Help! My Spouse is A Workaholic | The Naked Marriage Podcast | Dave & Ashley Willis

Hey there and welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we address the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. And if you're watching on YouTube, we are here in the XO Marriage Studio, and we would love for you to come join us sometime here in South Lake, Texas, the marriage capital of the world. You can come have a coffee at our amazing cafe called Exopress. And I just had a pumpkin spice latte with oat milk.

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Yes. I know he loves his chais later in the day, but we want you guys to join us. You can come watch us. You know, we are staring at glass because the cafe looks right into the studio and so you can hear us, you can see us, and we'd love to meet you. So come anytime to the ExoMarage center in South Lake, Texas. You can go to exomarage.com for more information. And today we have a really important episode. Right, sweetie?

Yeah. Yeah, we really do. So we're in this whole kind of theme. Help my spouse is fill in the blank. And today is my spouse is a workaholic. You know? You know, what do we do when my spouse is so driven that they're just. They're giving all their energy to work and maybe they feel like they have to. Maybe they feel like, well, my job is to be a provider, and that's what I'm doing. I mean, a good provider. And certainly we're called to be providers. But when kind of our ambition pulls us out of the house so much that our whole identity gets wrapped up in work, Our priority is work and family. And marriage always takes the back burner, is never the priority.

That.

That's out of balance, you know, there's no amount of success outside the home that's worth sacrificing success inside the home. Your relationships are the most important part of your life. Your relationship with God, your relationship with your family, like everything else, is way below that on the list of priority. And our jobs are important, but really they're only important as a way to support our family and to be a light out in the workplace, wherever we are. But if it's just about the dollars, it's just about climbing the ladder. That's an empty pursuit. Because your job, I mean, you could die. Your family, you're irreplaceable at your family. Your job is they're gonna replace you right away. Saw both a Funny. And a sad sign. It was online, so I didn't actually see it, but I saw the picture of it and it was like a fast food place. And it said, RIP Chris. And then right below it it said, help wanted.

Oh my gosh.

Man. That's life, right? I mean, your job, yeah, they'll miss you, but they're going to replace you fast. So you can't wrap up your identity in something. You could lose. Some people. I think, especially some of us as men, we can find our identity in work. Like, that's who I am. Whatever titles on my business card, that's who I am. No, that's not who you are. You're a child of God. And that's not even your most important role. Your job's not your most important role. Your husband, father, like, those are the things that only you can do. And if, yeah, if you're finding that in work instead, you're missing out.

So true. You know, years ago, I wrote an article called 5 Workplace Habits that Could Harm youm Marriage. And I wanted to share some of those with you. And if you want to see the whole article, you can go to exomarriage.com but this is something that we get a lot of questions about because it's so, you know, at work, especially if we're excelling, we are making a lot of money, we're getting the promotions, we're getting the atta boys, atta girls. Like, we tend to go where we feel like we're receiving the affirmation, right?

Yeah. And if we're not getting at home, then if I'm not winning at home, I'm gonna go to where I'm winning.

And it tends to be work for a lot of people. And so we do get our identity wrapped up in it. So I wanna talk about these five workplace habits that are not good for your marriage. Number one, watch out for this. Do not do these actions. Number one is we never reference our spouse when talking to colleagues and. Or fail to wear our wedding ring at work. Like, this is a big red. This is something where, you know, when you're just wrapped up in your work and you're working all the time. If you, you know, if your colleagues don't even know you're married and you're spending all your time there, that's really concerning. And you, you may say, you know, or people may say, well, what does marriage have to do with my workplace? Why do I have to. That's private. Like, why should I have to tell them that? What would you Say to somebody like.

