Ask HN: Work/life balance – Significant other complains you work too much?
I got a lot of complains from my gf about me working too much and not having enough time with her. This leads to a common work/life balance question for all the people who want to be success.
So how do you handle this balance? and what would you do when your gf/bf/wife/husband complains about it? First, I wouldn't get relationship advice from HN, or any pool of nerds. There's a reason our relationships suffer or are few and far between: nerd personalities will spend more time coding at work, trying to build a side project, watch TV or play games than being a healthy, balanced human being. I work 40 hours a week. If I have work shit poking into my life beyond that on a regular basis, it's time to talk to my manager. Don't lose your life to sitting on a computer coding. You can write software (or whatever you do) until you die, but you can't get back time lost, moments, relationships, friends and family. As hokey as it may sound, and as often as I had people around me warning me about this, it took me awhile to figure it out. Sadly, it will take many nerds a long time to figure out and I'm convinced most never do. When I die, I don't want my only memories to be coding on my laptop at home. There's so much more to try out and discover. Art, music, people, cooking, travel, whatever. IDK. Find some stuff and do more of it. I disagree. I would rather say: Do whatever you want to do. If you wanna code all day, just do it! This is freedom! So if you wanna work all day, find a way around your gf's complaints. If you think your gf is pushing too much then probably she isn't for you. Sometimes I have the same problem and I try to be very straight: I always worked so much! In the end you can't have both. If you work all the time your interpersonal relationships with suffer. The original post is asking for advice in a situation where he is unable to spend enough time away from work and appears to want to keep a lady friend. I would also add that perhaps it's time to reconsider your goals. If you're working a ton, or on a startup or side project or whatever, maybe that's not going to give you what you want and maybe it's time to let go. It's hard, but you can do it. SCHEDULE. 1. Schedule most times spent with spouse. For everything. I really mean everything. Dinner date? Schedule it in advance. Going house-hunting? Schedule the visits. Movies? Schedule the evening way in advance. Visiting folks? Agree on a set date. 2. Stick to the schedules like a mofo. Integrity integrity integrity. Promises broken because schedules could not be kept are more likely the reason for an unhappy spouse (or kids!) rather than the amount of time spent with them. No one likes getting their hopes up only to be let down last minute. 3. Never accept an impromptu activity with spouse without agreeing to set off existing agreed upon schedules. This reinforces your commitment to the discipline of schedules. They know you are serious about your time and doing so shows that you acknowledge and respect theirs. 4. Try to keep one day of the week as a wild card where you don't work and simply say yes to anything they (spouse/kids) ask. Schedule this day secretly without telling them. This is the day you can "disrupt" them by saying "Let's go for ice cream" while they are busy. See what happens. 5. When complaints are raised against you for not spending enough time with them, open your schedules - demonstrate the obvious. 6. Never work on a Sunday. This should be your wild card day. That's a very "engineery" response, so let me propose an alternative view. If you are having to strictly schedule time for your personal life to anything like the degree that the parent post suggests, particularly time with your closest family and friends, there are exactly two possibilities: either you have dysfunctional personal relationships that need attention, or you are working for way too much of your time. Assuming that in fact your family and friends are not all neurotic control freaks, only one conclusion remains. I get that some people are driven. I get that it's a competitive world, and there's always pressure to get results and keep up with the pack. But working most of your waking hours is simply not a viable strategy to get and sustain good results in the long term, no matter who you are or what you do. Humans need downtime, and humans need relationships, and humans who have enough investment in both are almost invariably more effective at anything they do than workaholics anyway. By all means schedule if it helps you to keep organised, but schedule the work time you need to reserve. The default should be that your time is yours, not your job's. I strongly disagree with this advice. There is no faster way to suck the emotion out of a relationship than to put a schedule at the center of it, and hiding behind the excuse of the schedule is just deferring responsibility. Scheduling time with spouse (and for kids) is the only honest and practical way of dealing with the question/challenge of "balancing" work life and family life. It's about setting boundaries. And respectful boundaries are always healthy for all in the relationship. And by "balance" I don't mean equal - I mean having both. Your post made me angry. I just deleted the post I had written. Here's the replacement. Not seeing your children unless you have scheduled time