Too much of a good thing: most relationships need breathing space

This week saw the start of Wimbledon – for many people a high point in the British sporting calendar. A few days ago, I was chatting about past players with an American friend, who recounted the story of how she once asked the legendary Bjorn Borg for an autograph at the US Open (he wasn’t very obliging, apparently). What also sticks in her mind is that he was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Never marry a tennis player – to them love means nothing!”

In Borg’s case, it was particularly apt because his first marriage, in 1980, was to a fellow tennis player – Mariana Simionescu – and it ended in divorce four years later.

There are, of course, tennis players who marry one another and live happily ever after, such as Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. Equally, there are lawyers who make successful marriages to fellow lawyers and so on.

In fact, it’s commonplace for people to marry into their own profession or line of business, simply because they meet them daily at work.

There are plenty of advantages: you understand the particular pressures of the job; the dedication it involves or the long hours it demands.

But being in a long-term relationship with someone who does the same thing as you can cause problems: there is competition between you, perhaps, and one partner might become resentful if the other is more successful. Talking shop might be helpful on one hand, but on the other it can make for a very dull life!

What can also be problematic is both of you working from home. The practice is becoming increasingly widespread as new technology allows many people to do their jobs from more or less anywhere.

Working from home may seem more attractive than going into an office each day, but there are drawbacks. And those drawbacks, if a couple are both home-based, include being under the same roof day and night.

Some relationships thrive on this, but most need a bit of breathing space. However close you and your partner are, it’s healthy to spend some time apart.

So if you and your spouse do the same job or both of you work from home, think about whether this is having a detrimental effect on your relationship. If you think it is, consider ways of making changes. For instance, if you are in the same line of work, maybe one of you could specialise so as to avoid competition between you. If you both work at home, see if you can arrange office space apart from one another and agree only to “meet up” at lunchtimes and at the end of the working day.

Many people believe that sharing interests and enjoying one another’s company can only be advantageous and largely that’s true. But remember also that, as Shakespeare wrote, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.