That, sweetie, I would say your. Your marriage is. Is both private and public. That's the way God designed it. That's why Jesus first miracle was at a wedding. A wedding is a celebration of this private commitment, but it's always done in public because it's God's design is this relationship is meant to be lived out in public. It's both, just like our relationship with God. If nobody in your life knows you're a Christian, then you're not living your faith properly. Because it's both a personal, private decision and one that's meant to be lived out publicly, or else we're just not doing it right. So, yeah, if you have a strong marriage, the people in your life should know that you're married. I mean, talk about your spouse. I've heard a pastor friend that I admire say the best adultery repellent known to man is to talk often and openly and lovingly about my wife. I want everybody in my life to know I love her. I'm crazy about her. She's on my mind even when she's not here, and to celebrate that.

So some ways you can do that to stave off really some toxic behaviors and also falling into this work, workaholic kind of situation is have a picture. Have a picture of your spouse. Okay? Have a picture of your spouse in your cubicle, in your office, at your desk, not only to let other people know you're married, and they'll say, like, oh, who is that? Is that your wife, you know, or is that your husband? Is that your family? I think that's great. But really to remind you to say a little prayer for them. Like, say a little prayer for them. It also serves as a reminder to call their text, just to check in, see how their day's going. And so I think that that would be a great reminder for really your workmates to know you're married, but also for you to know you're married. So, all right, number two, another habit to really avoid is. Or really, I guess a better way of saying this is maybe a red flag. A red flag in your work behavior. Number two is we consistently choose to stay at work well beyond working hours, even when we're not asked to. You know, how many times have we had a couple, you know, come talk to us, and they're in marital troubles, and it's because one of them just keeps. You know, we live in a military community, and so a lot of times it's military where they're staying. They haven't even been Commanded to stay beyond. But they are. And they haven't even been told they have to take this deployment, but they keep on going, taking the deployment, volunteering to get away from the volunteering for no reason. Right.

And for those of you in the military, we honor you, we thank you for your service, whether military or any kind of job, civilian job, any job, whatever.

Yeah, you keep taking the work trip. You volunteer to do the week long work trip.

Well, I saw a sign somewhere that said, 20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your children.

Oh, yeah.

And that's convicting because, yeah, 20 years from now, your boss now isn't going to be thinking about, oh, you know, he always worked late. I'm really thankful for that. But your kids are going to remember, man, dad wasn't around, mom wasn't around.

Dad missed the game. Yeah, mom didn't call me when she said she would or whatever. Let me tell you guys, we travel for work. I mean, and it hasn't always been this way. I was a stay at home mom for, I mean, years. And then I came in and out of the workplace based on when we had kids. Like I stayed at home with each of our kids for a time. Then I went back into teaching. And then we've been doing the marriage stuff. I've been an interior designer. So, like, there's been a lot of different jobs. But I will say right now, in this season, our work, I mean, we love it. Like this is just we pinch ourselves so we get to do what we do. And it's not just work, it's ministry. And we get to do it among people we consider family. I mean, they're even more than friends and colleagues. But I would say that we wrestle, we wrestle with, you know, well, the tension, the tension of trying to find.

The balance of like, we don't want to be workaholics. And when we're home, like we have a ton of flexibility. Thankfully, we're at everything. We take our kids to school, we pick them up from school, we're there a lot. But then when we have to travel, of course we can't be there. And it's. That part's hard. It really is hard.

And so it is hard.

We try to find that balance. We end up saying no, no whenever we can. Frankly, when opportunities come well to extra.

Things, like the extra things, to staying on extra, like for example, I mean, I'm just gonna be gut level, honest. So like we used to live in Texas where we record. Now we have A lot of friends here. We have a lot of places and people where we could spend extra time. But in this season, we cannot do that at the expense of our kids. Like, and so people, our friends, they understand.

We've got a conference in Florida, in.

Lakeland, Florida, which we're so excited about.

Area, you know, it's near the beach. Some of our friends who are like empty nesters who are going, they're staying, coming early, staying late, making a trip out of it. And for us, even though it's in a beautiful spot, it'd be nice to have a couple extra days. We feel like, well, in this season that's not what we need to do. Like, we need to get there as late as we can, get home as early as we can to minimize that time away so that we can be present with our kids. Because there's no substitute for being present really. You know, the only quality time is quantity time. You know, you gotta, you make the most of the moments when you're there. It's possible, yeah, to be physically present and lost in your phone somewhere else.

