408 - When Work Gets in the Way of Relationships
Why talk about work?
The reality is, capitalism makes work a large part of most of our lives. Many of us work too much, have had partners whose work or attitudes about work have affected the relationship, had recurring arguments with a partner about work, etc. It affects a huge part of our lives, and so it’s important to acknowledge how work can influence our relationships.
A few of the different ways work might affect relationships:
Income (both the amount and its consistency or stability).
Time flexibility (wage worker versus salaried).
Presence/absence of vacation time, sick leave, parental leave, etc.
Who sacrifices work to care for children, aging family members, etc.
Views on “external” work versus the work of domestic labor.
Cultural attitudes towards work.
Liking/disliking one’s work.
Work effort/effort spectrum.
Workaholic behavior and relationships
Some ways people can be cognizant about how behavior might be affecting relationships:
Although no documented treatment for workaholism exists, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) can help with obsessive behaviors/behavioral addictions.
Self-reflect on your working habits:
Does this behavior seem like work engagement and passion for what I do? Or does it feel compulsive and fear-based?
Discuss with your partner(s):
How do you feel about your work?
What does your work mean to you?
How would you spend your time if money were no object and you didn’t have to work?
How do you imagine your work changing in the future?
if there is an issue with your partner’s approach to work:
what are you longing for from your partner?
What does your partner’s behavior mean to you?
Share with each other what the other person contributes to the relationship.
Whenever discussing work with a partner, take great care to not minimize their work stress.
Be willing to have real conversations about how each person’s different working situation, income situation, etc. impact their lives and relationships.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about work. That's right. We're putting on our hard hats and grabbing our briefcases and our pens and pocket protectors and we are going to work. Specifically, we're going to be discussing the many different ways that one's relationship to work can affect their romantic and other interpersonal relationships, and that's whether you have very similar views or very different ones from each other.
Also, we're going to be looking at some of the latest research on workaholic behaviors and tendencies. Is that a thing? We'll also be covering discussions to have with a partner when you're experiencing conflict around work. I know all of us have had some conflict with partners and even each other around work. This one is near and dear to our hearts.
Dedeker: I like the image that you laid out of this combination blue collar, white collar worker, which I guess would be what? If you've got a pocket protector and a hard hat, you're what, like a architect who's got to go down to the job site-
Jase: Maybe the foreman or something like that.
Dedeker: -to have some discussions?
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: That's fun.
Emily: That is okay. Briefcase as well, all those little tools.
Jase: I guess you could be the union rep or something maybe going down to--
Dedeker: Ooh, that's fun. We like union reps. Why are we talking about this? As Jase mentioned, I forget who I was telling this to the other day, but actually, I was specifically talking about my relationship with Jase and how I realized, and you tell me if this is accurate from your perspective in our relationship, Jase. I think that most of the "bigger fights" that you and I have had in the past, let's say five years or so, and by bigger I mean he did enough that we need to halt or both of us cry or not like a little squabble, something that we actually get into more of a tizzy about, the recurring theme has been around work.
Jase: Yes, I would agree. I would say work.
Dedeker: Is that accurate?
Jase: Something related to work. Yes, some aspects.
Emily: I was going to ask, what type of work? Just the fact that you work a lot, that you both work a lot, that Dedeker wants to have more of a work-life balance than Jase does, but that's hard to do. I don't know.
Jase: There have been accusations thrown around on both sides about working too much or too little or, well, not really too little, but too much or at inconvenient times or-
Dedeker: Too much for sure.
Jase: -in various things like that.
Emily: I assume.
Dedeker: That got this topic on my mind the other day. Then also I think that just the realities of living under capitalism is that this is going to affect the majority of us. The majority of us are going to have to deal with how my work-life influences my home life, family life, relationship life. Unless you're privileged enough that money is no object and you don't have to work whatsoever, chances, are there's going to be something relevant to you in this episode.
Jase: I would argue even if you are set and did not need to work for money, that just the way our society values one's work so much and that that's such a central part of our identities, that even still probably shows up for you even if you're not working for money specifically in the same way.
Emily: Yes. All three of us have called each other and ourselves workaholics. I know that we're going to actually get into more what a workaholic is and discuss that, but I think the three of us do work a lot more than most of the people that we know in our lives. That has created conflict, I think, within ourselves and then also for others around us.
It has the potential to do that at least. I think that's something that's good to look at because having a better work-life balance is always ideal, I think, but it's not always achievable at times.
Jase: Well, yes, let's get into some of the details here. Let's start by looking at some of the ways that our relationship to work can affect our other relationships, our interpersonal relationships, I guess I'll say.
Dedeker: Yes, because it's not just about the work-life balance, it's not just about you work too much or I work too much, or things like that. Well, as I sat down to write this episode, I was like, "Wow, there's actually a lot of different ways that this can show up in relationships." The first, and I think maybe the most obvious one is the fact that work is often tied to income to a certain extent.
Again, the realities of living under capitalism is we got to work hard for the money. I think that's something that can really affect relationships. I didn't pull any specific research for this, but I know offhand that there's definitely been research that shows that couples where they both make enough money to live and pay the bills, sometimes that correlates with a happier relationship.
Surprise, surprise, when you have more consistent income or more stable income, and it means often maybe you have more consistent access to free time or quality time that can be spent with your partner, with your kids, going on dates, doing projects together, all these things that do tend to support a healthy relationship.
Emily: What about income disparity though?
Dedeker: That could be an episode completely unto itself. I do want to write an episode that's purely just about income disparity because I'm sure there's more than enough research out there, more than enough anecdotes that we can talk about, but I think that's a big one. I feel like anytime we've ever had a guest on the show who deals with money, that's always the question.
It's like, "How the hell do I manage when one person in the relationship makes significantly more money or significantly less money than the other person? How do I manage disclosing that when I'm early on in a relationship?" That's very much a key, but I think sometimes even in addition to income disparity, as in disparity of amount, there can also be disparity in income stability or consistency.
Emily: 100%, yes.
Jase: Then also the other factors around that income too, which we'll talk about a little bit more as we go on, but things about, are you working really hard for this money that then also costs you a lot of money to maintain, like you have to live in a certain city that's really expensive in order to do your job, or you are self-employed and need to buy a lot of the equipment yourself? It feels like you're making a certain amount, but then actually feels a lot less.
