Wife a workaholic/addition problem?

BUDFORCE said:
So I guess I just have to live with it.
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Sorry but no you dont, you have your own choices on how to live and if its not suiting you or making you stressed or unhappy, then you know what this means.

She 100% has a problem and its her thinking she is more important than what she is, she is being taken advantage of and given this sense of importance. When the reality is a lack of documented SOP's on how to operate I guess, so she becomes the wiki.

To do all that work for the little amount of money, I'd be livid, but given she is not means she thinks being important to a company is more important than:
1 - Money
2 - family
3 - happiness
4 - free time
 
It can be hard to no simply be an enabler for this sort of thing.

Take a break from it. Book a couple weeks off and go chill in Thailand or something, let her deal with everything for a while. She won’t have any choice but to extract herself from work.

People lose themselves in *****y jobs like this, can’t see the wood for the trees, and just need removing from it for a while.
 
That doesn't sound like it's going to work with his wife. She'll just carry on working and let everything else get worse, doing the bare minimum to keep on top of chores, etc. The 18 year old will become the replacement and if he doesn't do it, it gets left.

Her behaviour seems far too ingrained for a few weeks of someone not being around to change things, especially when she's not present anyway, even when they are. She knows it's only temporary and that he'll take over again when he returns, so that will be her way out.

Realistically, nothing will change unless they all leave, she has a severe health scare or she is made redundant.
 
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Been there!

They need to feel 'highly thought of' so work like f&*(^%$ idiots.

Tied to their jobs via a laptop.

'Promotions' that bring no extra pay....just more work!

Snappy behaviour. Mood swings. Your world revolves around her work.

Always an avalanche of work so they can never be finished!

My ex used to cry about needing to leave. But then just carry on.

She couldn't see a different life.

Eventually you have to decide to take your life back.

I wasn't being anyones 'part time partner...'

I wish you luck.
 
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Kenai said:
Perhaps a less palatable thought - is she avoiding problems in her personal life by burying herself in work so she doesn't have to deal with them?
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Reading the latest update makes me feel like this is actually reasonably likely, it's not so much that work is preventing her from engaging with life, she doesn't want to engage with life and is hiding in work through choice.
 
F4FF3R said:
Been there!

They need to feel 'highly thought of' so work like f&*(^%$ idiots.

Tied to their jobs via a laptop.

'Promotions' that bring no extra pay....just more work!

Snappy behaviour. Mood swings. Your world revolves around her work.

Always an avalanche of work so they can never be finished!
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Yup this exactly.

For example they recently made her a shareholder, that's a 1% share in a sister company or subsidiary, effectively worth absolutely nothing, with the promise of "oh but it could be worth a lot I'm the future of it takes off etc" which you know of course won't and won't ever be worth anything, only other than a sense of importance and false driver to do even more.
 
Unfortunately mate it's borderline impossible to change people like this. Their job validates and defines them and it's worse when they've been there as long as she has, it's all they know. I know multiple couples who have split up over similar to what you're describing. It really sucks but it's just how some people are programmed.

Who even puts all those hours in for such a crap wage? They clearly don't appreciate it and she'll have the reputation of "Ahh I don't need to sort it, x will whilst I go to the pub/spend time with the family/play PUBG". If she's going to work that hard it should be for a bigger company where it's easier to get promoted, or at least somewhere where the effort is appreciated.

I'm sure there's therapy for things like this, maybe worth looking into?
 
She is seriously being taken advantage of. The company will not promote etc as they would be losing a worker, there is no incentive for them to move her up while she is radicalised/indoctrinated to this ridiculous situation.

Does she not realise that as well as putting in these hours and responsibility for **** pay, she is also harming her future? She has stangnated at this level and wage for so long, if/when she finally moves on she has shown no progression to her next employer.

