Benefits of having a work spouse:
• A 9-5 Monday- Friday Confidant
• Someone to share career goals, and may understand them a little better than a home spouse.
• Support- Physically with work load, and emotionally with work situations.
Marriage- for comparing purposes we will keep very general - Benefits of having a Spouse.
• A lifelong partner
• Share your dreams, hopes, and ambitions
• Future or already father of your children
•For the most part shared income- help each other financially.
•Emotional security, stability and LOVE
Keeping a work spouse relationship from going too far or lead to an affair.
For this topic, I searched and searched and found little information on the morality of having a Work Spouse.
My question is not do I or don't I have a work spouse, but what does it mean, and is it wrong in the sense of "Can it be a gateway to an affair?"
So research says…
•It could ultimately can hurt your home spouse and your marriage.
• There are as many "Gray Areas"
• The benefits of a work spouse may or may not outweigh the risks to your marriage- I guess that would just depend on how happy you are in your marriage to begin with.
Because are in the same field of work in the same industry, department or career you are bound to have many similarities in personality, and interests. So therefore, we now we have factors that would contribute to a what most consider a pretty stable relationship. Then we have age, and for the most part fellow co-workers can be on average anywhere from 2-7 years older or younger.
So if we sum this up you have 1 man + 1 woman+ 8 hours a day + 5 days a week + relatively the same age + common interests…
Whatever that adds up to, I can tell you it's more factors that contribute to a healthy relationship.
So because of this, my thought is… “A work spouse is nice to have, but if you are married, you should enter this type of relationship with caution!”
Statistics show 47% of people have or have had a work romance. That's almost 1 in every 2 people. It also shows that more than 50% of those developed from a work spouse type of relationship.
So, is there really room for your husband and your Work Spouse? Personally, I say Yes... There is, but in order to keep both relationships healthy you have to set boundaries and you have to intermingle them as often as possible.
#1 rule - DO NOT KEEP IT A SECRET.
Even if you have simply platonic/ work intentions. If you neglect to tell your real husband about your work spouse you are playing with fire. And you will get burned. If you can't talk to your husband about you work spouse than you probably should work on that relationship first before taking on another"spouse"
Morally is it right? When you got married, you made vows, your husband is above all and especially above all other men.
My M.M.M –Mary’s Marriage Moral ( Yes, I just came up with that) tells me that it's just not right to label anyone else with the Spouse title.
But, unfortunately, My M.W.M Mary Work Moral (Yup this one just came to me also), says it's something that develops from factors I mentioned, so at times you don't even see it coming, it’s almost inevitable these days, and simply a new part of a modern woman’s career life.
So, from my experience, from the time you "realize" you’re in a Work Spouse relationship, it's YOUR responsibility to set those boundaries and stick by them it’s not your co- workers, and it's not your husband’s responsibility, but yours, to make sure you balance your work life including your work spouse, and your home life with your real husband. As they say, leave work at work and home at home, but in this case make sure they both are aware of it.