There's a lot of other factors that go into it as well. Do you feel like the amount you're making is a good amount that you deserve or not? There's that emotional aspect as well. It's like, "Maybe I don't make a lot for what I'm doing, but I knew that going in that I wasn't going to make a lot for this and so I accept that," versus, "I know I could be making more and I feel underpaid," can really change your attitude and that emotional impact and pride in the way that we value ourselves based on that as well.
Emily: I think time is a huge factor as well when you're working. If you are a person who has a 9:00 to 5:00 job, it's very steady income, it's a very steady time slot in which you will be working and you're able to set it down and then pick it back up when that time period is occurring, that's not a luxury that everybody has especially if you work in a service industry type thing or a gig economy type situation where you're not always sure where your next paycheck is going to come from, but you have to be ready for it when it does.
That may mean that, "Sorry, I'm going to be gone for a week or whatever," or, "I'm going to be working really long days or night shifts, or something along those lines." I think that can really affect partnerships and partners who don't really understand that way of working and are more used to, "Well, I don't understand why you're not around because I'm good to go. I have this steady income and this steady job, so why can't you have the same thing that I have?"
Dedeker: I know that's definitely something I run into in relationships in the sense of, when you're a wage worker or a gig worker or self-employed or you've created your own business where maybe you don't necessarily have PTO or time off or things like that and other partner does, or what it is like, "I know my partner are going to plan to go on vacation, so that means I need to pick up a bunch of extra shifts heading into that because of the lost time," which can sometimes be hard to, I think, empathize with for someone who's always been a salaried worker, full time, where that's less of an issue. Yes, I think time flexibility for sure can show up as an area of difference and possibly conflict in relationships.
Jase: This is an area that shows up a lot for Dedeker and myself. As we have mentioned before, is specifically this because both of us used to be more contract-based self employed type of a thing but then for the last few years, I've been working jobs that are more, more normal hours. They're not specifically a 9:00 to 5:00 always, but they're regular hours every day with a certain amount of PTO.
There's also conflict on that other side, too, of, "Well, we want to take some time off. Great. I'll book out that time off," instead of, "Well, okay, I'm going to have to see like what work's going to be like at that time, and if my manager would approve that time off, and how much of it do I have." It's like there's a whole different way of approaching all things where maybe there's more flexibility in certain ways, but then less than others in both circumstances.
I think another one that shows up there too is how people react to changes in that. If you're someone who is used to more gig working, you might be more used to fluctuations, or some dry spells, and maybe that's something that you're used to and prepared for versus someone who's used to a steady income but then they get downsized or something and now they're having to look for a job. They might not have the emotional resources, or even the financial resources to get them through that period versus someone who might be used to that. I've seen that go both ways for couples as well.
It's hard to relate sometimes where it's like, Oh, one person they lost their job, and they're having to look for a new one. They had been at a more normal salaried, or at least regular hourly job, and they're really freaking out and stressed out and have a lot of identity crisis about it and their partner is someone who does acting, or catering, or something, or photography, or something that's more of a gig type job and they're like, "What's the big deal? It's only been like a month or two. Why are you freaking out so much?" It's just a different way of thinking about the way we work and how we get our value and what's normal and acceptable.
Dedeker: Yes, I remember, gosh, like way early on in my 20s, having a family member of mine who, again, yes, I was doing the acting thing which means there's a lot of gigging and a lot of gigging that is not acting. It's a lot of just like trying to scrape together whatever gigs you can get in order to pay the bills and her always expressing to me, I can't even imagine not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from. I can't even imagine that.
Yes, this person has literally been in salaried jobs her entire life. Not to minimize that by any means but again, yes, it is just this different perspective to come from where you're just like, "Oh, I'm used to always having to hustle and scrape stuff together whenever I can."
Emily: Something that I think comes up in a variety of ways is the type of work that one does and how certain jobs are viewed as, well, that's a real job, and certain jobs are viewed as that's not a real job or you're just like doing that until you find a real job. If you do that for your entire life, then you're not worthy of some bullshit prize of being a real worker in our economy or society, I don't know.
I definitely-- it feels like I've heard that from some people. I work a restaurant job, I would like to not eventually but even in the 10 years that I've done that, I've definitely felt shitty sometimes about, "Well, wow, that's all that I'm amounting to in my life and stuff?" That's been challenging for sure.
I think also on the flip side of that, people who don't make money for the work that they do even though they work extremely hard, and I'm talking about things like childcare, or eldercare, if you're helping an ageing parent or something along those lines and making big sacrifices in those ways but yet you're not going to work and making a salary, how sometimes that can be really stressful and challenging on a relationship both for the person who may be going and working and making money and the person who's tired when you come home every day because they've been taking care of the kids or taking care of someone sick in the family or disabled or any thing along those lines.
Dedeker: Yes, and that definitely intersects with, I think, often associating the work that makes more money, the more "real work". That's how we make decisions about, if someone needs to take care of the kids, or like you said, an ageing parent or something, whose job goes on the chopping block? Whose job is less "real"? It's going to be the one where we make less money, that's usually how it tends to go.
Emily: It's also gendered. I read so many articles during the pandemic of like, there was that one very famous article, I think, in the New York Times about a woman who did make more money than her husband and yet her husband could not take care of the kids, like did not know how to do it, so she still had to quit her job so that she could take care of the kids instead of him, even though she was the one making more money.
Jase: Yikes.
Dedeker: Gosh, gosh.
Jase: I would say too that, that we often refer to that as invisible work. It's those things that you do that are vital that your household, or your life would also fall apart without those but that we don't give as much credit to because there's less of a clear distinction of this is now work that's being done, usually, because it's not getting paid.
I just want to point out that that shows up in other ways, too, and this is something that has repeatedly shown up to the three of us over all of the years that we've done this podcast about one person. If you start feeling tired or overwhelmed, we'll maybe get to that place of like, "Look at all these things that I'm doing for our podcast in addition to my job and this thing, and I was sick, and my partner's sick," or whatever it is, all this, like, "Look at how much more I'm working than you."
Often, the come back from the other two is, "I'm doing this, this, this, this and this other thing that you're not even aware of that I just do every week," and we all have played that back and forth over the years. It's something that we've had to be very intentional, I think, and we still do it sometimes, but to try to be very intentional about acknowledging that we don't know the full extent of the work that other people are doing.