Which is a whole other episode.

It's a whole other episode. But kids need, they need our presence. They need us to just.

Our spouse needs our presence, be there.

Our spouse needs our presence. And yeah, we need to work, we need to be providers. Obviously that's an important part of life. But we have to find the balance. So we're not saying like you should feel guilty for having to go to work at all or anything if you, all of us need to work. But when that work, when you are intentionally giving work more than you should, you're cheating your family, right. And you're cheating your marriage. And that's just, it's a bad trade.

And you're also not trusting God because I think a lot of this is fear based because we think, well, if I don't do it, nobody is like, I've got to make this extra money, I've got to take this opportunity. It will never come again. We're not trusting that God will provide. And I will tell you, I've tried to do stuff in my own strength and had that fear of scarcity. I think a lot of time we have this scarcity mentality and I'm telling you, it doesn't go well. But when I trust God and I keep the main things, the main things prioritize my relationship with him, then my relationship with Dave and my relationship with my kids, that's when things fall into place. And I mean, I'm telling you this Isn't pie in the sky? This is something that's biblical. I mean, he's like, test and see that I am your ultimate provider. This doesn't mean we don't work hard. He expects us to work hard. He expects us to use the gifts he's given us to go make money. We have to. To have it, to survive. And also to be a blessing to other people, even beyond, beyond our families. But I think that when we're just, you know, in fear, like, oh, gosh, I gotta work again. I can't, you know, I can't be with my kids. I gotta work. You know, And I think all of us deal with this to some extent. We're not. We're not only, you know, really, you know, not giving our kids our best or giving our spouse our best, but we're also not trusting God. So we really, really need to do that. I wanna say this. I remember there was an article recently, I think it was on Today, like on their kind of articles that they put on Instagram. And it was about. I think it was. It may not be, but it was about a real famous anchor who. Or a news person, a husband and father who. He will. He has to fly a lot of places, but he will take these crazy, like, red eye flights or really inconvenient times just to be home for, like, one day to go to his daughter's game, or one day to just go on a date with his wife and then fly back. Like, he makes his life a little more complicated, travel wise, just to be there for the important moments. And he said, people really, for years have been like, man, you're just knocking yourselves out. Just give yourself a break. Stay on. You don't need to do this. Be gone for a week. No big deal. And he's like, literally, my family, I would lose my family. Like, he's like, I would rather catch a red eye, wake up with my wife and kids, than miss out on these amazing moments with the most important people in my life.

Absolutely.

And I just thought, you know, yes. Like, this guy gets it. He gets it. And I wish I remembered his name. But people were really astounded by his decision to do that. And I'm like, you are making the right Choice.

Yeah. And 20 years from now, like, my gosh, you'll never regret.

You never regret that.

I mean, I heard Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian, talking about. And he's great.

He is great.

You might be a redneck if. I mean, just a funny guy who really is, you know, not to get too Far on a sidebar, but does a lot of good. You know, Atlanta, he's really active with a big homeless shelter there where he leads a men's Bible study. Neat guy. But during the kind of the peak of his touring schedule, and he was, like, wildly, wildly popular, so in demand, and was trying to maximize that and, you know, make money to set his family up because he wasn't sure how long that would last. And so he was trying to be active, but his kids were little and he wanted to be home. So he decided every single night he had a show, he was never gonna stay the night in a hotel. Even if his show got out at 11pm midnight, he was gonna fly home. And he woke up at home every single morning. Every morning. And then took his kids to school every morning. It would have been so much easier.

And so grounded, honey.

