The daughter of a friend of mine recently left university and entered into the world of work, taking on a temporary office job. At the end of her first week at work, she phoned home in tears. ‘It’s horrible,’ she complained to her mother, ‘there’s no time to do anything else. I’m so tired when I get home in the evenings that all I can do is watch TV. And then I have to get up early the next morning and do it all again! If this is what work is like, I don’t want to spend my whole life doing it!’

We take it for granted that work must be a major part of our lives—in fact, for many people, it’s the primary aspect of our lives. We define ourselves, and other people, by our job roles—‘So what do you do?’—and measure our happiness in terms of how successful we are in these roles. Forty hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for up to 50 years—not including traveling time, and the time we spend resting and recovering from the exertions of our working lives.

Is this really what we were born for? Is this really what life should be about?

Balancing a demanding job with your personal relationship–whether it’s with a significant other, spouse, partner, children, or some combination of the above–is something millions of people do every day, some more successfully than others.

Much of the time, when one partner sees the other as working too much, there’s no ill will intended but it can still create a lot of hurt. The hurt leads to anger, making conflict just about inevitable.
And while every relationship is different, and sometimes work is more of a proxy for other issues than a source of discord in itself, there’s no doubt that work-life imbalances can put a strain on couples and families.

However, other studies have not established such relationships between overtime work and decreased health. Work shifts lasting 9–12 hours, work shifts exceeding 12 hours, and work weeks exceeding 40 hours have each demonstrated—in some studies—varying levels of decreased cognitive testing performance and increased workplace injury. Inconsistencies between studies may be secondary to numerous workplace and employee factors, which make it difficult for researchers to establish specific causal relationships. A larger amount of data exist regarding the male workforce, whereas additional studies are needed to better assess impacts of overtime work and extended shifts on women.[4] A survey about events between 1987 and 2000 found that in a cohort of 10,793 men and women, overtime work was associated with a 61% excess rate of injury compared to jobs without overtime. Injury rate was directly proportional to length of the work shift and number of hours in the work week. Study authors found excess injury risk not only associated with jobs that are more hazardous, but also with overall fatigue from working overtime and extended work shifts