Cute african-american woman typing on a laptop on a bench
My husband and I are both extremely hard-working upper-level managers, grinding day in and day out to make it to the top of the corporate ladder in our respective fields. Our competitive nature and understanding of each other’s drive is what makes us such a strong couple, but we realized lately we’ve been giving more to our companies than our relationship and we agreed to take a 7-day vacation where we would disconnect from everybody and everything, including our jobs.
With our bosses having no problem with our vacation time — likely because we hardly take any — my hubby and I booked a vacation to Greece to relax and reconnect with one another as husband and wife. The first four days of our trip felt too good to be true as we got lost in the foreign land and explored new things. We gave each other 30 minutes to check email at 11:30 am every day to make sure there were no crises, and another 45 minutes at 6 in the evening to make sure everyone survived another day at the office without us. Just as I was signing off of email at lunch on the fifth day I say a message with the subject line “Urgent.” My boss said we had an issue with a client of mine and apologized for bothering me while I was away, but being that only I knew some of the particulars of the situation at hand they needed my insight. I hopped on what I thought would be a quick conference call, but soon found myself heading back to the hotel to put together a report that robbed us of the rest of the afternoon together.
My husband was a little disappointed but understood there was nothing I could do, and we both went to sleep confident the report would be the end of things. I woke up the next morning to more urgent emails from my boss as well as the client and ended up losing the entire next day smoothing things over and addressing their issues.
Of course this happened the day my husband planned a surprise excursion for us, and when hour after hour went by and it was clear I wasn’t leaving the hotel room he became increasingly frustrated. I hoped the fact that I could still make dinner would ease the tension but his mood told me it didn’t. By the time we got back to the hotel room he let out his anger, saying I should have stuck up to my boss and demanded he respect my time off, and that our promise to not put work before our marriage was more important than a needy client. He was right, but I felt like if anyone should’ve understood the predicament I was in it would be him.
Needless to say, the vacation didn’t exactly end on the happy note on which it began and ever since we’ve returned I feel like I’m being judged more than ever for my late nights at the office because I broke our promise not to work on vacation. My professional drive used to be what attracted my husband to me but now I feel like it’s pushing him away. What should I do?
