Jan Haldane - Are You Too Busy for Love?

I know this sounds morbid, but what regrets will you have on your deathbed? Will you wish you’d spent more time at work? I doubt it. Studies show that people regret not spending enough time with friends and loved ones. Time is one thing that you can never get back or create more of. Of course, time is money and we all need to put food on the table and a roof over our head. That’s not what I’m talking about here.

Busyness (no I don’t mean business) is the new black. It’s become a badge of honour to be crazy busy. There’s nothing wrong with being busy per se, but there’s a fine line between busyness and workaholism. Of course there will be times when you’re extremely stretched time wise. Going into business for yourself is one of those times. Taking on study such as a MBA or a huge project at work are also examples. Certainly we’re all very busy at some point in our lives. This isn’t what I’m talking about either.

Put simply, neglect kills love. In a healthy relationship partners understand a busy few weeks or months with a specific project. However, when working all the time and neglecting the relationship becomes the norm, there is something amiss. If you fill your life with work to avoid dealing with problems in the relationship, very soon you won’t have a relationship.

While both sexes can be guilty of this, men take the prize for workaholism. It’s a very lonely prize to take. I can’t tell you how many men I’ve spoken with who have no idea why their relationship broke up, but in the same breath say they worked all the time and barely spoke to their wives for weeks at a time. Well, go figure!

If your partner is a workaholic, you either build a single life for yourself, or become devastatingly lonely waiting for a crumb of time and attention to fall from their table. This is incredibly painful and soul destroying for the neglected partner.

Just like any other addiction, people will use work to medicate their emotional pain and lack of self-esteem. It’s not easy to stop doing this. If this is you, and you relationship is heading for the rocks, you need professional help. Don’t let work cost you your loved ones. Contact me for a chat at [email protected].