3 Ways Job Stress Harms Your Relationship

"When your workday is stressful, tense, aggravating, or upsetting, it is going to be extremely difficult to avoid bringing those feelings home with you. Such workdays put us into fight-or-flight mode and a "battle-ready" mindset-physiological and mental states we cannot simply switch off on command at the end of the workday. Here's how that can impact your partner and your relationship when you get home (or stop working from home)."

"Even if you make efforts to put on a smile and hide your tension, irritability, and stress, studies have found that these emotions are likely to leak out and impact your partner's mood. It's difficult to be cheery and warm around someone who is irritable and tense, so that will not make for a fun, relaxing, or connecting evening for you or your partner."

"When upsetting or distressing things happen at work, you are likely to ruminate about them when you get home. You might spend the entire evening replaying what your hostile coworker said, how rude your client was, or how your boss chewed you out in a meeting. Your partner can tell when you're checked out and preoccupied, and to them it will feel like you're ignoring them (because, essentially, you are-even if you don't mean to)."

Stressful or upsetting workdays put people into fight-or-flight mode and a 'battle-ready' mindset that cannot be switched off instantly. Those physiological and mental states often carry into home life, changing how partners interact. Negative moods leak out and influence a partner's mood, making warmth and connection difficult. Rumination about work leads to being preoccupied and emotionally absent, which partners experience as ignoring and can produce distance. Chronic job stress can create imbalances of effort and reduce relationship satisfaction. Small daily rituals to shift mindset and deliberate strategies to limit rumination can protect relationships from unnecessary damage.

Read at Psychology Today