Each to their own, but one thing i would sit her down and talk about is she is missing out on LIFE and her family, but most importantly, with all this work and the hours she is putting in, is she resting? I would be concerned with her health. She may say she feels fine, but surely she is running on fumes now - stop and she is going to crash hard. Heart attack, stroke, blood pressure etc, has she been for a check up recently? How would she feel leaving behind 2 kids for the sake of a job that clearly is taking advantage of her?
 
BUDFORCE said:
We've just had a full blown row over it again.

About a month ago, maybe 6 weeks we fell out.

She went on the attack saying I'm not doing x and y (mostly housework related) so I have made a really big effort and I have. She says she would about her work, but suprise suprise nothing has changed her ebd

I was out last night came back and her work was on at 9:40pm (she started at 8:30am) last week she took a work call in the middle of dinner. She's getting our 18 year old to go pick up our younger son, again so she can sit on her laptop.

The 18 year old also believes she has a problem, and has said it in front of her just now. His attitude is to a certain extent is not my problem or there is nothing you can do about it, which I don't blame him for at all.

I have been trying to ignore it, because if I bring it up she reacts like a nuclear bomb (which reinforces she got a problem) and she goes on the attack/mental.

I haven't said anything for these 6 weeks, but again today she's on her work phone 50 minutes after she was supposed to finish, I got dinner ready on time so we could watch a bit of TV before having to go out to pick the little one up for beavers, but yet again her work has interveined in personal time and she's now gone out without having had the dinner.

I dunno what to do, I love her and we've been married and together for a long time and I don't want to break up but this is never going to get better. Other than her company going under or similar.

So I guess I just have to live with it.

It sucks though so much, I just think how much of a better live she would have, free time to actually live a life, when you live someone and see them suffering it's very hard.
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Keep doing what your doing, but also do your own things, find a club or hobby or something, make yourself less available.

If your being ignored anyway you may as well enjoy yourself doing your own thing.

There is also a possibility (though by sound of it probably not) that she might notice you aren't there.
 
It's unlikely, but it's worth mentioning that it could also be something like ADHD.

I know someone who worked her way up to director level, but then had a mental breakdown in her mid-40s. She was diagnosed with ADHD at that time. After a few weeks on medication, it was like a switch had flipped. She went from working 60+ hours per week to performing better just by working her agreed hours of ~40 per week.

Before being medicated, she was a chronic procrastinator, terrible at time management and task avoidant, working 60+ hours just to barely stay on top of things.

Neurodivergent people can also be very bad at advocating for themselves and end up accepting crap like this.
 
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I can't see the point of working full time hours, I mean when I've done that you literally get home have a couple of hours to yourself, shower, dinner, bit of TV and then bed. Repeat the next day

Even if the job paid tonnes of money, you just have more "stuff" or changing the carpet every 3 years, and time for yourself on the two days you can enjoy it, and saturday is "recovery" day because shattered from the week. So Sunday. But many jobs are sunday shift work so that screws up your body clock, family life, going away etc. That's even if you have family it would be "honey and kids I'm home, I'm off to bed " :cry:
Mason- said:
Log how many hours she works in a week. Work out her effective hourly pay, point this out to her. It might even be below minimum wage.
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I enjoy seeing the hourly rate on so called salary jobs, there was a electronics engineer- testing, diagnosing electronics, £23k a year

hahahahaaha what a joke. :cry:

I'd say 25 hours a good amount of time, without being a corporate slave, time for yourself and family, and enough to get by.
 
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That is insane doing those kind of hours for the compensation she is getting- sounds like she could technically go below minimum wage given the unpaid overtime adding up? Maybe even consider showing her this thread just to see how out of sync her perception is on this (though that does risk arguments in itself...)
 
jeeze i am on 36.5k wfh and do my 35 hours and thats it. Wouldn't of dream of doing the amount of hours your wife does, got to be something deeper going on there.
 
I dont think its that.

Her Dad did the same, although he was a Scientist making making animal vaccines and did very well out of it.

Shes just following in those same footsteps she just doesn't get that her hard work isn't, and will never be rewarded, shes expecting some carrot to finally drop one day, but it never will.
 
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