Also to, what's the word? To not allow someone else to use our busyness as an excuse. What I mean by that is that thing of like, "Oh, well, maybe I'll take this because I know you're busy right now." While sometimes that's acutely true, often it's like I just perceive you being busier than me but that might not necessarily be true.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: Interesting.
Jase: I feel like we will then, I know I do this sometimes where I have to proactively be like, "No, no, no. Yes, I am busy, I'm always busy, but no, no, don't not give me work to do just because I'm busy. This is still my responsibility and I still want to contribute to what we're doing here."
I think I've seen all of us do that, too, of like, 'No, no, I will do stuff. I know I'm busy but I will also do things," rather than just letting someone give you that pass and maybe setting up a situation down the road that's going to lead to a lot of resentment and frustration. It shows up even outside of just that domestic taking care of a house and the kids relationship, but it's that same dynamic of just both sides need to keep that balance there.
Dedeker: Well, what I'm curious about because I think another factor that can show up in relationships is, I think people can come from just different cultural attitudes toward work. Of course, we can look at macro culture attitudes of if you and your partner are from different countries, for instance, that have just very different work attitudes. That's just very much a thing and that can clash sometimes.
Also, there's, of course, always the micro culture of, what was the work ethic in your family or what were the lessons you were taught about working? I know that all three of us do tend to be aligned in this hyperfunctioning, overworking little micro culture we've built within our own little chosen family. I'm assuming we must be bringing that in.
American culture is not great about this, like American culture is very pro hustle culture, so I think that we carry that in, but then I believe with all three of us in our family backgrounds, there's some of that represented as well. Is that right?
Emily: Yes, I think a lot of my wanting to work hard is like a thirst to prove myself in some way. Like I've tried to, I feel like I need to make myself feel worthy of something, of existing or whatever, and so I just try to work hard and do a lot of things because that will make me feel like I'm worthy of something. That's a lot of where my work ethic comes from, but yes, also, I was taught-- I lived with a single mother my whole life, so that was a lot of, "You got to just figure it out yourself and not rely on somebody else to do it for you," kind of thing.
Dedeker: Yes. I've heard of a lot people who were raised by single parents, and then also children of immigrants often share that in common, the sense of like, "You just need to do it. You have to take care of yourself, and you have to be able to support yourself, and you just got to keep going back to that grind."
Jase: Then I think there's also that question of what other lessons have you gotten along the way in terms of have you then seen this behavior in your parents where you go, "I don't want to do that." You could swing the other way too, right? That thing of, "I saw my parents work so, so hard so that they could retire, but then just haven't done anything with their lives."
It's like, "I don't want to do that, so I'm going to live life to the fullest." Which then could sometimes swing the other way of like making not the most financially responsible decisions versus finding a middle ground there. It's interesting how that one can either make you be more like that culture, or can make you swing hard the other way.
I think we see that with all sorts of things like religion as well, or just general attitudes like, "I'm going to swing really hard the other way," or, "I'm going to follow that path because that's what was modeled for me and that's what I think is good, and I like that."
Dedeker: What about the difference of someone liking their work? Maybe being in a relationship with someone who dislikes their own work?
Jase: I honestly think this is one of the hardest ones.
Dedeker: Oh, yes?
Jase: I think it's hard because it creates a divide where it's hard to even relate to each other, and there could be a lot of envy and jealousy there. For example, if you're on the side of the person who really likes what you do, or even if you don't really, really like it, but you like your job, right? Then you have a partner who really doesn't, it can be easy to feel like, "Well, why don't you work somewhere else where you do like it? Why don't you do something else that you do like?"
While that isn't necessarily wrong, it often isn't seeing the whole picture and it can then be frustrating for that other person to feel like, "Do you know what a big deal that is to try to change what I do, or where I work, or how hard that is, or how scary that is?" Those kinds of things. Then on the other side can be that just-- That anger of like, "Anytime I'm tired, now I'm angry at you because you don't ever have to be tired like this because you like what you do."
I think that one-- it's like having more or less money. I guess unless you just always grew up with money, and you landed in a job where you've always had money. I feel like most of us have at least some fluctuation in money in our lives, so that one we at least like, "Okay. I kind of get that." I feel like the liking what you do or not liking what you do can sometimes be just such a hard obstacle to get pass to really understand each other.
Dedeker: The last one I put on this list was kind of having differences in like work ethic/effort. It was hard for me to figure out what's the word to put on it, but I know that sometimes it feels like a big confluence of these things that I have often found myself in conflict in prior relationships because I'm-- tend to be more on the workaholic side of things, tend to be very motivated, very self-motivated.
Have often been either a gig worker or self-employed where the success and my income is tied to my own effort. Then sometimes ending up in relationships with people where-- I think like Emily was saying, where it's like 9:00 to 5:00. As soon as five o'clock hits, I'm checked out, I'm done. I chill, I don't think about anything else.
Emily: Grab a beer, smoke a blunt.
Dedeker: I don't have to hustle. Yes, just have a great time and that's it. Sometimes there's something about that combination that just like really pokes I think all of my stuff. I don't know. I guess it was something about-- I'm trying to figure out something about those kind of differences, and maybe it's a mix of a lot of the stuff we've already discussed.
Emily: My partner is one that has said I don't get personal fulfillment out of work. That's not a thing that he feels brings him joy as much, and it's not even about liking or not the thing that you're doing, but just simply that wanting to succeed in a work environment is not something that brings him joy. To me, it definitely is.
The thing that I just got to do which would be a vocalist at a theme park, that brought me huge amount of joy. Whenever I get to do jobs like that, that's the coolest thing ever. This podcast is like close second. That also is something that brings me joy, and that I'm able to cultivate and work on, and really mold and figure out how is it that I can continue to do this to the best of my ability. I think that's a big difference there. Even when I'm at a job that I don't particularly like, I still want to do it well. I still want to be like the best at it.
Dedeker: That's what I was going to ask about is, even for like your restaurant job-
Emily: 100%.
Dedeker: -that you had for so long.
Emily: I'm like, "Oh, I'm the best. Good." I want to be. I don't just want to half-ass anything. I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, if you have like a shitty job that it's just a stepping stone, don't be that good at it." I'm like, "But I have to be. I want to be." I don't know. I don't really get that mentality honestly, but it has led to conflict for sure.