to do so is bizarre. Some people would suggest it's borderline mildly abusive. Children must come before work. It's really fucking simple. This principle is enshrined in the internationally agreed (although I know the US never ratifies these things) human rights for the child. http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx Not seeing your children without scheduling time for them has nothing to do with "healthy" (it soumds pathological) nor "respectful boundaries". The default must be "all my time is spent with my family. Here's the time I set aside for work, but if anything happens to my children I can shift that work to a different time". > Children must come before work. It's really fucking simple. This principle is enshrined in the internationally agreed... I read through that Convention, but didn't see any language that backs up your claim. Perhaps I missed it. Can you tell me which part and which article establishes the principle that you claim it does? In the pre-amble "Recognizing that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding," And Article 3, section 1: "1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration." Article 3, section 1 has no bearing on the actions of the individual. Notice that the language that targets institutions and governments. The preamble speaks only of the environment that a child should be placed in. If it is necessary that both parents work 120 hours per week to provide such an environment for their children, then that is behavior that is supported by that Convention. I don't think parent post was saying that you should skip visiting your kids in the ER. Spending all your time with kids a very... American leisure class perspective. And I found nothing in that UN doc to support your claims either. Article 3. Here's the child friendly language version which is more direct: http://www.unicef.org/rightsite/files/uncrcchilldfriendlylan... Here's the UNICEF summary: http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Publication-pdfs/UNCRC_su... Op says, more than once, that time with children must be scheduled and that you should avoid seeing them unless it is scheduled. I agree they're not going to avoid ER. What about if the child spontaneously asks for time? Op has said that time should be withheld - as part of "healthy" adjustment and "respectful boundaries". (I'm not American. I don't understand that comment.) I don't understand your anger. The OP was asking what to do when these are a given: 1. You work hard and long hours and you enjoy it.
2. You also NEED to spend time with family who already perceive that you are not spending enough time with them. What do you do? My response was to this scenario and this scenario alone. How to "balance" that. Your response on the other hand assumes that that you can impose (or have the right to suggest) fundamental compromises on an individual's life-style. Where does OP say they enjoy the work? Weird. I actually remember being a kid and distinctly remember not wanting to be around my parents very often. #5 is wrong wrong wrong. You never win an emotional dispute by throwing facts at someone. Yeah I actually snickered out loud at #5. It is such a facepalm-y bit of advice for most people. Perhaps I've dated people with very different personalities than those ak39 has but there isn't a single one of them in my history for which #5 would be a useful response if they still felt slighted while the schedule was being followed. Quite the opposite, the suggestion to show them the schedule would be like tossing a live hand-grenade into whatever was already causing the disagreement. In any case, IMO if you are drawing up schedules to fit your friends/family/SO into your life you've already implicitly prioritized work over them no matter how you balance the schedule. Which is fine if that's how you want to live your life, but be honest about it both to your loved ones and yourself. Showing evidence (or hard facts) is the best way to counter the "always" and "never" accusations. One may never "win" these types of emotional battles, but throwing in a Black Swan by means of evidence to an emotional argument is the quickest way to begin talking sensibly. It works both ways too. If you broke a promised family engagement, it's there in black and white. Also, if you're seen as not devoting sufficient time for the family, the communication can move towards exactly how much (extent). I'm not sure what kind of relationships you've been in, but in my life experience (N~=10), evidence is typically not appreciated in this kind of argument. Introducing evidence into a disagreement was my standard approach and it did help occasionally, but the vast majority of the time it made it worse. My new approach is to listen very carefully to what my partner is saying, especially to the emotions that she's feeling. Evidence isn't going to make her emotions change. There's usually something relatively simple that I can change about my behaviour that will result in her not having that negative emotion. We've been together for 5 years and we both agree that things are the best that we've ever had in a long term relationship. I haven't been in many relationships, admittedly. Just one. This Dec it will be 19 years. Those years have produced three healthy and inquisitive boys. The four in total, in my life, are the most important and precious human beings. But time with them, I