend time with you. If you have children you may not be able to give your partner the full attention he needs and so you may not even realise that he is spending far too much time working and not enough time with you.
Of course, it is useful to have more money coming in, but what’s the point if you can’t enjoy the extra cash as a family? You can’t exactly have much fun on your own and if your partner really is a workaholic whenever he takes any time off you will quickly pick up on his unhappiness at being outside of his comfort zone. If he is only ever content when he is on his way to work or sat in front of a computer screen you know that something is wrong.
It’s a very difficult issue to address, especially if you are reliant on your partner’s income. You don’t want to seem ungrateful, yet you can’t bear to be apart from him all the time, especially if you’re not working and don’t get to have many adult conversations. Your partner might proclaim that his workaholic tendencies are all about providing for the family, but you have to convince him that there is more to life than work and draw his attention to the fact that he won’t have a family to come back to if he’s not careful. It can be hard to get workaholics to see the light, though, as with any addiction the need for a ‘fix’ is often greater than any other.
