Hey All,
So I've noticed lately that my business partner (Tamara) for the startup I'm doing is fast becoming a workaholic to escape her marriage problems (she married a workaholic and isn't getting enough attention). There are plusses and minuses to this from my perspective.
Plusses:
1. Everything that needs to get done, gets done well. And usually on time.
2. If I need to meet with her on a moment's notice (say, when Honda popped up a meeting request on 1 day's notice) she pays attention to the task at hand.
3. The working relationship is good, she's really receptive to me.
Minuses:
1. She calls me on weekends to talk about work. Thankfully she hasn't this weekend, but every other weekend so far since the beginning of the year she's wanted to discuss work stuff. I prefer to have my space on weekends.
2. I can tell she's in denial about her marriage problems. So I just get the feeling at some point there will be an explosion of some sort. Any way to avoid this?
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I should note that before we started this company, we were good friends, and still are. So every so often (on an increasing frequency now) I do talk to her about what's going on in her life and see that she's doing ok. And right now my barometer says "stable on surface, unstable inside."
Oh and before anyone asks, I did suggest they go to therapist / see a marriage counselor in september, Steve (her hubby) was pretty unreceptive to actually making any changes (though he went to the sessions). After those sessions were not met with much success, she said "You're a better therapist than my therapist." :Q
So what should I do, if anything?
Update:
So Tamara and I met for lunch today. First we talked about a lot of psychological stuff relating to emotional unavailability, passive aggressive behavior, and workaholicism. Steve (her hubby) suffers from all these things.
'Tamara was really receptive to hearing all this. We made some HUGE progress in both of our understanding of all these issues.
We then spent a few hours talking about our presentation for panasonic on thursday.
We both started getting ancy from sitting still, so I went shopping with her (body shop, sees candies, a furniture store, and clothing shopping) and helped her pick out lots of clothes. This was the first time I ever had fun clothes shopping. I normally dread it.
I now feel like a surrogate husband esp. when doing the clothes shopping with her though. But emotionally she is doing a lot better, she had a huge smile all day after we went through all that stuff, I guess it's like a blessing that she has someone to talk to about this stuff. And our business stuff is ready for Thursday.
So now all is well. Albeit something feels amiss. I NEVER like to go clothes shopping. We joked around a lot and were playful and I ACTUALLY enjoyed clothes shopping. WTF is with that?
So I've noticed lately that my business partner (Tamara) for the startup I'm doing is fast becoming a workaholic to escape her marriage problems (she married a workaholic and isn't getting enough attention). There are plusses and minuses to this from my perspective.
Plusses:
1. Everything that needs to get done, gets done well. And usually on time.
2. If I need to meet with her on a moment's notice (say, when Honda popped up a meeting request on 1 day's notice) she pays attention to the task at hand.
3. The working relationship is good, she's really receptive to me.
Minuses:
1. She calls me on weekends to talk about work. Thankfully she hasn't this weekend, but every other weekend so far since the beginning of the year she's wanted to discuss work stuff. I prefer to have my space on weekends.
2. I can tell she's in denial about her marriage problems. So I just get the feeling at some point there will be an explosion of some sort. Any way to avoid this?
----------------------------
I should note that before we started this company, we were good friends, and still are. So every so often (on an increasing frequency now) I do talk to her about what's going on in her life and see that she's doing ok. And right now my barometer says "stable on surface, unstable inside."
Oh and before anyone asks, I did suggest they go to therapist / see a marriage counselor in september, Steve (her hubby) was pretty unreceptive to actually making any changes (though he went to the sessions). After those sessions were not met with much success, she said "You're a better therapist than my therapist." :Q
So what should I do, if anything?
Update:
So Tamara and I met for lunch today. First we talked about a lot of psychological stuff relating to emotional unavailability, passive aggressive behavior, and workaholicism. Steve (her hubby) suffers from all these things.
'Tamara was really receptive to hearing all this. We made some HUGE progress in both of our understanding of all these issues.
We then spent a few hours talking about our presentation for panasonic on thursday.
We both started getting ancy from sitting still, so I went shopping with her (body shop, sees candies, a furniture store, and clothing shopping) and helped her pick out lots of clothes. This was the first time I ever had fun clothes shopping. I normally dread it.
I now feel like a surrogate husband esp. when doing the clothes shopping with her though. But emotionally she is doing a lot better, she had a huge smile all day after we went through all that stuff, I guess it's like a blessing that she has someone to talk to about this stuff. And our business stuff is ready for Thursday.
So now all is well. Albeit something feels amiss. I NEVER like to go clothes shopping. We joked around a lot and were playful and I ACTUALLY enjoyed clothes shopping. WTF is with that?
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