Remote work has given so many people the opportunity to spend time with their families. Working professionals can now work from home with their partners, roommates, and children. While working from home with your partner can be a boon, it can also become a quarrel nest. The more time you spend with your partner without having any personal space, the more the chances and reasons for arguments. There are ways to avoid such situations. This article will equip you with 7 useful tips to work from home with your partner.
Before jumping into action, let’s understand how working from home affects your relationships.
Does Working From Home Affect Relationships?
Once you’ve safely set your home office according to your preferences it’s the time to deal with your partner’s desires. Here are some facts that burst the bubble that your relationship will stay unaffected when working from home:
- 64% of workers think being able to work from home would improve their sex life and benefit their romantic relationship, according to to a new survey. However relationship experts reveal that problems such as an imbalance of responsibilities in the couple’s chores or feelings of loneliness could lead to conflict.
- According to Ramani Durvasula, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Santa Monica, California, another issue for couples is when one partner works remotely and has to take care of all the household responsibilities.
- According to Durvasula, another common problem is “the sweatpant paradox.” Work from home professionals have the advantage of being able to work in their pajamas. While this is good for the individual, it could end up affecting your sex life adversely as you’re not dressing up differently or grooming yourself often as you would if you were going to an office.
As you can see, it’s not just quarrels and arguments that will escalate and the imbalance of chores that will enter the scene, but your sex life will get dull too while you work from home. Don’t let this worry you because there are ways to conquer these challenges which we will discuss now.
7 Tips To Peacefully Work From Home With Your Partner
1. Separate Work and Personal Time
The best way to not let work and personal life get into each other’s space is to set a routine and a strict schedule that separates your personal life from your professional one. No personal talks or chores during working hours and no work during your personal time.
It’s very easy to slip away from this schedule while working from home so it’s best to set up alarms or reminders for when your work timings are up. When these alarms go off, no matter what you’re doing, you must stop.
Ignoring your mental and emotional needs as a remote worker can cause you severe consequences and, in some cases, even damage your psychological health. There’s always an “it will just take 10 more minutes to finish my project” because you worry about your deadlines but know that it also translates to “it will take just 10 more minutes to annoy your partner that will ruin your entire day.” Be disciplined about the schedules and stick to them to maintain work and relationship harmony.
2. Fair Division of Home Chores
Whether you’re both working from home or just one of you is a remote worker, the division of household chores should still be equal. For example, if one of you is working from home, you can take care of the laundry, dishes, etc., and the other one who works in an office can drop the children at school on their way to work and cook dinner after they’re back from work.
Divide chores based on who’s comfortable with what and what’s feasible for each of you.. Keeping a good balance in personal responsibilities in a way that suits each one can help avoid resentment and pent-up frustrations that lead to arguments.
However, if you haven’t figured out a way to work comfortably from home, here you’ll find some useful tips to improve your remote working experience.
3. Separate Your Work Areas
If both of you work from home, it’s best to have separate working areas in the home that each of you is comfortable with. Everyone has their own working style. . If one of you likes to have a neat workspace with minimal stuff on the work table while the other one is a little messy and likes to have everything spread out, it’s good to work in separate rooms altogether to avoid distractions.
If you work in the same room, it’s best not to work right next to each other if your work styles are very different. You can also schedule different break times during your working hours to get some time alone.
4. Little Things Matter
While you and your partner work from home, it’s easy to stop sending texts, notes, or emails to each other. After all, you’re right in front of each other. However, let’s not take that spark away and let it go on instead. While it’s true that there’s no “need” to send little love notes or cute stuff to each other anymore about how much you miss them, know that these little things matter.
Send each other appreciation emails for something as small as cooking dinner, too. It is sure to bring a smile to your partner’s face in the middle of their workday. It could change their mood instantly and can even affect their work positively. And probably, they can’t wait for work to get over so that they can spend time with you, even when you’re at home all the time already!
5. Give Each Other Space
Working from home with your partner means being together all the time. This is why having your own alone time from time to time helps keep arguments and frustrations away. You can decide on the days and hours in a week that you’ll need to yourself and your partner can do the same. For example, you can just go to a separate room for the decided hours and shut the door to enjoy some time alone, or you can even decide on having a Monday and Wednesday to yourself.
This can work out well if both partners understand the need for alone time. Alone time helps you recharge your energy and rejuvenate yourself from all the stress. This can boost the health of your relationship because you both have that alone time to vent out and diffuse your frustrations and won’t be unleashing them on each other.
6. Go Out On Dates
While we all know weekends are amazing for dates as there’s no pressure of work and you get ample time to spend with your partner, that’s not the case when you’re home all the time. You’re always in front of each other, and this can quickly lead to boredom and to stop putting effort in date nights and other activities.
It’s common for you both to feel like there’s no need to go out on a date anymore. After all, isn’t it a 24X7 date now? No. It isn’t because even though you’re with each other all the time, you’re not on a date. You’re working, taking care of the chores or children, indulging in alone time, but where’s the date? Where’s the fun of dressing up to go out for dinner or the movies and create memories?
And it’s not just about going out. You could very much indulge in a Netflix and chill date with your partner at home. Dates help you connect with your partner and do things together. You get time to talk, have fun together, and learn more and more about each other as you grow. Don’t underestimate the power of dates to strengthen your relationship.
7. Support Each Other In Work
Even though you’re working together at home, you likely have different professions and work for different companies . While it’s important to separate your workspaces to work peacefully and focus on individual work goals, it’s also important to cheer each other up on work-related achievements and help each other achieve work goals. This helps you and your partner feel supported on the career path. You share a life together, and work is a big part of your lives.
You could occasionally take a break together during your work hours to discuss individual work-related issues and advise each other on how to overcome challenges at work. You can also motivate each other by creating a wall to put notes about goals and milestones. This can boost your and your partner’s productivity while you connect professionally.
Love Always Wins
Working from home has come as a boon to you. You should be grateful for this opportunity because you can now spend all your time in close proximity to your partner. Love grows with understanding each other better, and when it comes to working from home, it’s much easier to connect with your partner than it is to do so from a distance. Ask anyone in a long-distance relationship, and they’d be willing to give up anything to trade places with you. You don’t know what you have until you get into someone’s else’s shoes. Embrace it while you’re in yours.
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day. But I wanna do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.”
– Noah, ‘The Notebook.’