Jase: I remember after college, I was interviewing for a job once, and they asked me something. The question was, "What motivates you at work?" I give this like long speech about, doing good and wanting people to look at that and go like, "Wow, that's great. How does he do that? That's cool. I want to learn from him. I'm inspired by him." I give this whole long thing and then she was like, "Okay. I meant like-- Is it like prizes or raises?"
Emily: Did you get the job?
Jase: I did get the job.
Emily: Well, there you go.
Dedeker: What a prize.
Jase: Cool. You don't even have to give prizes to this one.
Dedeker: The capitalist dream.
Emily: You’ll just want to do it for whatever reason. Amazing. Hilarious.
Jase: That is something though just to go back to this. I think we've mentioned this a little bit on this show before, but this-- we've all heard the thing of do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life. That whole thing.
Dedeker: It isn't true.
Jase: It's not true.
Emily: It's not true. It's
Jase: That's not even
Emily: Even if you love it, it's going to suck at times, and it's going to be really difficult.
Jase: It's not true. Maybe if you love it and you do it as a job, you don't love it anymore. There's all sorts of pieces that go into that, or maybe you do still love it, but you don't always love it.
Emily: You're not going to always love it. I didn't always love my last job, but most of the time it was awesome. I certainly don't always love this, but most of the time it's great.
Jase: It is something that we love.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes, but this was something-- I wish I could remember where this was. I think it may have been on a podcast, or it might have been in a book or something. It was talking about moving the focus from this idea that you find something you love and therefore, you will, one, enjoy doing it, and two, you'll get good at it because you like doing it. Instead proposing the opposite of saying, if you find something that you're able to become interested enough in to become good at, that then that feeling of joy and fulfilment comes from working hard to be good at something. Of like having enough interest in it.
Dedeker: Even that, not everybody like that too. I think all three of us can relate to that because we're like, "Yes, we want to learn more about communication, and relationships, and be better at podcasting, and all these things." That's also not everybody, right?
Jase: Yes, that's a good point.
Emily: Yes. Some people just don’t feel .
Jase: Look, some people will get their fulfilment elsewhere. Exactly. That it's just the job gets me by and I'll save my energy for other things. That to me--
Emily: The question is, what are those other things? To me, that's what I always question like, if you don't find fulfilment in your work, then what is it that you find fulfilment in and you should be finding that and then doing that, because we need to be fulfilled in some way. What else is there but our relationships and our work. I don't know. Whatever that work is. Maybe I'm totally talking out of my ass.
Dedeker: Maybe that's not just about your job, but your life's work.
Emily: Exactly. You need like a project, a life's work. We've had people talk about the projects that they do with their significant other, but also it's a life project that you do with yourself. I don't know.
Dedeker: That's deep, Emily. I like that.
Jase: Yes. I think to expand on that a little bit, you mentioned our work and our relationship, and I do think that that's something there too. For some people it is like, "No. I just do my job so that I can live, but the focus of my life is on the people in my life and the relationships that I have." Other people, it could be-- If you think about someone who is a monk or a nun, for example where it's--
Emily: That is a life work.
Jase: Well, it is or maybe it isn't. If you say, though, my life's work is just taking any food that's given to me and just meditating a lot and occasionally answering people's questions, it's like, yes, sure. It's not a project or life work in the same sense that we have of I want to accomplish something or make something of myself or put something in the world that it can also be more of that internal. No, I do want to have this experience of just being but--
Emily: Maybe I need to work on that.
Jase: Well, no, I get you. I struggle with it as well. Maybe that's something to look at with compatibility in relationships but I think there's also that question of, are you doing that and then are fulfilled or is someone doing that and then also not very happy in their life? Then there's some different questions there.
Also, same thing of like I'm working really hard to build my law practice and I also don't like it. That's not great either. It's not saying just one or the other is necessarily bad but I think that's an interesting question, Emily, of what is that work? Even if it's not work, but is it something that is meaningful to you even if you don't like it all the time? Is it meaningful?
Emily: It's not a question for me, it's a question for other people because I know the answer to mine.
Jase: We're going to go on and talk a little bit about workaholism. I know that we've been teasing it a bunch throughout this but first, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways you can support this show. If you enjoy this content and you enjoy getting this every week for free and this being out there in the world, it does really help us a lot if you take a moment to listen to our advertisers, check out our Patreon, things like that, that support really does directly help this show keep going.
Dedeker: We are back and we're going to talk about what tends to get talked about the most and also researched the most, and that is workaholics and workaholic behavior and their relationship. We have to start out with some caveats, which is that any kind of behavior like this. It's still tricky to define behaviors as an addiction.
Some examples that we've covered on the show before include things like sex addiction, porn addiction, video game addiction, where with a lot of these, the jury is still out around, can we classify this as an addiction? Does it work the same way that a substance addiction does? Is there anything helpful in using the addiction label? Does the addiction label actually make it harder for people to get help with something that they're struggling with?
Just to put that out there, that some of this is a gray area. There's also, as we will get into a lot of differences in disagreement over even how "workaholism" should even be defined in the first place because we start to get into all these sticky questions about when is it good to be passionate about your work and really engaged with your work?
When is that healthy and when is it not healthy? Then also, I know some very clever person is going to reach out to be like, "There's no such thing as workahol. Why call it workaholism?" Yes, you're very clever. We get it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Jase: Wow. Why don't I get us started here?
Emily: Dedeker is very triggered.
Dedeker: No, I'm not triggered. I'm just salty.
Emily: Got it.
Dedeker: I'm just salty. Yes.
Jase: To lay the groundwork here, we're going to start with 2014 literature review of academic publications about work addiction. This is by Cecilie Schou Andreassen and was published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, and it's called Workaholism: An Overview and Current Status of the Research. First, the term workaholic was first coined in 1971 by Wayne E. Oats. In his book, Confessions of a Workaholic: The Fact about Work Addiction, the facts, sorry, that's plural. Facts. There are multiple facts in this book.
Emily: Multiple facts.
Dedeker: Well, more than one fact about work addiction, facts.
Jase: Excellent. The definition of work addiction has changed over time and people don't agree on it as Dedeker was mentioning. Originally, in the '80s, some researchers just identified it specifically of working too much. Working more than 50 hours per week, for example, but then others later added things like once attitude to work. Those who invest more time and energy in their work than what's required of them, which goes back to some of the stuff we were just talking about before the break.
Emily: I'm like, so.
