If your partner is chatting intimately about his life more to his work wife than you, your relationship is in danger.
Is this really so surprising?
In our so-called Information Age, where everyone is ‘connected, have we forgotten everything we used to know about real intimacy?
Studies showed that about 71% of people thought they already had a ‘work wife’ without realizing it.
Why is it a problem? It’s about misplaced emotional intimacy, not sexual intimacy.
All the ups and downs at work, the hours shoulder-to-shoulder trying to finish projects or hit goals together. The social media keeping everyone connected long after everyone clocks out, you might even know your ‘work wife’ better than your actual spouse.
This is what makes work ‘marriages’ so special: this person has seen you at your best and at your worst. They accept you, flaws and all.
And that’s why they are so dangerous.
‘I’m much more likely to admit to doing something stupid to Lucy, my work wife, because I want my real wife to see me at my best,’ says James, who has worked with Lucy for six years and spends nearly every lunch hour with her.
‘I don’t like showing vulnerabilities to my real wife in case it makes her respect me less.’
Lots of men think they’re doing the right thing saving the ‘best’ of themselves for their romantic partner but it destroys relationships rather than nurtures them.…One particular couple were going through a tortuous IVF experience. The husband refused to talk about how he felt about the numerous miscarriages to his wife – but had no problems talking to his work wife.
His real wife found out through another friend that he’d been crying on the shoulder of a friend at work who’d ‘got him through it all’.
‘Those were his actual words,’ she said. ‘I was furious and confronted him about it and he was genuinely perplexed as to why I was upset.
‘He said he thought I was going through enough without him off loading his emotions on me.’
She found it such an emotional betrayal, the relationship didn’t recover and they split a few months later.
This may come as a shock to people. But a big part of the point of marital intimacy isn’t just what happens between the sheets — it’s the ‘mingling of souls’, and sharing the journey of life together.
The Effeminization Of The American Male
by Doug Giles
Doug Giles, best-selling author of Raising Righteous And Rowdy Girls and Editor-In-Chief of the mega-blog, ClashDaily.com, has just penned a book he guarantees will kick hipster males into the rarefied air of masculinity. That is if the man-child will put down his frappuccino; shut the hell up and listen and obey everything he instructs them to do in his timely and tornadic tome. Buy Now:The Effeminization Of The American Male
