Content

• Steps
• Tips
• Warnings
• What do you need

Some of us are intimidated by the thought of working on the weekend, but there are those who are just happy about it. When these two worlds collide with each other, dating opportunities may not be available, which will make both partners unhappy.

You can meet a workaholic if you are willing to talk about problems, together develop ground rules that you will happily adhere to, and find compromises that you can live with. If you think that trying to overcome your couple's workaholism is worth the effort, then the following steps will help you approach that challenge, even if you eventually find that the person is not the right person for you.

Steps

1. 1 Determine if you are dating a workaholic. Some of the clear signs that a person is a workaholic include:
   • You are the only person he is close to, not including his family. He or she has no friends (other than those who work with him).
   • He or she overshadows everything in favor of work, including you.
   • Every time you call your couple, he or she says “is still at work,” no matter what time it is. Your half has a bad time perception.
   • Even important events, like birthdays, are not enough to convince your soul mate to put work on the back burner.
   • Your partner answers calls, checks and mails, or orders a new shipment during a date.
2. 2 Try to be understanding (s) before jumping to negative conclusions. It's bad when your couple never participates in the same events and activities as you, but it is very important to try to understand the drive, passion and importance that your soul mate has in relation to their work. Find out why work is so important to your partner and you can better understand and accept the needs behind hard work. Consider the possible reasons behind what you consider to be workaholism:
   • The job is very important for your couple.
   • It's a passion, especially if it's a personal business or something that he or she wants to do for the rest of his life.
   • There is a lot of work to do at the moment, and your couple is doing their part in good faith to meet the deadline.
   • Work involves long hours of work, including night shifts and work on weekends. If your partner has accepted this, it is very important that you learn to put up with it too.
   • It became a habit even before you and is difficult to get rid of.
3. 3 Talk to your partner about their work. Find out all you can about what inspires him to do his job. Perhaps learning about this in more detail will make you more lenient. While all of this indicates that your spouse may be constantly busy, it may give you a little sympathy.
   • New business (this is always a very difficult time in life).
   • Your partner wants to get a promotion, and the only real way to get there is to show your boss that you are constantly and hard at work.
   • Your partner comes from a family of hard workers who perceive excessive hours as normal. And they are completely satisfied with this!
4. 4 Take a look at your own attitude towards work. Ask yourself how you feel about work to understand if you are not making an elephant out of a fly or, perhaps, confusing workaholism with abitions. If you don’t think you should be doing more than the minimum required at work, or if you have a job that does not go beyond the set work day, your attitude about the level of dedication to work may be very different from that of your partner. On the other hand, if you yourself were a workaholic, and now believe in the balance of life and work, then what you observe may already be a signal of impending problems for your relationship. Here are some points to help you see some of the benefits of being in a workaholic relationship:
   • You get a lot of time for yourself to pursue your interests without having a partner next to you to breathe down your back.
   • Your sex life may be better and healthier than you expected. Research by psychology professor Jonathan Schwartz found that women who met or were married to a workaholic had higher ratings of sexual satisfaction.
   • You won't feel like you are choking on a needy, self-righteous, or boring partner.
5. 5 Talk to your partner about your feelings about his / her workaholic. This is the moment when you can reach a compromise. If so, then great! This can also be the moment when you realize that your partner's workaholism is going too far and there is no room for you at all. Tell your partner what it is like to be the third wheel and present the facts of when his / her work interfered with your relationship.
   • Explain that you fully understand his passion for work, but that you want some balance so you can spend time together too.
   • Don't blame him / her. Just state the facts and how ignorance about whether your partner is free affects you personally. It's important to remember that for workaholics, self-esteem is about work, so criticizing their job choices won't bring you closer.
   • Explain how you see your ideal relationship, but without fanaticism. Spending a little more time together is perfectly acceptable, but demanding that your couple find a new job is not!
6. 6 Agree on some ground rules. If you feel that your partner has responded well to the conversation, suggest some rules or compromises that will keep your relationship well. Most likely from this agreement you will not get more time for the two of you, but treat it in good faith, lowering your expectations, of course, if you want everything to work out.
   • Ask your couple to turn off their phone during dates, except in emergencies.
   • Ask not to write messages and letters during the date.
   • Offer to postpone some evenings just for the two of you, with no mention of work. Maybe Saturday and Sunday are great for having lunch together or watching a movie. Try to do this regularly.
   • Suggest meeting for lunch once a week. If you're willing to compromise, meet outside your couple's work place to let them know it's pretty easy to do.
   • If your partner agrees that he is somewhat overly dependent on work, lacks the ability to plan for work, and is willing to consider options, think about how to help him and advise how he could improve the balance between work and his life.
   • Don't grumble, plead, or whine. It will not affect anything, it will only make you look pathetic and annoying. If your partner shies away or refuses to discuss issues, start thinking about where the relationship is heading.
7. 7 If, after discussing the issues, you feel like continuing to date the workaholic will not work, end the relationship. If you think the following points apply to you, your relationship is likely doomed:
   • You can no longer tolerate his / her work excuses.
   • Your partner is unwilling to agree to the compromises described in the previous step.
   • You feel that your partner is inattentive to you when you are together or is constantly on the phone, and thoughts about work are spinning in his / her head even when you are talking.
   • You strongly envy the workplace as an object of “his / her other interest” and feel that work is more important to him / her than your relationship.
   • You feel that your partner has become inattentive to you, or that he is constantly breaking one or more of the rules that you agreed to adhere to.
   • Nothing changes. It feels like your partner is on an endless path and will never leave it, no matter what. For example, your partner's business has been in the launch phase for several years now!
   • There is nothing you can do about the feeling that your partner has a bad sense of prioritization, poor planning, and simply spends a lot of time solving work problems instead of finding creative solutions.
8. 8 Beware of warning signs in new relationships. If you ended your relationship with a workaholic because of his / her problem, don't forget these signs when you find yourself in a new relationship. It's best not to start a new relationship with someone who:
   • Asks you out on dates, but constantly cancels them at the last minute.
   • Says that he or she will find time for you, but never does.
   • Talking about work all the time, including talking about the business having a hard time or that it has a lot of work to be done.
   • He acts like he or she is irreplaceable when it comes to work.
   • You have to wait forever on a date that you had planned.

Tips

• If your partner is busy, take some time for yourself. Take a walk with friends, take a bath, or treat yourself to something delicious.
• Don't distract your partner when they are at work. It knocks you out when you need to focus, and someone distracts you. Delaying your pair with calls, messages and letters is not very smart!
• Understand that perhaps your partner wants you as much as you want him / her. He / she is not inattentive to you. Try to see it in such a way that he / she is simply too attentive to his / her work.
• Don't demand his / her attention from your partner every second. This is already too much.
• Perhaps you should learn something from your partner and focus more on your work?
• Perhaps there is something you can do to help your couple? If he or she spends a lot of time at work due to disorganization, poor time management, or misunderstanding of things, perhaps you should offer him / her help (without being too assertive, of course)? On the other hand, you are not his / her secretary, so don't overdo it.

Warnings

• Don't try to change your partner. You will not make him / her not work and you definitely do not want to be the reason that your partner will lose his / her job.
• Don't be annoying, needy and don't whine. You are not a child.
• Workaholism is arguably the most socially justified addiction. Many will do their best to protect the usefulness of workaholism. If that doesn't work for you, don't change your concepts. Workaholism is not long-term and is often a sign that the workaholic is poorly prioritized and unable to maintain that pace. It is not for you to judge or lecture, but you also should not be lonely and unhappy, expecting inevitable failure.

What do you need

• Incredible dating ideas to captivate your workaholic partner.