You are Texting/Emailing/BBMing With Your SO Throughout the Day
We get it, we’ve all been there – you’re in love. In addition to the cute, lovey-dovey messages sent back and forth, every daily success, grievance and what you had for lunch, you just have to share with your SO because it simply can’t wait until the workday is over. Not only are you wasting precious hours of the day with the time it takes to craft your cute little messages, you are breaking your focus. Can you put your phone away for a solid two to three hours and refrain from checking your personal email account and contacting each other via social media sites? Don’t think your co-workers don’t notice, either. That little sheepish grin that finds its way across your face as you look down at your smartphone is a dead give away.
You Are Choosing Date Nights Over Work Events
Increasingly, especially in most young professional careers of choice, networking is an essential element, both within your company and externally through industry events. Yes, these things can be exhausting (trust us, we know), especially on a weeknight after an already stressful, deadline-heavy day. Work-related events may be especially less enticing when the excitement at the prospect of meeting a potential sexy fellow single stranger in the process is removed from the equation; however, sometimes work events are necessary to further career success. If you are opting instead to come home to the comforts of your couch and your SO, or embark on a dinner date with him or her, you may be missing out on opportunities to advance your career. You may lose out on opportunities to make connections that could lead to promising job prospects, both within your company (that work picnic may just result in a bonding experience with your boss) and with others in your field or related professions.
You Let Arguments Consume You at Work
In general, leave your personal life at the door once you enter your workplace. It should provide a haven of distractions and outlet for focus from the outside world of domestic quarrels, heartbreak and jealousy. You won’t be able to focus if you are in a perpetual state of anxiety (only facilitated by the persistent and angry messages back and forth) over your relationship woos and your co-workers (including your boss and superiors) will quickly lose patience over the prolonged crying sessions in the bathroom, time spent venting to your work friends, and the look in your eyes that clearly reveals that your mind is somewhere else. Not to mention, it is likely that someone else in the office is enduring something way worse in his or her personal life and managing just fine. Get over yourself.
You Lose Yourself in the Other Person
It can be easy for some young couples in love to find themselves so enamored by the other person that they see their friends and family less, lose interest in what were once hobbies, and inevitably think about work less than they did since college. If your career goals are seeming less important (you’d rather take that two-week European vacation than work harder to compete for that new position that will soon open) and your levels of drive and enthusiasm have dwindled to lower than they were before you met your SO, you may want to step back and re-evaluate. It is possible for your career goals and personal goals and pursuits to exist in harmony.
Your SO Hates Your Job…When You Love(d) it
Do you ever notice that the opinions of your SO sometimes influence your own? If your SO dislikes one of your friends, have you as well found yourself annoyed with their little quirks, habits or obnoxiousness when you once found these things endearing? The same can be said about your job. You may start to lament over real and perceived grievances, lose enthusiasm, and see it as a hindrance to your relationship. If, for example, your SO is resentful of the time occupied by the evening and occasional weekend work commitments characteristic of your job, you may grow resentful of them as well and the accompanying stress and arguments that result. As long as your chosen profession makes you happy and stimulated, your SO should be supportive. Or find someone else.