Dealing with Work and Relationship Balance
- How do you balance work with your personal life?
- Are you the type that spends more time at work compared to at home?
- Have the priorities of work caused tension or conflict int he relationship?
Not too long ago, I worked with a couple who experienced a shift balance. During the early stages of the relationship, each had taken time to ensure that they actively prioritized the relationship. After marriage and kids, the couple found that their time outside of the phone far outweighed the time at home. One of the partners shared that they felt motivated at work and enjoyed earning more money. The other partner found that life currently held a challenge. This person felt a struggle in their ability to balance their part-time job with the home responsibilities.
I asked the couple about dates night. I also asked the couple about communication.
Questions like: “how often do you both sit down and reflect the day?” or “when was the last time a date without the kids took place?”
This couple, I am discussing went through something that most couples experience. As life progresses people tend to add-on new things. These add-ons can be seen as kids, jobs, or even extracurricular activities. Due to the add-on’s and often the lack of evaluating the impact of the add-on’s, couples experience problems in balancing work-life with personal life.
As a Relationship Counseling, I help couples evaluate their relationship. An outside perspective that takes a look at what two people have done, are doing, and plan to do in their relationship. Counseling provides support as it addresses the issues that are hurting the relationship and can end up causing disconnect later in life. Counseling further works to strengthen the areas of the relationship that are currently doing well.
CALL 336-707-1723 to explore how counseling can improve your relationship
Short Video on work-life balance.
Being in a relationship with someone that struggles to create balance between work and personal life can be very difficult. You may feel alone most of the time or not valued.
What tends to take place is that work or the person’s career becomes a focal point. An area in the person’s life that takes too much time away from other important areas of life, such as the relationship. As the balance fades, the relationship takes on conflict.
Naturally, during conflict people experience the urge to leave or to fight. Very similar to the flight or fight response. In relationships, couples should take careful note of the response that takes place.
Fighting can lead to disruption and emotional disconnect. Flight, or leaving, can create feelings of abandonment.
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As a relationship counselor, I help couples create a healthy system that addresses conflict. The basic notion to understand that conflict will be present in the relationship when there is an issue with balance or priority. In this case, the issue is with the priority being work or struggling to balance work with personal life.
Conflict will be present when you want this and your partner wants that. Instead of pretending that conflict will vanish, I prefer to create a system to address it.
Below is a system called “The Code Word”. A real and true way to address conflict.
A code word is a term that couples use to establish healthy conversation while respecting each other’s individuality. Like positive habits and improvements in life, the code word creates a system in the relationship that promotes change, self-control, evaluation, and respect.
Couples who use the code word system benefit through the following core areas: positive change, self-control, and respect.
- Self-Control helps couples learn how to stop. This is often the catalyst that leads to hurtful words and demeaning actions.
- Positive change takes place through the evaluation process. Couples take time to pinpoint why the interaction took a wrong turn and how to do it better next time.
- Respect is one of the most important components in successful relationships. Conflict and tension in relationships often blur the line of the respect. The code word system helps couples learn how to nourish and strengthen respect during the good and difficult interactions.
Below is a video that helps couples use the code word and stop fighting
Mr. Juan Santos is a professional counselor and book author who specializes in relationship stability and understanding separation indicators. He has conducted hundreds of couples counseling sessions. He is the author of Strengthening your Relationship Course and Couples Workbook: Making Your Relationship Work.
