My wife will jokingly/seriously tell people she is a workaholic. She has done this for years, but I just attributed it to her meaning she has good work ethic and loves to work. Recently though, I had a realization that she hasn’t taken real time off in over a year. She’ll take time off, but still bring her laptop or phone along with whatever activity we’re doing. Road trip, cruise, weekend getaway, she has always worked on something or at the very least, answered questions from coworkers. She has been screwed over by bad employers in the past so I’m pretty surprised she’s this devout.
I asked her this morning if she even realizes that she seems to over prioritize work (sometimes more than family time) and she got defensive saying she just wants our family to be comfortable. While I love that, it’s just so odd to me that she doesn’t seem to care about taking time off even though her job offers unlimited PTO and her boss has told her to take a full week off every quarter “so you can come back refreshed.” (I know unlimited PTO can sometimes mean no PTO, but that’s not the case at my wife’s job.) She just seems incapable of signing off completely, actually taking a real break and focusing on other things 100%. She has said if she’s sitting around, she feels like she’s wasting time and if we’re not doing anything, she might as well be productive.
She works fully remote, is salary and is expected to work 40 hours a week. Sure, sometimes there’s a big project that takes more time, but that’s rare.
I tried to come from a place of love and caring, but she didn’t take it that way. We’re going to have a sit down conversation later and go over our goals, concerns, etc. to make sure we’re on the same page.
Biggest thing for me is I don’t feel like she’s making family/marriage a priority. I feel like we’re on the back burner. There’s obviously worse things she could be “addicted” to, but this is the issue staring me in the face.
In 20 years, the only people who will remember she worked a lot are her family since she missed out on so much time with them.
Am I overreacting? I just feel like she has developed some unhealthy habits.