Jase: Yes, but identifying that as important distinctions between just working a lot and then what could be workaholism. The current ways of thinking about it tend to be more on that side of it's not just how much, but it's also the mental attitudes toward work that go along with it.
Some things to look at is, there was a 2011 study that estimated that approximately 10% of the US population may be workaholics. Other studies have estimated much higher numbers.
Again, it varies a little bit, but it's significant enough that that's something that you could identify around you if you look around. Ultimately, it's difficult and almost impossible or probably is impossible to get concrete numbers because no one agrees on what it even is or how you should measure it or how to identify what counts as clinical workaholism since clinical workaholism doesn't exist.
That's not something that's been defined. Just to wrap up what was in this particular review, there's no universal typology of work addiction. Some researchers have offered the distinction of being gratified by the job itself versus gratified by just the act of doing the job is one distinction. Others have tried to differentiate between what they call engaged and non-engaged workaholics.
An engaged workaholic might be someone who works a lot, but also it's because they're so interested, because they love what they're doing or they're really fascinated by it and want to be the best at it versus non-engaged workaholics who might be someone who doesn't like what they do and yet still does it all the time and feels like they always need to be working even though they don't even like it, don't even find it that interesting.
Dedeker: Wow, that's such a--
Emily: That's interesting.
Dedeker: It makes sense to make that distinction. I've just never really thought about it that way.
Jase: Yes, and that neither of those has been specifically shown to be better or worse necessarily, but yes, it is a distinction worth making. Then from that addiction perspective, you could look at workaholism as being in this example, "Being overly concerned about work to be driven by an uncontrollable work motivation and to put so much energy and effort into work that it impairs private relationships, spare time activities, and or health."
I do think that one is worth noting that with a lot of psychological disorders, part of the definition is that this is negatively affecting other areas of my life and I have a problem with that. Rather than something that gets diagnosed externally, you could look at with certain drug addictions where it's I don't think I have a problem, but someone from the outside could say, "No, chemically, there is an addiction. This is a problem here," versus with a lot of behavioral compulsion issues, oftentimes part of the diagnosis, as it were, is that the person has a problem with it.
It's like, I recognize this is bad and this is causing negative consequences, and yet I can't stop. I think that comes up a lot in these behavioral compulsions, like sex addiction or porn addiction or workaholism that sometimes it comes down to, do I think what I'm doing is a problem?
Dedeker: If I'm going to just project my own personal experience onto this, I feel like it's possible to encompass both of those because I do find myself as someone, I really enjoy the work that I do. I do feel really engaged with it. I do really want to be better at the work that I do and to do my best.
To a certain extent, that fuels some of the fulfillment and satisfaction that I get out of my own work and yet also, sometimes I will get to the end of the day, or I'll get to a weekend, or I'll get to some time that should be rest time and sometimes we'll hit that almost out of control of like, "I know it's not good for me to keep trying to respond to emails right now. I know this is supposed to be more relaxing time, but I feel like I have to. I feel like I can't relax."
That's interesting to hold both of those, that it's not necessarily a black and white. You have the positive work engagement versus you have the negative work addiction that I know in my own experience sometimes it's both comes up at different times.
Emily: Well, turning it off in general is pretty hard for us. It's funny, because yes, like I've been here in Osaka with you too for the last four days. Even when we weren't working, we were like going hard at other stuff, like site seeing or doing other things. I'm like, "Maybe that's just our personality is just that whatever we do, we just do it hard as it were.
Dedeker: Multiamory, we do it hard.
Jase: That's a good tagline. I like that. Let us know what you think, everyone. Should we change our tagline?
Emily: For the last two-and-a-half years, I decided, "Oh, I'm going to go start to work out more." I can't even do that half-ass. I work out, I'm like, "You have to work out every day." If you don't-
Dedeker: Do it.
Emily: Yes. If you don't do a big work out, you have to go for a walk or just do something that's pretty intense that gets you to your watch calories being where they need to be. My watch tells me it's been 750 days or something of me doing that of never-
Dedeker: Gosh, Emily. That's hard. Once they gamify it, and once you get the combo, you don't want to break the combo.
Emily: Yes. That's the problem. Anyways, I think that going hard on a lot of things in life is just in an interesting distinction too. It's like, how do you turn that off? We have another study here. This is a 2014 team study by Akihito Shimazu, Kimika Kamiyama and Norito Kawakami. Sorry, Dedeker, and all of you-
Dedeker: No, it's great.
Emily: -Japanese people out there. It was entitled Workaholism vs. Work Engagement: the Two Different Predictors of Future Well-being and Performance. It was published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. Essentially, the researchers were seeking to make a more distinctive definition between workaholism and work engagement. It says, "Workaholics are propelled by an obsessive inner drive they cannot resist, whereas, engaged employees are intrinsically motivated." Interesting. "Put differently, workaholism is characterized by high effort with negative effect, whereas work engagement is characterized by high effort with positive effect." Okay. Well, that's a nice distinction there.
Dedeker: There's something good here.
Jase: I can grab onto something there.
Emily: They surveyed 1,196 employees at an industrial machinery company in Tokyo, measuring workaholic characteristics as well as work engagement characteristics in addition to questions about things like fatigue and anxiety and depression, their physical health, their overall job satisfaction, and then also their satisfaction with their family and their ability to adequately complete assigned tasks and the production of novel and useful ideas.
What they found was that although workaholism and work engagement are positively and weakly related to each other, that they are two different non-overlapping concepts. Essentially, workaholism was significantly related to an increase in things like ill health and a decrease in life satisfaction between two surveys that these people took. However, workaholism was not significantly related to a decrease in job performance.
Jase: That's interesting.
Emily: They still did really good at their job, but they were just unsatisfied in other areas of their life.
Dedeker: Not happy about it.
Emily: Yes, and less healthy. Work engagement was significantly related to a decrease in ill health and an increase in both life satisfaction and job performance, again, after controlling for baseline levels of performance. You see where that's at. If you're just engaged in your work, then your life is better, you're happier, things like that, you're less ill. Fascinating.
Dedeker: That's interesting. The part where the workaholics didn't suffer from decreased job performance, to me that stands out as like, "Oh, okay." That means that there is baked into the system though something that I think motivates and rewards workaholic behavior still, the idea that you're still getting stuff done, and maybe that's even being rewarded or considered as good job performance even if it's negatively affecting-
Jase: You're a good employee.
