When You’re Married to a Workaholic
Survival Tips
We Asian-Americans are the model minority — you know we work too hard.
From birth we’re raised to achieve, go to the best colleges and then go onto prestigious careers.
What we don’t realize getting onto this treadmill (and it is a treadmill because when you get to my age you realize we aren’t really going anywhere with all of this achievement) — is the inordinate amount of sacrifice it takes to work in these prestigious fields.
My husband is one of those workaholics — his profession demands it because he works in healthcare.
During Covid when everything shut down and folks were working from home, he went into the hospital, without proper PPE, and saw Covid patients.
We feared for his life, but he said he had to go in.
He described his work like the “military” — he had to support his fellow “soldiers”.
He rarely takes sick leave, even when he has a pinched nerve or the flu.
When he comes home from work every day, he always says, “I have a ton of notes to write” and retreats to the home office for an additional three hours to work.
Many times a year, like these current two weeks, he works 12 days straight, available 24/7 for 7 of those days when he’s on call.
These weeks are brutal for our entire family— I’ve given up expecting him to do anything outside of work and I pretend he’s on a business trip so I don’t get frustrated.
Typically, when he comes home, he has no bandwidth to connect with me or the kids, because he’s so burned out from work.
Here’s how I deal:
Self care
During Covid I started seeing a therapist because I was completely burned out from 24/7 caregiving two young kids - ages 2.5 and 7- enforcing online school, no childcare, no break.
During those two years, my therapist spent many sessions encouraging me to practice self care and set boundaries.
As an Asian-American Christian, I had a really warped perspective on motherhood. I thought I had to do it all to be a “good” wife and mom.
(God forbid I’m “selfish”, right? Heck, the Proverbs 31 woman was up before dawn and stayed up late, working! (And directing her servants, which we modern day women don’t have!))
Mothering young kids 24/7 triggered a lot of stress and rage, hence Happy Asian Woman was born - because who doesn’t want to learn tools to be happy?
Seeing my therapist helped me to realize the value of self-care, because I had never seen it modeled by my immigrant parents.
And guess when I was able to finally stop seeing a therapist?
When my kids went to school, and I finally got some time to myself to be human again, not someone who spent all her hours existing to serve others.
To this day I value self care.
If my husband is not able to help much at home, I have to maintain sanity to parent well.
Schedule Dates
I’m pretty adamant about scheduling dates. We used to have dates every Sunday afternoon but things have gotten a lot busier as my older daughter has picked up weekend activities and we don’t have a steady pool of babysitters anymore for my six-year old.
So, I aim to meet my husband for lunch once every few weeks when the kids are in school. It’s not ideal because he’s not relaxed during a weekday, but it’s better than nothing.
And a few times a year we book a sitter for 6 hours and take a day trip. Those are the best. (Note to self: find more sitters 😅)
Lower Expectations and Outsource
I’m an extreme extrovert who works from home alone, while my husband is more of an introvert who works in an extroverted job.
As a result, my husband can’t meet all of my emotional needs — he comes home from work wanting to decompress and veg with screen time, while I want someone to process my day with.
How do I manage this conundrum?
I try to meet up with friends several times a week, through walks, calls and church groups.
I also structure my college admissions coaching business to involve as much live coaching as possible (as opposed to email coaching) so I can build deep relationships with my students.
In terms of outsourcing, I have my six-year old in school/aftercare for around 35-40 hrs a week even though I work for part-time, since my client meetings are all after school.
We also have a gardener but other than that, we don’t outsource much.
I need to get better about outsourcing, especially on the food front because I literally spend hours a day cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner most days of the week (it’s nuts!)
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I think both my husband and I wish he could work less, but the way his job is structured, part-time work means the same patient load in fewer hours.
Our only hope for him to retire “early” at 60.
I personally think he could retire earlier, but his company has retirement benefits that kick in at 60 and he doesn’t want to give those up. (He also has the immigrant productivity/survival mentality. I have encountered mortality when my dad died two years ago, so my greater goal is to enjoy life.)
We are both doing our best and I have coped with his life choices by building my own friends, career and life.
Have you ever been in a situation where you partner was a workaholic? How do you make things work? And please share outsourcing tips (especially regarding food!)
Do you know someone who would find this post valuable? Please share, repost and restack. Thanks for spreading the word!
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This post is sponsored BrightStory, a boutique college admissions consulting company owned by Stanford graduate, professional journalist and “coach of admission coaches” Alice Chen, who also created Happy Asian Woman.
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Alice, thank you for this post! I agree with you that its so important to have our own lives separate from our spouse. Our own friends, goals and hobbies that give our lives meaning and purpose outside of marriage and family. Its even more important to have this when theres an imbalance of who works outside of the house more. Its not only healthy for us but also good for the rest of the family members. I also love the idea of booking a sitter for 6 hours and going on a date! Thanks for your thoughtful insight!
Being a bit of a workaholic myself, I can relate. During my time as a startup founder, my husband and I were like ships passing in the night. The key is definitely to find and schedule time to spend together, but also know that nothing lasts forever. For me, at least, we were able to adjust our lifestyles to have better work life balance. For both of us, we're in a much better place now.