I'm a guy who has been dating a woman for several months. She is self-employed and I swear about 20% of our conversations is her explaining all the things she has to do every day that may prevent her from being able to commit to seeing me. She swears she just got backed up on things and she'll become more available, but I see her inventory continuing to grow, not shrink. She is also constantly supervising people on a variety of house projects (mutual disinterest in me getting involved there).

So I decided to ask the internet (DuckDuckGo (DDG) specifically): Am I dating a workaholic? What I found surprised me. I imagined I'd find a bunch of stupid little Cosmo-style quizzes, with the understanding that the reader would find out they were dating an workaholic and leave the relationship. Instead what I found was article after article after article with titles like,

  • How to Date a Workaholic: 8 Steps (with Pictures)
  • Dating a Workaholic (13 Tips to Make It Work)
  • 12 Tips to Cope when Dating a Workaholic

The internet is assuming I WANT to date a workaholic.

Contrast that with results to the question Am I dating someone emotionally unavailable? DDG more straightforwardly answer the question ("17 Signs Someone is Emotionally Unavailable") with a sprinkling of advice for how to cope.

I see workaholism as basically identical to emotional unavailability, but obviously it's treated differently by society (maybe because it comes with money and home repairs?). So what is going on? Would you date a workaholic?

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[–] 8 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

First off, IMO it's possible to be a workaholic and emotionally available. But it's also possible to be both.

For me the question would be: why is she a workaholic? I've known and know a number of different workaholics. There are those who genuinely just enjoy work - but then, those are the ones who tend to also be emotionally available. Then, there are those who want to see themselves as important, possibly with some narcissism sprinkled in (definitely avoid that). Then, there are those who are control freaks, not able or not trusting enough to delegate work to others. At that point the question becomes why they don't delegate enough and what can be done there. Then, there are those who are workaholics in possibly the most literal sense of the word - they're having difficulties, often mentally, and they're using work as a distraction.

Going from there, the question would be: how important is she to you? How open is she to finding a solution? The most important thing is to talk about it, which it seems you have. But a part of that conversation has to be: what specifically will she change to improve the situation (and, possibly, what can you do to improve the situation)? "It will get better" is not enough. "I'll be handing X off to person Y, and I'm having him trained so he can take over starting Z" would be an example of an a concrete improvement. And if as soon as one thing is handed off the next comes on the plate, you have to look at what can be done to avoid the next things coming onto the plate. That is, assuming the whole thing isn't too much for you. It's completely legitimate to say, "I can't have a relationship like this, it will tear me apart".

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