Yeah. And everybody else would have just been like, jeff, what are you thinking, man? Just stay in the hotel, you know, just be on tour this week. Don't worry about it. He says, no. Like, I'm already having to be away from them enough, and this is my job, and they're supportive of that. And I love what I do, and this is helping my family, but I'm not going to do this at the expense of my family. So every night he would fly home late, wake up early with his kids, you know, and do the regular dad stuff.

And I'm sure that was. He was tired, and I'm sure they probably had to have some moments where he's getting more rest and things like that. But I'm telling you, there's no substitute for you as a spouse and a parent, you know, and this is not to guilt trip anybody, because believe me, there's times we've really gotten this right, and there's times we haven't.

Oh, yeah. And I think everyone's getting all high and mighty when you.

No, no, no.

Right at this moment, away from our kids recording. And sometimes you have to do that.

But it's a constant discussion in our house and monitoring and adjusting those terms that we love to use. So just. I think it's something that we all need to pay attention to. All right, back to kind of these. These things to avoid in your work behavior. Number three is if you're doing this often, spending time alone with someone of the opposite sex.

Ooh. Yeah.

And this can sometimes cause someone to be a workaholic when. Or they're thinking they're a workaholic. Oh, I just got to stay for work. But really, you're Wanting to spend time with somebody there.

Yeah, you're going. If you're ever going out of your way to connect with someone or like, oh, I hope they notice what I'm wearing today. I can't wait to walk by their desk and just talk.

You got what you refer to as a friendly banter in your text messages, y'.

All. Yeah, it's a little. Turns flirty.

And it's not a friendly banter.

Yeah. It's inside jokes. It's. No, it's playing with fire. It's wrong. If you ever have a conversation with somebody that you wouldn't want your spouse to see or if you would do it differently if your spouse was standing right there, then you're out of bounds.

I would say a great practice would be to imagine the three of you are having this conversation. How's your spouse feel about that? Like it's in person. Same exchange, same. How would they feel about it? You know what I'm saying? Like, I would really think about that. Most. Most times they'd be like, yeah, they'd be a little uneasy. They'd be a little uneasy about that. And the truth of the matter is, the more you have that kind of in quotation marks. Friendly banter, spending all the more time you're getting close. You're not just working. You're talking about real life stuff. It forms bonds, you guys. Like, that's how these extramarital emotional affairs and physical affairs happen. I don't really believe that most people are like, you know, I really just want to completely destroy my family and, like, have this amazing affair with somebody and just, like, break everybody's heart. Like, that's not what people go into. I really don't think most affairs happen that way. They happen because we've let our guard down and we stop prioritizing our family. We let boundaries be crossed, and we just. We fall into it. You know what I'm saying? And anybody can find themselves there. Anybody. And we're extremely vulnerable when we just keep on overworking. Spending more time with a workmate that we just consider a colleague, and all of a sudden, they're a friend. All of a sudden, they're your sounding board, and then they become your muse and then become a lot more than that. So it's like, you just don't want to mess with fire because you will get burned, and your family will feel it as well. And so don't let yourself get there. All right, number four. Do you want to read this, honey? I feel like I've been talking Too much. Go ahead for that.

I just love the sound.

Get on your sexy glasses.

Put on my old man glasses. All right. And by the way, these articles@xomarriage.com so many.

You can read the full descriptions and all that. Yeah.

Number four, we let negative anti marriage colleague influence how we view our own marriages. And I'll just kind of sum this one up. I mean, if you're going out to happy hour afterwards with the guys or with the girls getting margarita night, and, you know, everybody just starts bashing their spouses, and it doesn't even have to be after hours. I mean, this can happen at the water cooler. This can happen. There are some folks that just are anti marriage whether they're married or whether they're divorced.

They've been hurt.

They've been hurt or they're not happy in their marriage, and so they want to. They want to find solidarity with you to also be unhappy in their marriage or to also think it's okay to check other people out. And that is just so dangerous. And so your marriage is going to end up like the people that you're hanging out with the most. The influences in your life. You have to be so just intentional about that. And then number five, we share too much information about our marriages with the people at work.

