Work is work; Love is love.

Relationships take work and require boundaries. Your relationship will most likely fail without them. One of the best things for your key personal relationship is to put specific and healthy boundaries that separate your home life and work life from each other. Boundaries keep your best relationship secure, solid,and significant, and they’re freeing. Better yet, boundaries allow you to relax when in the different environments. From our practice working with couples, we’ve noted three profoundly essential work-life/home-life boundaries for healthy relationships.

1. Keep your work relationships professional, not intimate (Secure).

Intimacy is for family, close friends and/or your spouse. We profess our love, but what do our actions actually communicate? When you are at work, focus and do well for your work, your employer, your employees, your business. Your relationships at work fulfill the purpose of your work. Can you have close relationships at your job? Absolutely, as long as they don’t compromise your relationship with your significant other, the one who loves you most of all!

While at work, it’s a good idea to focus talk about work, particularly if you are communicating with someone that could be a concern or relationship threat. Your more personal conversations are for your partner, your close friends and family. Have emotional and private conversations with only those people that will protect your marriage or committed relationship from inappropriate chats or behaviors, not pull you into something that could compromise you both.

So, when out on a business trip or after-work gathering, make sure to protect your relationship. Avoid spending time alone with just one person, stay in groups. Allowing someone to pull you away “just to talk” or because he or she wants to do something separate from the others, can put you in a real or perceived improper situation. Want a beer with work friends? Go ahead, have a beer. ONE. Then go home. Your home life is more valuable than another beer or building rapport that might come in the way of your more important relationships.

Another way to maintain your work-life strategy is to be proud of your love relationship at home. He/she depends on your faithfulness, connection, and pride in the relationship. Be proud that you have a friend, a confidant, and lover at home. If others know how special your spouse or partner is, they will be less inclined to push or cross the inappropriate boundary line.

2. Communicate regularly with your partner (Solid).

Your partner and/or family want to know they are important to you. A quick text, a phone call during your lunch time,or a sticky note left in a place he or she will find it can make someone feel special and valued. When you have long days, working extra hours, this becomes even more significant. Letting your partner know as soon as you know (for extra hours), communicating about when to expect you home, how to contact you if needed, and responding when he or she reaches out helps keep that connection strong and eliminates trust concerns.

3. When not at work, DISENGAGE! (Significant)

When you leave the office or your workday, that is time that you focus on your relationships and life at home. You put the down your phone, your computer stays in the bag, you are “not available” to work situations. No emails, no phone calls, no working-at-home during this time. Set times when you completely separate from your work. This helps your partner know that they truly are your significant other.

When you need to talk about work at home, especially when you need to vent about a bad day, set a timer. When the timer goes off – the conversation is done! Now it’s time to return to your non-work life! You can use the Pomodoro Method for this (click here for more information on that method-and other ways to use a timer to be more efficient).

The best gift you can give yourself or your spouse/partner is trust built by solid, healthy boundaries. Healthy work-homelife boundaries makes you a better business person too! Here are the facts: Employment disengagement due stress, including relationship stress, based on studies facilitated by Queens School of Business means:

37% higher absenteeism
49% more accidents
60% more errors and defects
18%lower productivity
16% lower profitability
37% less job growth

Your most significant relationship deserves your most meaningful protection. Work-Life boundaries help keep your relationship secure, solid and significant, in a meaningful way, and your business life solid. Practice building work boundaries for the good of your relationship.

Employers, managers, and supervisors here are significant ways you can support your team, the health of their families, and the health of your business.

Provide relationship counseling as a benefit.
When you notice potential trouble, reach out.
Provide a shortlist of counselor names & contact info.
Provide self-care ideas/resources & related coupons (i.e. massage, workout centers, bike trails map).

You’ll never regret adding relationship counseling as an added benefit to your business and work environment. Define what that looks like, and then make it happen!

Learn more about securing your relationship with these advanced keys to your best version of you, in your best relationship, here: https://realconnectionscounseling.com/marriage-counseling-articles/five-keys-that-can-greatly-enhance-even-save-your-relationships/