Workaholic husbands often find to their dismay that they end up without a family. Nearly 50% of divorces are initiated by women whose husbands are too busy at work to find time for their wives and children. Wives are becoming more assertive in expressing their needs and expectations. Husbands cannot simply be providers. Many women have become financially independent and therefore less dependent on their husbands to bring home the bacon. What women today are looking for are partners who treat them as equals, share domestic responsibilities, help raise and discipline children, and work toward emotional intimacy in marriage.
Some reasons why men become workaholics:
• Traditional education: From childhood, men are raised with the belief that they are mere providers and protectors. They must be hard-working, logical, brave and assertive. Girls learn to be obedient, submissive, efficient in housework and in raising and caring for children. They must also meet the needs of men.
• Excessive ambition: Some men are obsessed with their work. Your sense of self-worth comes from your reputation at work, excellence in your profession, financial integrity, and recognition from your colleagues and society at large.
• Wife’s financial independence: Men don’t mind successful wives as long as they are less successful than they are. But if a wife is better placed in her job, her husband may unconsciously resent her. The competition takes over. Her ego drives him to work overtime until he catches up with her or surpasses her.
• A boring marriage: The man would rather spend more time at his job than go home to a nagging and complaining wife.
• An exhausted wife: The children and housework have exhausted all her energy. She walks around like a zombie, performing the tasks that she has to finish and then collapses on the bed from exhaustion. The husband feels abandoned and prefers to stay longer at work or socialize with friends.
• Infidelity: The man may have fallen out of love with his wife. He uses the job as a cover for his flirtations.
• Extended family: In-laws living at home can interfere and create tension between husband and wife. The man stays away as long as he can, to avoid friction.
• A spendthrift wife who is happy spending her husband’s money and doesn’t care if her husband is home or not, as long as he gives her money to spend.
Causes of disconnection:
No “together” time:
– A man who spends long hours at work and comes home late, is too tired or irritable to talk to his wife or listen to her problems. He hastily eats dinner, then spends a few minutes watching the news on TV and falls to bed exhausted.
– A man in love with his work is usually a megalomaniac. He may be socially, economically, or politically successful and expect his wife to be his servant. Marrying such a man can be hell. Many real life examples come to mind.
Leo Tolstoy, a famous novelist and a staunch Christian, took pity on his servants and freed them, but treated his wife and family miserably. After his death, Sonya wrote: “There was little genuine warmth in him… No one will ever know that he never gave his wife rest, and never in all these thirty-two years, did he give his son a drink of water or He spent five minutes at his bedside, to give me a chance to rest a bit from all my work.”
Albert Einstein, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was a tyrant who expected total compliance from his wife. “You will stop talking to me if I ask you to.” “You will not expect any intimacy.”
Jane Walsh Carlyle, writer, was married to Thomas Carlyle, author and essayist. She had to put her own career on hold to provide him with a quiet home environment and carefully protect him from noise and unwanted visitors. She sacrificed her own talent to further the ambition of this “man of genius”. She treated her like a maid and was indifferent to her needs.
– Famous men such as artists, musicians or movie stars who are away from home for long periods of time are often neglectful of their wives. Being surrounded by sycophantic admirers, they are prone to multiple relationships.
Effect on wives:
1. Loneliness: Women do not find a meaningful relationship within the home nor do they have time to cultivate friendships outside. They are isolated in a cocoon of solitude. Self-esteem plummets. They feel insecure, fall into depression, and in some cases even commit suicide.
2. Professional women have to deal with the dual responsibilities of managing the home and performing well at their jobs. When they don’t get support from their husbands, they may look elsewhere for sympathy. Extramarital affairs have been known to occur. Divorce is the easy way out.
3. Professional women are often under a lot of stress, especially when they don’t have the support or encouragement of their spouses. Stress-related illnesses such as hypertension, heart disease, depression, or psychosomatic illnesses may occur.
4. Such a woman may be too strict with her children or too indulgent. Delinquency, drug or alcohol addiction, school dropouts, and rampant social media can follow.
How to turn a workaholic into a caring husband:
• Good communication: A workaholic may not be aware of his wife’s simmering discontent. He may seem happy doing housework for her while she harbors resentment against the man who treats her like a robot, expecting her to keep her house in order and warm her bed at night. The woman must take the initiative in informing him of her needs and expectations, but she must also learn the art of communication. No scolding, pleading or scolding. She doesn’t rush him with a list of complaints as soon as she walks in the door after a hard day’s work. She should lovingly communicate her needs to him when he is in a receptive mood, and preferably when they are alone.
Being confrontational could backfire. Marriage must be lived daily. It requires the responsible participation of both partners. Each one must contribute time and love to keep it going. Home responsibilities are not demeaning. They are opportunities for loving service. While browsing in a bookstore, the title of a book caught my eye. He said, “I take out the garbage because I love you.” The value of interdependence in daily tasks, in the mutual care and discipline of children, cannot be emphasized enough. Decisions on important issues must be a joint effort.
“Give your partner the best you have and God will give you in return the best marriage you could ever want,” says JA Petersen.
• Achieve a healthy balance between work and home: one must learn to prioritize. Professional activity may have to be pruned in deference to a happy marriage. This also applies to working women. Successful women should not give their husbands an inferiority complex. An atmosphere of openness and determination to resolve conflicts will help resolve problems.
• Appreciation of the couple: Men need to show their affection through words and deeds. A middle-aged man with three children said that he struggled to find something new every day to compliment his wife. I’m sure his wife appreciated his kindness and she loved him even more.
• The gift of time: A man who spends time with his wife confirms that she is valuable to him. Some men stay at the office to escape household chores or meet the demands of the children or avoid spending time with their wives.
Some work overtime to earn more money for a luxurious lifestyle and a relaxed retirement. But in the process, they may lose the love of their wives and families and may not live long enough to enjoy a peaceful retirement. It’s not worth buying your way out of family time.
• If work is just an excuse to get away from a boring marriage, then it’s time to dig deeper and discover the cause of the problem. What makes the wife happy or unhappy, excited or bored? The man must be proactive in approaching him. He must express a genuine interest in her likes and dislikes and show her that he cares. He must focus on what is best for both of them as a couple. Going out on a date or a vacation with her and finding forms of recreational companionship would make the marriage more exciting.
• Is physical intimacy lacking? There should be open discussions about it. Are the reasons physical, psychological or emotional? Sex is an integral and inseparable part of married life. Michael Warner says, “Couples should schedule a time for physical intimacy.” A family therapist advised: “Teach your children to respect the closed door.” If your problems cannot be resolved through discussion and negotiation, you should seek outside help from doctors, counselors, or psychotherapists. If your love life is stagnant, it will create a permanent barrier to your relationships.
Workaholics need to remember that too much work and too many hours away from home will kill intimacy. Therefore, priorities must be organized and non-essential jobs must be abandoned in favor of home and family. The word “too busy” is unacceptable to the modern woman. Many marriages fail because successful men turn out to be ‘rogue husbands’. Women need husbands who validate their lives as equal partners and make them feel valued, loved, and cared for.