have learnt for the sake of peace and fairness, in my life, needs to be scheduled! :-) Wife and I have spent too much time arguing and disagreeing about too many things. As the years went by we realised gradually that some shit doesn't matter. Some shit does. Disagreements don't last when hard facts surface. But of course, my advice to the OP remains anecdotal. Part of a successful relationship is having compatible goals in life. There is no correct answer to how much work is too much. Some people want to never work and spend all day on the beach. Others think the beach is boring and would much rather be creating something. Most people are the middle. If your girlfriend thinks you work too much, you probably either need to work less or get a new girlfriend. One thing that is definitely not "quality time" is fighting over how much you are working. Everyone loses. Good luck! This kind of black and white thinking is just going to cause you to lose your girlfriend. If there's a happy medium, take it. Your comment is totally reasonable and I'm certainly not suggesting dropping someone the first time compromise is required. But I don't see why there needs to be so much emphasis on couples staying together. The OP doesn't say, and it is certainly possible that I am making incorrect assumptions, but it sounds like they are young and don't have children together. (no one over 30 would say "gf", right??) So who cares? If they are meant to be, the work/life balance won't be a big issue. If they are incompatible, better to find out now, before they are older and DO have kids. I want to add that the readers of this site probably put way more time into work (and work-related activities) than the typical person. If your significant other expects work to be 9-5, you should probably disappoint them sooner rather than later. I think it's about setting aside quality time with your SO, so that she feels heard and paid attention to. Quality time isn't watching a tv show together in silence, nor going out with the same group of friends, rather it's more about no distractions, just you and her. But if your work schedule takes up so much of your time that you rarely see her, then that's a problem (and would be for just about anyone). LTRs are like a plant, gotta water it. I went from academia to a startup after being married. My wife was worried this would mean I work way too much. We came up with a specific plan. Three days a week I would be home at no later than 6. I could go in as early as I wanted. The other days I could stay as late as I wanted. Weekends were for us to spend time together. If there was a one off or some important thing, she wasn't worried since we had a clear agreement in place. Later the three days a week was made two days and this was also Ok. Separately, just listen. If your SO wants to spend more time, make time. If you can't or won't then ask what is important to you and make a decision. Another thing that helps is to plan specific things to do. Go on a hike, go to the beach, these kinds of memorable moments are more significant than going to a restaurant or hanging out on the couch. This may not apply if you are in a relationship with dependency or trust issues. If you are go see a counselor and work that out first. > what would you do when your gf/bf/wife/husband complains about it? When my wife complains about it, I just listen. She's also a working professional who works a ton more than I do so it's usually a red flag if she brings it up. A lot of times it's not about coming up with a resolution but just trying to understand what she is frustrated with. > So how do you handle this balance? When I first started working remote about 10 years ago I didn't think it was an issue. It was supposed to be the dream setup. But then I eventually had kids and started my own company and saw the lines between work/life blur. At first I told myself this was natural since it was one of the side affects of being remote but I quickly became dissatisfied with that answer. This was especially the case when I felt like I had to start choosing between time with my family and time for work. I eventually came to realize that life stuff (i.e. family, relationships, etc.) aren't a time suck from work but a healthy constraint. For me, success does not come from pouring every ounce of energy I have into work but from embracing the constraints of my life. I use these constraints to focus on the most important things I have to do for work so that I can get back to my family as soon as possible. For more of a practical standpoint the following are the things I do to manage the balance (especially since my home is where I work). - Have doors on the office. - Family time, is strictly family time. No emails on the phone, github issues, harvest invoice, etc. I'm not perfect at this but I try to go with the distraction free iPhone methodology [https://medium.com/life-hacks/my-year-with-a-distraction-fre...] - Have strict business hours. - Don't blur the line between work and personal health. Which means eating appropriately and getting the appropriate amount of sleep. This is all great advice. The key (over time) is in working more efficiently and productively, not working more hours. Your advices are constructive and practical. They're great. Thank you. I've been with my now wife for 17 years. Most important rule: Make dedicated time for her every day for a minutes, every