Partners for life (and work)

We hear quite a bit about separating work  and home, work life balance… About keeping not bringing back work and keeping these two parts of our lives as separate as possible.

To be extremely honest, I have never been very successful at that. I used to bring home work and work from home and even discuss work issues with husband(he does the same too). So in reality, we have never been able to separate these two aspects of our life completely. While we used to find this quite routine, I was quite surprised to meet people separate these two aspects very religiously. They do not discuss work with their spouses at all. And some who call their spouses to update them on every thing that happens at work. We were more mid-way. We tend to discuss only at home 🙂

It also makes me wonder in amazement how couples work together in the same organization and some even in the same project/teams. We know several people who work together – and manage it fabulously.  For husband and me, that was a total no-no. We used to work in the same organization before we got married – but he moved on and we have never worked together ever since – consciously. Both of us are very sure that we would find it extremely difficult to do so.

One, it would bring all the politics and work issues home and it would be difficult for us to separate it out and view it dispassionately. Knowing the two of us, with all the discussions and dissections of issues that we do at home, we felt it would be too difficult to manage.

Two, working in the same team – is an even bigger no-no. Both our egos would clash and clash big time 🙂 We would surely end up fighting at work as well as at home 😦 So all the fights at home would go to work and vice versa 🙂

My previous company had policies which were quite conducive to spouses working together. Though they had a rule that spouses could not work with each other in direct reposting situations. I always wonder how it feels. I mean, there have been instances where a woman’s progress is sometimes attributed to her husband’s profile in the organisation. While it might be true in some cases, I have seen a mind block among people who assume that women progress because of their husbands – the reverse, however, I have never heard of! I would have hated it, if my success was attributed to my husband’s position in the organization. I worry that my ‘spousal’ identity would come before my work identity.

I knew of someone who actually used his position in the organisation to get his wife’s lead to let her go home at 5 every day! Again -I am quite sure that this is a very,very rare situation.

Of course, there are several couples who manage the work -life balance perfectly while working together. They compliment each other perfectly. Maintaining the professional balance while at work and being able to leave work behind while at home.

Like any other relationship, this is something that people need to work at, to be successful at it. Again, is might not be suitable for all types of personalities, it is something that can be worked at, if the need arises.

Also, I wonder if the objections I have, hold good if we were to start something of our own together. Where both of us would be owning it. I have a feeling that, that might not be as difficult to do.. Or it might just be my ignorance talking 🙂

For me, as of now, partnering with husband at work is just not something I would want to do. What about you? Are you partners at home and work?