“Work Spouses?”

Elizabeth, fellow b5′er at Career & Kids, asked for thoughts on the phrase and practice of work spouses. Heather from Marriage Diva has picked up on the topic, and so, too, have Julie and Brad who have been researching the topic. What’s a work spouse? Pretty much what it sounds like. It’s co-worker of (presumably) the opposite sex with whom you share an uncommonly close relationship, not unlike that shared by a husband and wife.

In case you can’t already guess, I’m gonna come down on the side of “No” when it comes to work spouses. It’s dangerous; it’s a double-enveloped, gold-embossed, RSVP-for-reception-with-open-bar invitation addressed in painstakingly crafted calligraphy to “Marriage Problems.” I am romantic enough to believe in “falling in love” and that; I did it. I am also pragmatic enough to know that relationships can be nurtured or suffocated by the choices we make no matter how “in love” two people are. A work spouse is a pillow on the face of marriage. It will both exacerbate existing problems as well as create problems of its own accord.

I can already hear the economic counter-argument. Close relationships make for better business. Work spouses are more productive, more efficient, more accurate, etc. Perhaps this is true, but in rebuttal I say the flaw is in giving economics a place over and above fidelity to one’s marriage. And fidelity, after all, is the core issue. A marriage is among other things a pledge to give oneself to one other person before any others. A work spouse is an infringement on that promise.