Dedeker: Yes. You're still a good employee even if it's negatively affecting you, which is just-
Emily: That's tough.
Dedeker: -baked into the whole system.
Emily: They don't care. Just be a good employee. Your life can fall apart, but it doesn't matter.
Jase: It's also interesting that the study was done in Tokyo and Japan is notorious for a very pro-workaholic culture, that really encouraging long hours, that long hours are a base level sign of, you're doing a good enough job, not even you're an overachiever, but just you're doing enough.
To go back to what we talked about way back at the beginning about cultural differences too, that we've talked about this I think in past episodes just in passing, but studies comparing different cultures too, that a behavior that in one culture might be considered normal, in another culture would be considered extreme workaholism. On the other hand, what would be considered a normal healthy work-life balance and another culture might be considered being lazy and slacking off.
To us Americans, the idea of getting a month or two months off every year to just go wherever and do-- it's just like, "How do you get anything done? No wonder your countries are less powerful." I don't know what
Emily: Or having a siesta in the middle of the day. When going to Italy or France or whatever and having people just be a little bit more leisurely, that's nice. It does feel very different, and in America, you're like, "What are we doing? Why are we allowing ourselves this luxury of time?"
Jase: Right. A good one to look at there is when you just have time to hang out with your friends, how much do you feel this strive to be like, "What are we doing?" versus just spending time."
Emily: That's interesting.
Jase: I've noticed that's something I've gone back and forth through my life of how much I feel that compulsion to like, "What's the thing we're doing?" versus, "We're just getting together. We'll do something maybe if we want," but that's not the point. I just wanted to throw out there for people to think about.
Emily: I like that.
Dedeker: Let's look at how this behavior tends to affect people's relationships. We have this 2021 study by Malissa Clark, Emily Hunter and Dawn Carlson called Hidden costs of anticipated workload for individuals and partners: Exploring the role of daily fluctuations in workaholism. This was published in Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Now, this is a really interesting study and there are a couple gems that I pulled from this.
Basically, they were trying to analyze the relationship between the fluctuation of daily stressors or demands at one's job, as well as the fluctuations of workaholism, which they defined again as maladaptive and compulsive feelings, thoughts and behaviors toward one's work. Now, what's interesting about this is that the authors don't see workaholism as just a fixed state, but the idea that it can fluctuate and intensify or de-intensify according to what's going on in your work conditions.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: They were trying to track these fluctuations daily over a relatively short period of time, just over a period of 10 days. What's also unique about this is that the authors differentiate workaholism from work addiction, actually. They define workaholism as more like a personality trait rather than an addiction, which is fascinating.
Emily: I think that's how we see it in a lot of ways like, "Oh, he's just a workaholic."
Jase: Like a personality trait then. That's a specific disorder or something.
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: They also identified these two issues and I really like they made this distinction. They refer to them as spillover and crossover. Spillover is what happens when the impacts of one domain of life impacts another. For instance, I'm stressed at work and that impacts my life outside of work. Crossover is when the stresses and strain of one area of life begin to negatively impact someone who is close to you, like a partner. That then can result back in greater stress for you as well.
That I thought was really interesting for them to make a distinction about. The idea that my work takes up all my time, that really stresses my partner out. My partner is really wanting more time with me, and now I'm stressed out even more because my partner is also making demands of me and really wanting me to-- It's almost like this, I don't know, another spiral on the loop of trading stress back and forth which I thought was really fascinating,
Jase: It also just immediately made me think of relationships to metamours and multiple partners too. You could make that same distinction of spillover and crossover.
Dedeker: Exactly.
Emily: For sure.
Dedeker: It's so different where it's like, "Oh, my partner over here is having a really hard time. I need to take care of them and that's really depleting me. That means I have less energy for my other partner over here and that sucks." The crossover version is, "Oh, I have to take care of this partner A, over here, while they're having a hard time that's depleting my resources. Partner B is really upset that I have depleted resources and don't have as much time to give them, and then they're starting to make demands on me, which is now stressing me out doubly."
It's just the Hinge episode all over again. There it is. What they actually did for this study is it was a somewhat smallish sample. It was a sample of 121 employees that were in committed relationships and also who kept somewhat traditional working hours 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, the average length of the relationships was 10.7 years, so relatively long time-frame. The participants would fill out this daily diary survey twice a day.
In the morning, the survey would ask questions about their anticipated workload for that day. For instance, "On a scale of disagree-to-agree today, my job will require working very fast." They would give them a survey in the evening as well that would ask about the fluctuations in their workaholism, the compulsive thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and also their fatigue, so questions like, "Today, I often found myself thinking about work even when I was home," or asking them, "How mentally tired do you feel today?" They also sent surveys to their spouses in the evening.
Jase: Okay. That's where we get that crossover.
Dedeker: Yes. Asking them questions about, "Is there stress crossover? Is there relationship tension?" Asking the spouses questions like, "On a scale of agree-to-disagree, today I feel irritated or resentful about things my spouse or partner did or didn't do," or, "Today, I felt my partner brought work home with them in a way that negatively impacted our family."
What they found, first of all, was that perceptions of an anticipated workload each morning did correlate with higher reports of those compulsive feelings, thoughts, behaviors towards one's work, as well as higher experiences of evening fatigue.
Ever since I read that, that's been bouncing around in the back of my brain because I feel like this happens to me all the time that, if I'm heading into a workday feeling really keyed up as it were about, "Oh my God, I don't know how I'm going to get through today. I have so much on my plate, there's so much I have to juggle. My to-do list is so long," I think it makes sense there would be a correlation with having difficulty switching off. I think especially if you're rocketed into anxiety brain about your work, that is even when you get to the end of the day, it's still there. It doesn't just switch off in a really easy way.
I think probably as we could predict, they found that daily fluctuations and workaholism would cross over to negative spousal outcomes through multiple mechanisms. The partner has increased fatigue in the evening and then there's greater spousal perceptions of stress crossover. Partners are more frustrated that their partner that came home from work isn't fully present and still concerned with work. That was a lot to just explain that, yes, it affects your relationships.
Emily: It's cool that they did a study on that at all because it's important and not just like, "Does this thing exist?" rather like, "It clearly does, and how is it affecting people around you?"
