When Your Spouse Is Also Your Coworker – The Ups and The Downs

When you have to compete with your spouse as a co- worker, you can have both positive and negative impacts.

The rate at which our society is progressing demands more time in the work space. As human beings, we are evolving and so are our functions.

Each and every individual is in a constant competition against the rest; each and every individual tries to develop themselves and upgrade themselves.

Hence, they strive to work more. According to Freud, normality is that capacity of the human psyche which is to love and work.

This is the reason, we all bond with our colleagues. Human beings are social animals by nature. When a group of people is working together, it is natural for them to develop a bond with each other.

For example, let’s take a team of chefs. They work together in a restaurant. While cooking or baking, they share a word among each other, crack jokes and even go out together after work. We are neither robots nor humanoids. While working, we need a break and invest our emotions. This is the normal state of every human psyche.

Now, what if your spouse is your colleague too? That’s probably the best thing that can ever happen.It’s a great feeling to work with your spouse.

You get to work and date at the same time. You get to see your significant other all through the day.

Lunches are romantic. Yes, who wouldn’t love to have lunch with their spouses every single day? Dinners too are planned.

You guys can have your couple-time too in between work. You have always admired this kind of lifestyle and you are living it.

But wait. Hold your breath for a while. It’s true that in this age where people devote most of their time working, it’s a boon to have your better-half working with you, remember, there are two sides of the same coin.

There are some positive as well as negative aspects to this seemingly fairy-tale.

So, you need to understand the Ups and Downs of working with your spouse and decide what’s best for you.

Here is the list:

The Ups

(1) Time management:

Having your spouse working with you saves a lot of your time. You can see your significant other most of the time.

Of course, you cannot consider your workplace as your personal room but the very fact of seeing each other and being with each other, working is probably the best thing anyone would want to have.

Since the two of you work together, it’s easy for you to manage time in between work, like go out for a quick lunch date or a movie right after work.

When your spouse works elsewhere, you need to schedule your date according to their time which might clash often and you might need to wait for a long time to have some quality time with your better-half.

(2) Stress management:

According to research, couples who work together tend to be more resistant to stress. When you have your spouse working you, you have their support.

If you are going through a difficult moment, you have your partner with you. This keeps you away from professional stress.

You also have your spouse to understand why you are acting in a certain way or why you have done a particular thing.

Read 6 Things You Can Do To Reduce Mental Stress

(3) Fewer problems in your relationship:

When your spouse works with you, they understand and they themselves go through the same professional environment and this lessens a lot of problems in your relationship.

Suppose you have a big project going on and you can hardly give time to your family. You spouse will not make a big issue out of it. Rather, they will be supportive.

Or suppose you have this really close colleague of yours belonging to the opposite sex with whom you like to hang out with.

You spouse will not create any issue because they know how you are at work. In fact, since your spouse works with you, they can help you in managing your family well.

(4) Fewer chances of getting cheated at work:

Having your spouse working you decreases chances of getting cheated. Even if you have a fight, they will not go and complain to your boss.

Even if you have arguments, they will not bitch about you in front of others.

You two are in a relationship and you two know how to deal with fights. Last but not the least, your spouse will not be jealous of your shining career. This saves you from a lot of professional hazards.

(5) You tend to get less burn out in your professional life:

You are less prone to get exhausted in your career when your spouse is there working with you.

Your spouse will keep on inspiring you and will help you professionally and unconditionally because of the relationship you share.

Your spouse will keep you motivated. So, your productivity will not get worn away and even at retirement, you will feel the same enthusiasm to work like the time when you joined your work some decades ago.

(6) Greater focus on work:

You have your spouse working with you. So, you can manage all the schedules of your family life accordingly. You don’t need to drop them or wait to get dropped by them at work because you go together.

There’s absolutely no need to worry about coming home late for dinner and see a grumpy face of your better-half. Both of You can plan your vacations accordingly. This gives you a lot of time to focus on work and you can be extremely productive.

Working with your spouse comes with a lot of advantages. In the era we live, a lot of people are choosing this kind of relationships because it is extremely healthy and fruitful.

Read Emotional Contagion at Work: How to Stop Absorbing a Coworker’s

The Downs

(1) You don’t advance in your career and if you do, it’s slow:

In a professional environment, you always compete against your peers. Now, you have your spouse as your colleague. Since you two are bonded, you would never want to outshine your spouse.

According to research, women are the ones who get affected most when they are working with their spouses or when their spouses are their business partners.

Usually, a working woman is fiercely independent. If she an entrepreneur, she will lead her life according to her own ways.

But when her husband is there as a partner or as a colleague, she will be her feminine self and lose her independence. She will depend on him at every step and thereby lose her credentials. She will mix her professional and personal life and will fail to advance in her career.

So, if you are a woman who is working with her husband, be sure to make a clear distinction between your professional and personal life.

Depending on your husband in professional sphere is not love; it’s an act of foolishness. The truth is, if you grow more, you will be cherished by your spouse more. Every man loves strong, independent woman. Don’t lose your individuality.

Read Signs of A Toxic Person At Work : Workplace Bullying and Ways To Stop It

(2) You will be biased:

It’s the basic tendency of human beings to favor the ones they love. Imagine a situation. Your better-half is your boss and you have been selected along a few others for promotion.

Who will he promote? Of course, you.

The reason is plain and simple. Your better-half wants to see your success. If he doesn’t, will you not be upset? Every individual thinks they are the best in work.

So, if you are not selected, you will be upset, more so when you see the power rests with your significant other. Either your spouse will choose you or will be forced to choose you in order to make you happy.

This will affect professional lives of others around too and might cause dispute among your colleagues.

(3) Relationship issues will interfere in your work:

You two had a fight in the morning and need your own space. But you have to go to work together and do things together.

A slight difference in opinion there and your personal fight will get instigated. This is likely to cause a lot of tension between the two of you and hamper your work. Your colleagues will get unnecessarily dragged into this and the whole team will suffer.

If you already have some larger issues in your personal life, the tendency will be there in you to bring it up in your professional life.

Even the opposite can happen. You two might have professional issues and you eventually drag them to your bedroom.

Whatever the case be, your relationship will suffer and might end up in a divorce. There have been many incidents when people have been forced to change jobs because of their ex-husbands or ex-wives.

(4) The increase of politics in the workplace:

Nobody will see how much professional you or your spouse is. Whenever a couple is working together, everyone will believe that they will favor each other always even if you two don’t do that in reality.

As a result, your colleagues are bound to talk about you or get involved with dirty politics against you. They will always consider you as a married couple and not as individual professionals.

We all live in a society where we are governed by our emotions and our instincts. The workplace is one of those crucial areas of our lives where we exist along with other individuals and whatever happens to us is related, affected by, and affects our colleagues too.

Hence, dragging the personal life there makes the situation more complicated. If one succeeds in avoiding these disadvantages, then one can settle with their spouse who is also their colleague.

Good luck!