Note: This is a guest post from Betsy Alvarez.
No doubt, a successful marriage requires a lot of hard work at times.
While getting married may seem simple, staying married can often be a challenge.
If you and your spouse want to spend the rest of your lives together, there are certainly things you can do to help your relationship remain healthy for many years to come.
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Unfortunately, though, sometimes outside influences can cause trouble.
One outside influence that can majorly affect the health of a marriage is job-related stress. If job-related stress is affecting your relationship, here are some things you can do to make sure your love remains strong during this trying time.
Leave Work At Work
One great way to stop job stress from affecting your home life is by leaving your work at the office.
Leaving your work at the office involves more than just not checking work email or doing work at home, though. It also involves forgetting about work as much as possible when you are spending time at home with your family.
Talk To Your Spouse
Great communication is one of the most important factors in a successful marriage.
If you are able to talk to your partner about anything, the two of you will have a healthier marriage. When work-related stress is causing friction in your marriage, make sure your spouse knows.
If you are lashing out at your significant other because of work stress, make sure he or she understands not to take it personally. Also, getting things off your chest by talking is a great way to alleviate stress.
Spend Time Together
Even if you have a job that requires 80 hours of work a week, make sure you always spend time with your spouse.
Even if it is something as simple as spending an hour a week at your favorite coffee shop, spending quality time together with your spouse can help stop work related stress from ruining your marriage.
Ask For Help
If you really want to stop job-related stress from ruining your marriage, you might need to ask for help.
From asking your boss to lessen your workload so you do not have to work so much overtime to seeking out the help of a counselor or psychiatrist, you never have to allow work-related stress to destroy your marriage.
While your job is important, your marriage is more important.
That’s why you need to find ways to help stop job stress from destroying your marriage. If you find that stress is negatively impacting your connection with your spouse, following these tips can help give you and your husband or wife a better relationship.
From spending time together to keeping the lines of communication open, there are effective ways to stop job related stress from ruining your relationship with your spouse.
I’d like to hear about your experiences with job stress – please share a comment below letting us know one tip you’ve found helpful for dealing with work-related stress in your marriage.
Betsy Alvarez writes about relationships and familial strategies – her recent work is about her journey earning an online family counseling degree.
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Great article Betsy! I am passionate about this subject. American workers face the least flexible and the longest work week of any country. I wrote about some of the data and the impact of Workplace Stress on the family in an article for my blog and for the Coalition for Divorce Reform. You may want to read it!
I don’t know if anyone is monitoring this or not, and if so, what help can be offered – I feel it’s beyond hope at this point. Sadly.
My 19year marriage has hit a HUGE roadblock – my husband HATES his job and the stress of that has made him miserable in every other aspect of his life. Last summer this all came to a head and after saying that he thought he wanted a divorce, he took a few days to himself to decompress – he was beyond burn-out. When he came back he felt the same about his job but better about our marriage and said he thought we would be ok – counseling still but ok in the end – that he wanted that. Fast forward a year and I know I’ve made HUGE mistakes this past year. I want to save our marriage and I pushed to hard thinking he would engage as he would have years ago – NOT. His job stress still being what it is/was, he was/is unable to give anything to anything else. Although he is tryiing very hard to reengage with our kids – he says he feels he has to force even that joy – i think he’s starting to find real joy with them. But when it comes time to spending time with me or working on our relationship he’s checked out – says he doesn’t feel the same and thinks he’d be better off divorced. He says he still hates his job and that it’s his greatest source of unhappiness and that our marriage is the second greatest source.
He shows no interest in finding a new job. He complains EVERYDAY about how awful, stressful, miserable it is but he WON’T leave it! Why do men choose to leave their wives/families but they won’t leave the job that started the whole mess in the first place? I KNOW I went into a depression because during this awful job, we also had 2 moves from our home of 18 years which spun me beyond out of control. When I finally realized where I had been during that time and just how far apart we’d gotten, I plugged back in… that was just a matter of weeks before he went on his trip last summer – so it was a culmination of many many things. But again, this past year, when taken on it’s own, I’ve done everything I can to be the Loving Wife I believe God (yes, I’m Christian) calls me to be but he gives no emotional input at all. He comes home at night, which I acknowledge and appreciate, he has put his phone down when he’s home which I acknowledge and appreciate but when it comes time for us to go on dates, or do anything alone that would rekindle and renew “us” he’s not interested. Although, we are still physically intimate on a somewhat regular basis, this is the only time I get any inclination that he might still have interest. Pathetic right?
My question, is again, how is it a man can justify a divorce being better than finding a new job? Am I just kidding myself that perhaps that might even make things better anyway?
I don’t believe in divorce. Even in my darkest marriage days, I knew I no longer wanted to be married “like that” but I never didn’t want to be married. I made a vow for better or worse and I am trying to take the worse and make it better but I can’t do it alone – I see that now. If he truly is done, I can’t force him to change his mind I just don’t get it!!
Insights?
Thank you,
Sara