week for a few hours, every month for a few days, every year for a few weeks. That basically means dedicated listening for one short conversation a day, one dedicated dinner each week, one dedicated weekend together each month, and one dedicated vacation together each year. Any by dedicated, I mean no phones or computers or texts. Give her your time. It need not be huge amounts. But show she is important. Of course you will fall short. But the goal is to try. She will see that. This is a difficult question because you're the only one who can answer it. Do you really work too much or is your girlfriend just needy and need to get a hobby? Maybe you're in your early 20's and working a lot right now is more critical to your future than a relationship with a girl who's not the love of your life. Maybe you're in your 30's, work 100hrs/wk, you've been dating this girl for 5 years, love her, and she's your last real chance at a relationship for you. How many more at bats do you have (some function of age and how easy it is for you to get women)? Only you know the answer to this, so what do you think? Ask yourself, 1) if you worked less and made her happy or 2) your continued working at this pace and let her leave, what would you regret more in 5 years? Maybe you won't know how you really feel about her until you leave her. That's what happened with my wife and I. I understand the draw of work. To this day I still work too much because I absolutely love what I do and the feeling it gives me. But I've been married 6 years and I love my wife more. If my work got in the way of our relationship, I would change things. But this is only because I know she's worth it. So look over the advice here, but you're the only one that can really answer that question. The answer isn't at the end of some math equation, it's in your gut. Honestly, IMHO if you have to ask us just let her go and get back to work. If you're asking for relationship advice on HN, I strongly suspect your mind is already made up and you're just looking for useful rationalisations. Imagine yourself having reached the 'success' you are currently pursuing. Imagine how much you will have to sacrifice in order to reach it.
It certainly gives a thrill reaching the goals you set in you life. But there is one big question you have to ask yourself: what will you do after you have reached your success? Do you think you will be different? Do you think you will be happier? I can give you the answer: after reaching your goals, you will still be the same person as before, and you will still be as (un)happy as before. But you will have 1 extra question on your mind: why am I not happier now that I have reached my goals? I hope you play games, because my answer is this: life is like a video game, it gives a thrill when winning it, but the real joy comes from playing it. Enjoy your time at work, and enjoy the time you spend with your girlfriend. Your personal success is not measured by reaching some goal, but it's measured by how much fun you're having in your life (and yes, work should be fun, but spending time with your girlfriend should also be). Sorry that I didn't gave a practical answer, but I hope it helps. You brought a very good point. Thank you. If you're driven to be successful either for financial reasons or because there's something you're passionate about and your partner isn't supportive of that vision or goal, then there will always be a tension when you're pursuing something they don't think is valuable. Is your definition of success the same as their's? I leave the office before 6 almost every day to pick up one or the other kid. Wide does the same. Always have dinner together. Never work weekends unless it's a serious emergency. You'd be amazed how easy it is to just get up and go and finish what you're doing tomorrow. Hasn't slowed my career much at all. Look at your priorities. What level of work makes you happy. What level makes them happy. Which is more important - your success, or your relationship. Work out what the effects of your choices will be, and then consciously make a decision that will work best for you in the long run. This is about Priorities– I suggest you spend a few minutes and do a deep session of introspection and meditate on what your true priorities are. It's not nearly as easy as it sounds... Here are some questions to get you rolling:
Why are you working so much? For you? For someone else? For the money? If so, why? What will you do with that money? Is it for you? A family? Do you find yourself enjoying your girlfriend more than your work? What do you get out of your relationship? Why are you with this person? Why are you working on your specific project? The idea is to discover what you truly value and align your priorities with that– Good luck! It may be a common problem but each solution is going to be different. Before you have a solution, you need to understand the problem. Listen to her. Why does she think you work too much? What would she prefer you do (spend time with her is too generic: she most likely has specific issues in mind. ASK). I can't stress this enough: listen to her. Listen to what she's saying, not just what you expect her to say or what you think she's saying. Actually clear your mind and listen. Then the two of you can start to figure out what to do about it. Some ideas:
* Listen to them, have a conversation about optimal work life balance.
