Work Infidelity Sabotages/ Being in an intimate relationship with a workaholic can lead to work infidelity.
Original write up in Forbes was by Bryan Robinson, a contributor to Forbes.
Has your spouse or intimate partner failed to appear at family gatherings too many times because of work? ‘Work infidelity’ is an insidious obstacle that sabotages careers and intimate relationships. No doubt, it can put you in the eye of betrayal?
Probe on and see how far down the road this affair may have gone for you.
“I feel so lonely. You’re here in this house and I feel so lonely.’ At the same time he was saying that, I felt lonely, too. Work was what was filling me up. He wanted me to fill him up, and I couldn’t.”
Has she promised to spend more time with you and not delivered because work comes first? Has he said, “I’ll quit tomorrow,” but tomorrow never comes? Or has she stood you up or kept you waiting because of work?
If you answered yes to these questions, you might be suffering from the effects of work infidelity.
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Put Me At The Center Of Your Life And Plan – Be Warned, Work Infidelity Sabotages
Getting the right attention is one easy way to know the level of commitment that you have from your partner. There are emotional responses that comes out when work infidelity sabotages. Do you feel cheated on, or alone with the responsibility of holding the relationship together?
Treated as being unimportant or minimized is not the same as feeling so. You need to separate how you feel – an interpretation of different actions – from what the real action is.
“Or I’d tell them I was going to my girlfriend’s house. After calling my girlfriend’s and not finding me, they’d call the office and say, ‘I thought you were going to Dottie’s.’”
Whether it is the actual action or how you feel, you might begin to harbor anger, resentment, sadness or guilt. Crying inwardly to be put back at the center of your partner’s life and plan. Definitely not behind everything else around work schedule.
Married To The Job
There was a time when I needed my work and had to hide it from others. The same way my alcoholic father needed and hid his bourbon. Am at the receiving end of what I tried to do for my father. I once tried to control his drinking by pouring out his booze and refilling the bottle with vinegar. Now, the people who loved me sulked, pleads and tore their hair out trying to keep me. Pleading that I spend time with them, away from work.
Every summer, just before we left on vacation, my spouse would search my bags. Mission, to confiscate any work I planned to smuggle into our rented beach house on the South Carolina shore.
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What a crooked work infidelity expert that I am. Jamey’s search would always miss the tightly folded papers covered with work notes, stuffed into the pockets of my jeans.
‘Come, let us stroll on the beach’ Jamey and our close friends will call out.
‘I have got another relationship to nurture’ I will reply.
Not in those words of course. I will usually say that I was tired and wanted to nap.
Hiding A Work Affair – Postponing Work Infidelity Sabotages
Jamey and our close friends don’t put life on hold, they go off, swimming and playing in the surf, a big relationship builder. Unfortunately, what I considered a big waste of time. Crooked work infidelity expert will secretly work in the empty house, bent over a lap desk, fashioned from a board.
At the sound of their returning footsteps, I will stuff my papers back into my jeans. Hide the board, and stretch out on the bed. Pretending to be asleep.
At the time, I saw nothing strange about my behavior. It is only in hindsight that I see it differently, and coined it as work infidelity. The concealment and deceit of work projects, especially after loved ones put their foot down in order to deal with stress. By this, I mean, something quite different from saying that I worked hard.
Work infidelity defended me against unwelcome emotional states. Modulating anxiety, sadness, and frustration, the way a pothead uses dope and an alcoholic uses booze. This is my own way to get my fix. And I am not alone. But it is essential to create a ‘no-work’ buffer to guard against work, creating after-hours work tension.
Romancing The Grindstone
Sometimes, partners feel jealous, even suspicious that their mate is having an affair. This comes from the long and late hours he or she spends away from home. You’ve probably heard the old adage, that some people are “wedded to their work.” If you suffer from work infidelity, you don’t tolerate obstacles to working.
Case in point, Mildred committed work infidelity to deal with the stress and anxiety caused by her husband’s expectation that she be home with him by 5:00 p.m.
She told him she’d enrolled in an aerobics class after work. Her husband was thrilled that she was finally taking an interest in activities outside work.
But the truth was that, Mildred was working two hours overtime. She changes in her office from business outfit to aerobic garb. Tousling her hair and dampening her tights with water, all to convince her husband that she was coming around.
Follow The Worker Soaked in Infidelity – You Will Follow The Money
Work infidelity causes projects to go everywhere the worker goes, regardless of what family or friends say. Don’t laugh, check briefcases or luggage, under car seats, in glove compartments, in car trunks, beneath spare tires, or in dirty laundry bags. Fight-back fantastic ideas comes up, which also get it more interesting when it is stuffed inside pants or a skirt.
Catch in infidelity, and they will find an excuse. To avoid being caught, I try harder to even avoid an excuse. Work projects then get hidden in a secret compartment of another person’s suitcase, unknown to that person.
Once workaholics start bootlegging their work compulsions, you might as well admit it: they’re desperate. They must get their fix at all costs. Even if it means being deceitful and dishonest, even if it hurts the ones they love the most.
Concealing Work Love Relationship
Elizabeth confessed: “I remember my ex-husband saying to me, ‘I feel so lonely. You’re here in this house and I feel so lonely.’ At the same time he was saying that, I felt lonely, too. Work was what was filling me up. He wanted me to fill him up, and I couldn’t.”
If your partner is like most people suffering from work infidelity, she will cave in to your demands. This is a strategy to conceal work by pleasing you and avoid criticisms. Much like alcoholics who hide beer bottles.
Kate’s work projects became her weekend lover. She lied to her family so she could rendezvous with work at the office.
“I’d tell my family I was going shopping on a Saturday and I’d end up in my office working. Or I’d tell them I was going to my girlfriend’s house. After calling my girlfriend’s and not finding me, they’d call the office and say, ‘I thought you were going to Dottie’s.’ I felt like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.”
In his book Working, Studs Terkel described how the broadcast executive Ward Quaal concealed his working from his family. “Although I don’t go to the office on Saturday or Sunday, I do have mail brought out to my home for the weekend. I dictate on Saturday and Sunday. When I do this on holidays like Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving, I have to sneak a little bit, so the family doesn’t know what I’m doing.”
Work Infidelity Sabotages ‘Til Death Do Us Part‘
Have you put life on hold because of a mate who suffers from work infidelity? If so, you could be enabling the very behavior you wish to erase from your life. Many partners and spouses build their lives around the work infidelity because they want to feel connected and supportive. That’s natural, right?
But molding your life around this malady only leads to more disappointment and enabling. The key to avoid enabling, when you’re desperate to spend time with your partner, is to stop postponing your life.
If you plan a trip to the zoo with the kids and your spouse cancels (for the umpteenth time) because of last-minute job demands, go without her.
When your main squeeze promises to be home in time for dinner and never shows, consider eating on time without him. And, instead of putting dinner on the table at midnight, let him fix his own meal. Not out of anger, but out of self-care.
Click here to view original web page at www.forbes.com
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