Marriage Counseling Are You A Workaholic

Marriage Counseling--are You A Workaholic?

Justin, a thirty-five year old executive at a high-pressure investment firm works 60-70 hours per week. Even on vacation, he often slips away from the rest of the family to go on-line, check messages and answer phone calls. Until recently, he saw nothing abnormal about his behavior; in fact, everyone at his job works like that.

In the United States, we value work. Americans labor longer hours than workers in any other industrialized nation. In fact, in Western Europe, Americans are viewed as a “nation of workaholics.”

According to a 1998 study by the Families and Work Institute in New York, the average American now works 44 hours of work per week, which represents an increase of 3.5 hours since 1977. This is far more than the workers in France (39 hours per week) and Germany (40). According to a new report from the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO), “Workers in the United States are putting in more hours than anyone else in the industrialized world.”

The ILO statistics show that in 2000, the average American worked almost one
more week of work than the year before; working an average of 1,978 hours – up from 1,942 hours in 1990. Americans now work longer hours than Canadian, Japanese, or Australian workers.

What are we working for? It’s not vacations. The typical American worker has an average of two weeks of vacation as compared to four - six weeks for their European counterparts.

For happiness? According to regular surveys by the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago, no more Americans report they are “very happy” now than in 1957, despite near doubling in personal consumption expenditures. Indeed, the world’s people have consumed as many goods and services since 1950 as all previous generations put together, yet report that they are not any happier.

There are many costs in working so hard. People tend to cut back on sleep and time with their families. A recent survey found that almost a third of people working more than 48 hours a week said that exhaustion was affecting married life. Nearly a third admitted that work-related tiredness was causing their sex life to suffer, and 14% reported a loss of or reduced sex drive. They also complained that long hours and overwork led to arguments and tensions at home. Two out of five people working more than 48 hours a week blamed long hours for disagreements and said they felt guilty at not pulling their weight with domestic chores.

So how do you know if your job has turned into workaholic habits? Here are some of the warning signs:

*Your home is organized just like another office.
*Colleagues describe you as hard working, needing to win, and overly committed.
*You keep “technology tethers” like cell phones, pagers and laptops with you all times, even on vacations.
*Friends either don’t call anymore, or you quickly get off the phone when they do call.
*Sleep seems like a waste of time.
*Work problems circle in your mind, even during time off.
*Work makes you happier than any other aspect of your life.
*People who love you complain about the hours you work and beg you to take some time off.

If you experience some of these warning signs on a regular basis, it may be time to
re-evaluate how you are handling work in your life. A healthy marriage takes time and commitment. Don't be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.

BONUS : Marriage Counseling For Prevention

An unfortunate by-product of our insulated culture is that therapy, including counseling, is seen as a sign of weakness or that a relationship has turned sour. This does not have to be the case- in fact, many marriage relationships that are strong can benefit from the services a professional counselor can offer.

There are a few stages in marriages, and counseling can be extremely important in each of them. The first stage is the time before the couple actually gets married, after the decision to take the big step has been made. Good counseling at this time can help the couple to anticipate areas of conflict that may arise when the actual event takes place. Couples who have not previously lived together may not be fully prepared for what it means to have another person live in your life 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is critical that these couples be prepared for the challenges that face them, form the dividing of the household and other workloads to issues that will come up when it comes to finances, sex, and free time. Couples that have lived together might also find some pre-marital counseling beneficial, as the actual process of marriage seems to alter the expectations of the relationship in many different ways. Above all, counseling before marriage can help a couple identify potential trouble spots within the relationship that may be exacerbated once the commitment has been made.

Counseling over the course of the marriage can also help to strengthen the relationship as well as identify potential areas of conflict before they boil over into larger fights. A counselor is trained to hear what the people speaking are saying, while partners in a marriage will inevitably filter out some of the other person’s message, no matter how clearly they believe they are putting it forward. An attentive counselor can therefore be expected to have the ability to head trouble off at the pass.

Marriages will also experience considerable upheaval with the arrival of a new baby, and in fact the family dynamic can be expected to change with the arrival of each subsequent child. A counselor will again have the background to enable him to identify potential trouble spots and the education to offer problem solutions so that the couple does not find their relationship ambushed in a time of upheaval.

Regardless of your feelings on the strength of your relationship, good marriage counseling is a great option just to make sure that the lines of communication stay open. Even people who are hopelessly in love may not realize that their partner does not have the same impression of a situation that the individual is experiencing. A counselor will help to identify and clarify these areas, and offer solutions to keep them from arising in the future.

Remember that counseling is not a sign of weakness. It does not even mean that there are necessarily problems within your relationship; instead, it may just be another tool to keep your relationship at its very best.