* Think about your habits, ask if you're working too much, too little, or just the right amount.
* Ask yourself every hour that you work if you think that hour had been productive, or if you have been unproductively "working" due to exhaustion.
* Consider having all of these conversations after a vacation or some other form of time off, because it's easy to be myopic when you're in the middle of working. Run a time tracker and log every task you are doing. Cracking the 40 hour mark means you are not prioritizing your time properly or you are meant to be single for a while. Time tracking is also perfect for accountability in your performance, and also how reasonable your employer is. If you're on a salary for a 40 hour week but end up in the 50 hour territory you are sacrificing precious family time that you'll never get back, for your boss. For free. Do what you love. Balance is not quite possible. I work a lot. I probably spend an hour or so a day with my kids. But I love my work. They will understand. As for dealing with SO, if they are not on board or understand your passion then you got bigger problems than time management. You are on a mission. Your SO should understand that. It is who you are. Listening to them deeply and finding out their core frustrations is key, just like how you would interact with a user to discover their pain points. In my experience, when my partner claims I work too much it isn't always because I literally work too much. Of course, sometimes my work/life balance needs to be readjusted and brought back to an acceptable equilibrium. However, the frustration often comes from not conveying my love for her in a way she recognizes and receives it. The book The Five Love Languages[1], by Gary Chapman, opened my eyes to this. I'd recommend it to everyone. The premise of the book is that we all have unique preferences for what we find satisfying when it comes to love. Your love language is the way that you feel most loved. People usually love their partner how they want to be loved, and that doesn't tend to align with how their partner wants to be loved. You need to convey your love in a way that matches your partner's love language [2]. In my situation, I've thought deeply and talked with my partner about this concept and determined our Love Languages. I now fill the time I spend with her to the brim with activities and behaviors that convey my love for her effectively. I've found that no matter how much time I end up spending with my her, the actual amount of time becomes a non-issue when she feels loved in a way that really resonates with her. It might help to think about it in terms of the 80-20 rule[3], doing the 20% of effort necessary (conveying your love in a way that actually gets received) to get 80% of the return (a satisfied and loved partner). That may sound a bit cold when applied to relationships- to try to minimize the effort required to convey your love, but it's actually the nicest thing you can do for them. [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Love-Languages-Secret-Lasts/dp/080... [2] High level overview of the five love languages: - Words of Affirmation
- If this is your love language, you feel most cared for when your partner is open and expressive in telling you how wonderful they think you are, how much they appreciate you, that their world is a better place because you are in it, etc. - Acts of Service
- If your partner offering to watch the kids so you can go to the gym (or relieving you of some other task) gets your heart going, then this is your love language. - Affection
- This love language is just as it sounds. A warm hug, a kiss, touch, and sexual intimacy make you feel most loved when this is your love language. - Quality Time
- This love language is about being together, fully present and engaged in the activity at hand, no matter how trivial. - Gifts
- Your partner taking the time to give you a gift can make you feel appreciated. You can only really give meta-advice in this situation, and that's a good start. Having read the Love Languages book a while back, I'd point out that soupajoe's summary there at the end of his post is probably a good 95% of the value of the book. The book, IIRC, also suggests the idea that people have a "primary" language, and this is AIUI contested and in my opinion likely to be pop-sci nonsense. My wife scores highly on everything except gifts, which she thinks she likes in the abstract but tends to not really be that impressed when they manifest in the concrete. I suspect that many people have varying profiles that often resist being able to call one "primary", but the real point here is that it gives you a good set of five things to think about, discuss with your partner, and try out. (Because you have to bear in mind that humans are shockingly bad at guessing what will make them happy. That's a general rule, not a relationship rule. In particular that implies