Jase: I like that they also looked at the way it fluctuates and looking at it more as a personality trait that could vary over time because, at least, for me, it makes me hopeful that I have some influence over this.
That it's not just, "I have this problem and it's just always a problem, oh well," versus, "Okay. Maybe I have this drive, I have this trait." I might be able to have some control over how much do I let myself get worried about how much I have to do that day, because that might actually make me then more tired and probably less able to keep doing that amount of work versus finding ways to-- whether it's through different kinds of to-do lists or scheduling things for the future with a bullet journal or something to take some of that anxiety off of it, some of that, "Oh gosh, I've got so much coming up, so much coming up."
This came up just yesterday when the three of us went to Universal Studios as a fun little family trip.
Emily: You may have seen the Instagram post.
Jase: Yes. If you've been to a theme park as an adult, you get really tired partway through the day.
Emily: Or work at them, but really going to them is more tiring than working at them.
Jase: We're hitting that part of the day where we're getting really tired and I was also starting to feel stressed about how much work I had coming up this week and the fact that we're recording a bunch of episodes today and stuff like that. Dedeker told me about this study and was like, "Hey, you know what? Be in the moment because if you're thinking about you're actually just going to make yourself more tired." I was like, "All right."
Through that day I kept being like, "If I started thinking that going, 'No. Okay, I'm just going to try to focus on it right now,'" I was still tired, but it did maybe help a little bit with not being as bad off as I could have been.
Now, we're going to move into some things about how we can look at how this affects our lives and also how we can potentially improve our lives as well as some things to look out for. We wanted to quickly acknowledge this book called Chained to the Desk: A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children, and the Clinicians Who Treat Them, and this is by Bryan Robinson, came out in 2014.
A couple of the things that he mentions in this book, one is that a common dynamic between workaholics and their spouses or partners is being trapped in this circular pursuer-distancer dynamic. We've called this pursuit withdrawal before. The idea is that the workaholic wants distance because they feel like they need to focus on their work, and their thoughts are constantly drawn to that, and their partner wants emotional closeness.
The one wanting closeness will then pursue them and they'll pull away farther, which makes the pursuer pursue more. That can get into that cycle. It's very similar to the crossover thing that we were talking about, where it can then make the problem worse if you're unaware of it and not able to address it.
He also points out, as we're all aware, as we've talked about a few times now, that work addiction is what he calls a pretty addiction. By that he just means that our capitalist and competitive society can often mask the unhealthiness of work addiction by praising people for having such a good work ethic. This is especially problematic if the person who is the workaholic is also the one providing financially for the spouse, which then the spouse, who is worried about this or complains about this, can then be vilified as being ungrateful for how hard they're working to bring in, if not all the money, at least more of the money for the household.
Emily: We wanted to point out something that our researcher, Keyanah, said about non-monogamy and being really intensely workaholic or into working as much as maybe the three of us are into working. We're super into it.
She said that it may be worth noting from a non-monogamous perspective that the discrepancy in work across partners can have positive impacts, and she said that "This has been a feature of my polyamory journey because my husband/former nesting partner works a lot. I never felt the guilt of forming other relationships that some people describe initially because I never felt like I was abandoning him or spending less time with him. Also, because I traveled a lot for grad school, it felt like our professional lives were already our other partners, like profession equals other partners before we ever even opened up."
There's some transferable skills there around time management, not centering your partner or cultivating your own sense of self and independence, et cetera. I really like that. I love this idea that instead of needing to make one single thing the only facet of your life, the only thing that matters a lot of things, a lot of people, your work can be a part of that. That's just an additional facet of the thing that makes you the whole person that you are.
Dedeker: Well, it reminds me, Jase, I think you shared this with me, hopefully, I'm remembering this story correctly, about how one time when I was at your mom's house and I had a Zoom date with another partner scheduled, I was like, "All right, will see you. I'm going to go hang out on my Zoom date with this other partner," that your mom-- What was it she asked? She told you, "I don't know if I could share my partner like that." Just to give a caveat, Jase's mom is totally great and supportive of our relationship. It wasn't like an accusatory thing.
Jase: It was more of just like, "How are you feeling? Are you okay? I feel like I'd have a hard time having her go away." My answer was-
Emily: I'm like, "Oh, thank God."
Jase: -"No, I love it." Oh my gosh.
Dedeker: I don't remember if you made this argument to her or if you just told me about the thoughts you had about it later, but making that argument of like, "Even in a monogamous relationship you still 'share your partner and share your partner's time' with their job."
Emily: Also if your partner is at home a lot or works from home, the opportunity to get to go away from them and do something else is really nice. Let me tell you. It's great.
Dedeker: We can all tell you.
Emily: Yes, exactly. No, it's just great to have the opportunity for that. I don't know, it's challenging and this is difficult, but if you can frame it maybe differently in your mind about, "I get the opportunity to have time to myself or have time to cultivate the other things in my life that I really care about like, I don't know, I get to read or I get to play this video game, or I get to learn a language or something along those lines," that's great.
It's not just, "My partner doesn't love me enough and is gone all the time."
Jase: My relationship to having time away from a partner is so completely different now than it used to be years ago.
Dedeker: Likewise.
Jase: I think that it's much healthier now where it's that-- I get to enjoy both. I enjoy the coming back together and I also enjoy the, "Wow, this is great. I don't have to worry about what you think-
Emily: Anyone else.
Jase: -or what you want to do. I just get to do my own thing because you're off doing whatever else." I love that. Let's bring this all together of, what can we do about all of these things, whether we're worried about workaholism, work addiction-type behaviors, or just discrepancies in our lives? To start out, there is no documented treatment for workaholism, partly because it's not really a diagnosable thing right now. Though when it comes to behavioral addictions or behavioral compulsions, you could also think of it, cognitive behavioral therapy is the one that has the most evidence showing that it is effective for treating those types of problems. That's definitely something to look into, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy.
Another one is self-reflection. We're big fans of just being aware, know thy self as it were. Some questions to ask yourself is, "Does this behavior seem like work engagement and passion for what I do," which as we saw in that Tokyo study, still has you work a lot, but has more positive effects on your health and your well-being? or does this feel like a compulsion or is this driven by fear or a need to prove myself that's not intrinsically rewarding, but feels more external? In which case that could be more of that work addiction type behavior and that could have more negative effects for you.