We kind of touched on that. Yeah.

Which again, is just kind of common sense. We want to share about our spouse. Like we said, all the good. But anything negative about your spouse. I feel like a good policy is never say anything negative about your spouse, especially to anybody of the opposite sex. Never, never confide in someone, complain to someone of the opposite sex that, oh, right now, you know, things are tough, or, my wife's doing this, my husband's doing this. And be super careful about someone of the same sex. If you're looking for prayer, if you're looking for, hey, I need your advice. You know, we're kind of at this impasse. We're having this struggle. But if it's just about bashing, oh, I can't. She's doing this again. Or my gosh, he's doing this again. That's just not helpful. It's just really not.

It's not. And I want to say this too. So, like, with this, like, if you really feel like, you know, Dave and Ashley helped me, my spouse, literally, I feel like I barely see them. I think you've got to be honest with them and say, you know, go up to them and use I statements, don't use you statements like, you're never home. You're always late. You seem to prioritize work. Okay, those may all be true statements, but that's going to shut your spouse down, and they're going to feel very much attacked and ambushed. So instead, use I statements, say, listen, honey, I miss you. I miss you. I miss our time together. I'm worried about you feeling the need to work so much. I'm worried that we're falling into bad habits. I really wish that we had more time together. I really wish that your work schedule was different. You know, I think that there are unique situations. We mentioned the military. My goodness, you all are real heroes. Both the military person who's working, you know, who is in the military, but also the spouse. Like, you guys are our heroes. And I know that there's sometimes no choice, like they don't have sometimes. I mean, you have to do, you know, give the orders, you know, follow the orders you're given. But even in. Even in the kind of jobs like military jobs, where there may not be some choice in the time involved, there are things you can do to pour into your spouse. Oh, yeah, there are things you guys can do. And we have. I mean, we're in a military community just for those, you know, Fort Gordon is what we're near in Georgia. And there's so many couples we know where they just. They make sure they have those touch points of pouring into each other, spending time together. If there is a deployment, they have a big trip planned after just to spend that time, to really fill that tank quickly and then get back to a new normal once they're back in the home. So, I mean, there's things you can do. I think shift work is an especially hard one. We know a lot of people who do shift work, and the hours can be hard. Like, you get put on that night shift and you feel like you're literally ships passing.

My dad worked my whole childhood at a car factory where he worked. You know, he worked all day during day shift, and then there were times that he had to transition to night shift, and mom and dad would kind of go back and forth on that. But the intentionality of both of them to stay connected and to prioritize the family was really inspiring. I mean, my dad would. He would use his vacation time to coach us in Little League to make sure that he could get off early enough or that he could be present for those games that was important for him. And here he's using his earned time off just to invest right back into his family. Not to, you know, not to just Take. Take it for himself. I mean, and really set the model both of them did for how they worked to prioritize their marriage through that. And then now, you know, they're. They're reaping the results in it.

They've a great.

All those investments that they made. And their marriage isn't perfect. Nobody's is. But. But they made so many investments. And it's the investments you make in anything over time that.

Right.

That really add value to it.

Well, and an investment in you guys like having a good time.

Yeah. And we've got a great relationship now. And I'm so thankful for them both. And it's because they were always there for us. And I'm just thankful. Mom and dad, we love you.

That's right. So just really, I hope that this episode leads to just some good conversations again, lead with the I statements. Don't just be like, this is all your fault. You know, our marriage predicament is because you're a workaholic. This is who you are. I mean, you may have every right to feel that way, but I think that when we're accusatory, then we just shut down those communication lines and believe the best.

Maybe in their mind they're just trying to provide.

They're like, exactly, exactly.

I'm doing this for you, but help them see. But we can do with less of everything else if it means having more of you.

Exactly right. Thank you all so much for tuning in and we will see you next time on the Naked Marriage podcast. Again, thank you for your reviews. Keep on leaving them. Keep on sharing. And we just love you guys.