that you should not abandon one of the types until you have tried it, pretty much regardless of what your partner says. And, mutatis mutandis, regardless of what you say your partner should, ideally, try it anyhow to see how it goes.) As another example, consider the idea that some people generally want to have their problems heard but don't want them "solved" in the conversation [1]. Regardless of whether or how true it may be in general, it again gives you a dimension to think about, consider with your partner, and experiment with, because in the end, everybody is their own person. My wife would clock in somewhere around 80/20; 80% she's just expressing herself and not looking for solutions, but maybe a fifth of the time she's at least open to thoughtful suggestions (as if nothing else it shows I'm fully engaged). Your mileage will vary. And so on; rather than necessarily taking anyone's advice here directly, consider it a possible dimension to explore with your partner. With everything mentioned here you've probably got a good set of things to consider. Further, for all of these things, you'll want to work out not only your partner's preferences, but your own, and some may surprise you even though you've lived with yourself for your entire life. Know thyself has been good advice for a very long time. What if your partner's love language is Quality Time, and OP knows it? Then OP would have to work on finding more time to spend with them, and a lot of other comments address possible ways to improve this. Personally, when my partner complained about not spending enough time together, I increased the time I spent with her, and it didn't help alleviate the frustrations she was feeling. She thought that what mattered to her was Quality Time, but it was really hearing Words of Affirmation that was important (I see a similarity with users who say they want a particular feature, but really just want to solve a certain pain point). Only when we figured out how she feels maximally loved was I able to use the time I spent with her effectively. I thought maybe OP could be in the same boat. Then it's quite possible that they spend time together but it's time spent in the same proximity but not spent fully engaged. My partner and I used to have this exact issue (with me being the one who didn't feel like we had enough quality time). She would often retort "what are you talking about? We spend at least a couple hours together every day!" And I'd go and think about it, confirm that, yes, we would often spend the evening together on the couch, with both of us on our laptops working. And then I'd scratch my head, feel confused about the mix of contrasting thoughts going on in my head, and carry about my day feeling uncomfortable about it. A while later, I came across 5LL and read through it pretty voraciously. It provided context that I'd never been able to put into words. Lately, we probably spend even less time in physical proximity than we did then, but we spend time together where we're both fully engaged and in the moment with each other. It doesn't take much for us to both feel pretty happy about things. [tldr: quality can be much more important than quantity re: quality time] Great references, I'll definitely read. Thank you. I think the best thing is to be with someone who understands your work life, and either doesn't mind it or has something similar on their own. There is nothing worse than having a SO who is the type of person who barely works and then wants to party and do things nonstop, while all you want to do is work on that project you have yet to finish. This is rarely about time, and more about relative importance. Work can be an obsession, which is easy to confuse with "more important than me." I doubt your girlfriend is asking for work/life balance, exactly. She's probably just saying she wants to feel as important as work seems. That's a thing you can work on. You should have in mind that the time you spend on your startup is not linearly correlated to its success. Interesting. I never thought it this way. They're still correlated though right? Definitely correlated! And the function must be different in each case, but I'd bet it's never linear :) Is every extra hour you're spending working really worth it? I'd figure out how to minimise the time required to accomplish tasks, defer them, delegate them and then also scrutinise the actual tasks themselves. Once you're done with that do you still not have enough free time? My GF rarely complains that I work too much because sometimes she works too much. That helps a lot! I married a woman who works in my field and understands my hours because she works them too. Understanding doesn't add any hours to the day. So you're not seeing much of each other, and don't yet resent it. But its easy for that to start happening. And I don't know any cure other than 'spend more time together' which means working fewer hours.