All of this is great to talk to a therapist or potentially a trusted friend or someone to also help get some external opinions. Now, be aware that everyone's going to come in with their own biases about how much they work, the fact that my therapist, I see that his appointments are available from 6:00 AM until 8:00 PM or whatever, I'm like, "Okay, well, if I talk to you I'm going to have to realize you're coming from a certain place."
Something to be aware of there that maybe find a few people to talk about it or at least be honest about how it affects you, not just, "Is this or not?" but how's it affecting your life? What's the actual impact of this?
Dedeker: I will say actually that has been something that's been super helpful with my own therapist, because I do feel like I encompass both of those sometimes, is identifying where is it, this really nice positive life-fulfilling work engagement, and when is it just getting into a compulsion and it's addictive? My therapist has helped me come up with a lot of tools and tricks and different ways to think about it to help me be able to switch off or to notice the moments when it's switched into just negative effects rather than something that's fulfilling and enjoyable. Would highly recommend that for sure.
We wrote out a number of discussion prompts/questions to ask and to share along with a partner, and I think that these are all pretty broad open-ended questions that can be really helpful in general for everybody, but also if just there are differences and discrepancies in your relationship around all the things we mentioned at the beginning of the episode: time flexibility, access to vacation, discrepancies around who picks up more domestic labor, whose work it's considered more real or not, who likes their work, who dislikes their work.
Some questions that y'all can chew on together are things like just asking each other. How do you feel about your work? What does your work mean to you? How would you spend your time if money were no object and you didn't have to work? Maybe somewhat related to that is how do you imagine your work changing in the future? That's not just covering predictions, things like, "Oh, I think next quarter it's going to be busier or whatever," things like that, it also covers your dreams and wishes for how you want your work to change in the future.
I think that if you're finding yourself stuck in one of these areas with these discrepancies, something that you can do some self-reflection on, some journaling on, and then also potentially discuss with your partner, is examining what are you longing for from your partner here? If we take maybe just the easy example of, "I feel like my partner's a workaholic and I'm not, I feel like they work way too much or too many long hours and I don't," really look at what it is that you're longing for.
Is it, "I'm longing for downtime together, I'm longing for couch time together, or I'm longing for some kind of flexibility to do spontaneous plans together"? Get to the heart of what it is that's really deep down and that can help to spur some creativity about how we can actually meet that.
You can also ask yourself, what does your partner's behavior mean to you? I think this is one that I've used a lot in past relationships of really having to dive down into. If I'm the hyper-functioning perfectionistic over-worker and my partner is not, what's the story that I'm telling myself about their behavior and what that means about them and what that means about me? That's just some really interesting data, at the very least. Again, this could also be good fodder to share with a therapist.
I think another nice way to maybe even wrap up this conversation is to spend time with your partner where each of you share with each other what you feel like the other person contributes to the relationship, not just in their paid work but also their unpaid work as well.
I like this because I think this can encompass a wide variety of relationships not just the really traditional monogamous cohabiting couple, that maybe you never choose to entangle finances with your partner, maybe you never financially support each other, maybe you don't have any kind of work or money-related projects together, but you're both contributing to the relationship in some way, you're both working in some way. Being able to take inventory and take stock of what that is, I think can be really nice.
Emily: When you're talking about your work or your partner's work, really try not to minimize the stress that they're having and the stress that you see might be affecting them in a variety of ways. We have done this from time to time. We've fucked that up.
Dedeker: Oh, all the time. The three of us with our partners? Yes, all the time.
Emily: We do sometimes fall into this like, "Well, what I'm doing is more stressful than what you're doing," that kind of thing. That's definitely not ideal. Please try not to do that because that's really hard to hear. Honestly, even if something seems like it's easier to you, it's not necessarily easier to them. They may be going through a lot right now as well. Also just be willing to have real conversations about how each of your differing work situations and income situations impact your lives and your relationships.
Go back to the beginning of this episode when we talked about all of those different things that can influence what a person feels like within their work and their work-life balance. If you are somebody who is a gig worker versus somebody who has a nine-to-five, that is going to add additional stressors to your life potentially. Don't be afraid to talk about those things with your partner.
Dedeker: Different stressors.
Emily: Just different from one another. Discuss maybe ways to figure that out and make that not be such an issue to the two of you.
Jase: I do want to emphasize the power of finding ways to work together towards something, while also acknowledging each other's circumstances. It's not like, "Let's work together for you to work less necessarily, or for you to work more, or for you to change your job or whatever." That's like, "I'm going to come along and solve your problem," which I don't think is always-- is usually not as helpful as you think it's going to be from my own experience as well as so many people that I've watched go through that.
Being able to act as a team with your partner, and this is doing something like a regular check-in radar, can be really helpful for that, but this is actually an issue that Dedeker and I have gotten a lot better at recently in the last six months or so. I started a new job a little over a year ago, maybe a year-and-a-half ago, and ended up with a lot less flexibility in terms of travel and vacations and working hours and things like that.
It was a choice that I knew going in, but it did lead to some conflict and some challenges for us where Dedeker would feel frustrated that I wasn't willing to take time off of work, and then I would feel frustrated that I felt like something that's just not possible was being demanded of me, and that led to some conflict.
For us, it was the turning point, and I'm curious if you agree, Dedeker, was when we had that conversation about, "Let's just sit down and identify these are the facts, this is the circumstance, this is how much time I can expect to get off and here, these are the things that are going to limit that, but then here are the advantages I do have in terms of flexibility and things like that. These are the areas that are flexible and these are the ones that are not. Let's talk about moving forward when we're trying to make plans or figure things out." Then it's us together trying to figure out, "How do we work within that?" versus, "This is all my domain," and then you could just be frustrated at me rather than, maybe both of us going, "Gosh, we'd like to make that work. How can we?" I think that for me was a big change and has felt a lot better when we've had those conversations.
Dedeker: Gosh, we repeat ourselves on this podcast all the time. It is a theme of just when we-- I think we swap from the "you versus me" into, a "it's us versus the problem." I didn't even feel like it was us versus a problem. For me it was really important to know that we're united in understanding what's important together, what's important as far as the right ratio of work time, to free time, to vacation time, to date time, and things like that. That helped, to have a sense of, "We're both coming from very different work circumstances, but we're both trying our best, bearing in mind, again, those flexible and inflexible areas to at least be united in our pursuit of a common goal if you will."
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: That'll help.
Emily: I love that.