Do you spend more time in bed with your laptop, answering Slack messages, than you do with your partner? Then it may be time for a reality check.
When our romantic relationships take on too much responsibility for our professional lives, it can lead to resentment, jealousy, and ultimately, a breakup—especially when we expect our partners to handle a disproportionate share of our work stress.
“We bring a set of expectations that our intimate partners are a source of emotional support, and that we can be authentic versions of ourselves,” Alexandra Solomon, a Chicago-based psychologist and host of the podcast Reimagining Love, tells WebMD. Good luck. And although it’s a “blessing” if you get that, he adds, “It comes back to bite us when we don’t pay attention to the impact of our burnout on the way we show ourselves for them.”
It’s a widespread problem: In Deloitte’s Workplace Burnout Study, for example, 83% of respondents said that burnout at work can have a negative impact on their personal relationships. Similarly, in the 2024 Headspace Workforce State of Mind report, 71% of employees shared that work stress has caused personal relationships to fade.
A big part of the problem, says Solomon, is that the line between work and home life, especially in remote and mixed-use buildings, can be difficult to draw. That’s why it’s important to set aside time and energy for each aspect of our lives, including time to connect with our partners––besides discussing work projects.
Here are five tips to make sure that burnout at work doesn’t stop the love in your life.
1. Resist the urge to compare
Often, when both partners are having a hard time at work, Solomon says there’s a tendency to compete—the stress Olympics at work, if you will.
“A conversation can start like, ‘I want to share my day with you because you’re a really important board and you’re a safe place,'” he says. “But the conversation can have a tricky way of turning into a comparison of who is worse.”
Solomon suggests resisting the urge to compare your experiences with those of your colleagues, and remember that all stress—including the kind that comes from this kind of competition—is unwanted and can have a negative impact on our health.
2. Set ‘small habits’‘
Creating ways to mark the transition from work time to home time—even, if not, when you work from home—can be critical to strengthening your relationship.
“For some people, it’s their journey home, or when you change your work day clothes, you almost make a ritual of saying, ‘I’m taking off my clothes, I’ve done my job, I’ve come, I’ve done what I had to do.’ do. It will wait for me tomorrow,” he said. “Any kind of way you can set up a little ritual to transition from the work day to some time with your partner,” she said, will work for you.
3. Performance reviews aren’t just for the office
Performance metrics, desired promotions, and the basic need to stay employed are all reliable motivators when it comes to doing a good job at work. But what about staying motivated at home?
“We don’t think, ‘A year from now I want to feel more connected to my partner,’ ‘I want us to have accomplished this goal in our lives,'” Jenna Glover, a licensed psychologist and Chief Clinical Officer at Headspace, tells WebMD. Good luck. But, he insists, maybe he should.
“Part of that is the goal and to deliver on that [home] space,” Glover explained. “And when people do, they are able to succeed both at work and in relationships.”
Glover suggests a relationship performance review as one way to make sure we don’t lose work or miss valuable time with our partners.
“Take the time to say, ‘There’s no set template for what it means to be successful in my relationship like a job performance review, but I’m going to take some time to see what that actually looks like,'” she said. suggests.
And don’t worry about it being too legal. Instead, Glover says the point is to focus while sitting down with your partner and sharing goals and expectations for your family, your work, and your interpersonal relationships.
4. Save ‘love’ by defining it broadly
It is true that stress affects libido. According to the Cleveland Clinic, stress can reduce your sex drive by taking your mind off the desire for sex, and chronic stress can disrupt hormone levels, leading to decreased libido.
Solomon says: “There is no human desire that grows because of stress.”
But romance and communication with your partner should not start and end with sex, he says.
“The definition of ‘love’ is the things we do that help us feel connected,” he says. “And there are many ways to feel connected outside of sex.”
She suggests small but meaningful nods to intimacy and dealing with your burnout at work—for example, playing a game with your partner, dancing together in the kitchen, or lighting candles while eating dinner.
“Part of you steps back,” Solomon said, “and says, ‘No, my work doesn’t get both of my time. again my sexual energy.’”
5. Try to avoid putting your partner on the defensive
If you feel like you’re missing out on time with your partner because of one of your jobs (or both), a gentle way to start trying to counter that is to open up about it: How about a night without screens? ? How about planning a fun trip? Your partner can’t always read your mind or body language to get clues about what you want, says Solomon.
But pointing fingers and blaming, he adds, can lead them to feel attacked and guilty, putting them on the defensive. Instead, take the time to calmly tell your partner that you miss their undivided attention.
Moreover, he stresses, burnout is often, if not more, about the company culture than the job. So while it may be easy to blame your partner for answering work-related messages after hours, it’s also up to his employer to stick to off-the-clock boundaries.
“[Your partner] “It did not create a business culture that requires people to be available at all hours, or refuses to hire the right number of people to do the job, or any changes in the organization,” he said. “So I think part of it, too, is making sure to put the burden where the burden goes.”
In fact, almost 70% of professionals, according to Deloitte, feel that their employers are not doing enough to prevent or reduce burnout within their organization, and 21% say that their company does not offer any programs or measures to prevent or reduce it.
“People must work. So it’s very important for employees to think, ‘How is my work experience?’ and I hope that work is there to support your quality of life and not to reduce it,” said Glover.
He adds that we all have limited resources—limited time, limited energy—and that putting “too much” at work will ensure you won’t have a good work-life balance.
And defining that is something that becomes even more difficult, Solomon says, as the words “work-life balance” themselves can be deceptive.
“In our minds, we have this belief that these are two different categories,” he said. “But the boundary between home and work is very permeable.”
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