When your marriage is falling apart how do you explain to work colleagues that you’re always exhausted but not because you’re working too hard, that your vacation was a disaster and you’re thankful it’s over, that you don’t have the emotional bandwidth to excel and push toward a promotion anymore? Now that work has gone remote and you’re not even in the same time zone as anyone you work with there’s no water cooler gossip through which people can find out what’s going on with you.

You don’t. Why would you bring that to work unless your performance is a problem? Even so, I’d just respond with “going through a personal challenge rn”.

Holy hell, there’s some awful stuff in here - y’all need to check your EQ.

I am and have always been a believer that the idea of leaving your home life at the door when you get to work is toxic as hell - there is no light switch that you can throw that just makes things go away - your home life affects your work just as matters in your work life can affect how you are at home (I’m writing this comment at 4am because I’m awake thinking about a major product launch I own that is going public next week!).

I sympathize immensely with the challenges of being remote - we’re frequently missing the personal connections with our peers that we made when in the office and as we get older and the friends that we made in school and college drift away, there are gaps appearing in our social network.

While I understand that people may have been hurt by personal connections in the work place, I’d challenge that issue and say that the same thing happens at every stage of our lives - not everyone is a decent human being - and you cannot expect to get anything more than you give. So unless you make the effort to build personal connections, you can’t expect anyone to do the same for you.

I would recommend a conversation with your manager - hopefully you’ve nurtured something there and you can discuss your concerns about your own performance with them. As a manager, I would appreciate both the self-awareness and the trust. Take a look at your benefits package and possibly also talk to HR - many companies are offering mental health support as part of their package, including counseling, which I recommend you take advantage of if it’s there. You don’t need to deal with this purely on your own.

First of all, I am really sorry that you were going through this. I can only talk from my personal experience, but what I will say is that I could not keep it together and do my job well. My marriage which I needed to end years ago was falling apart but so was my life - I coped with drinking and was often puffy eyes from that and crying. One day I had to just walk out and disappear, to just stay physically safe. Finally I was transparent and shocked and delightfully surprised at how swiftly my supervisors and HR reacted to figure out how to give me time and space to heal. I tried to resign because I knew I couldn’t just come back in two weeks, but was told if I needed time they would rather give that to me than have me just leave or stay operating like a catatonic robot. I was doing my work and I was making my clients happy but was just dying. Clients were all told I had a family emergency. People split up my work to cover. I took four months off to file for and get a divorce, get sober, and turn it all around. 10 years later I’m still with the company and married to someone who brings me joy. Even if your facts are different, the truth is I would have left at any cost, including my job. Whether the situation is reparable is not for anyone but you to say, but it sounds like you need time to deal with this so ask for it. You don’t have to disclose your situation to your coworkers and frankly their opinion should take a distant second place to your happiness and mental health. Confide as much as you feel comfortable with your supervisor and hr and find out what leave options are available. You are not valuable to your company if you are essentially a ghost and not all the way there. After all the time when I came back my coworkers all confided to me they knew I was struggling but felt helpless because they did not know how to help. They were just happy I was ok and could tell I was a different person. Not to mention, I found out lots of people had been through similar situations and struggles in their past, and that built more trust. You would be surprised at how people can actually be good and have your back. You won’t know unless you take the risk to find out. I wish you the best - no matter how dark it gets, remember you have still survived your worst day. The best is yet to come ❤️

I think this is where having a work BFF comes in handy, I would schedule a call with someone just to vent (with enough heads up) and probably go back and fix the relationship

I'm not sure why you would feel a need to talk about it in the first place. If you feel like your performance is being impacted, then it might be wise to inform your manager that you're dealing with some personal issues outside of work that have become a serious distraction. But I don't get why having water cooler gossip would be a benefit in any way.

You don’t have to explain your personal problems to your colleagues. Relationships has many definitions like friends, colleagues, partners. Keep your personal problems away from your colleagues. They are your colleagues but not your friends.

Most people don't care if you have problems, most people will be glad you too are suffering on similar problems, the meaning of marriage has transformed a lot in this decade so don't bother much, know your limitations and play the best out of it, we are all doing the same

Yeah those problems suck, but everyone’s got problems. It seems like you’re wanting to tell others so they’ll rationalize why you may not be performing as you used to. Your marriage choice isn’t exactly everyone else’s problem or a good reason to slack.

If your spouse had a significant health issue or something that is a bit more valid, but your marriage issues with your spouse are at least 50% under your control…

You really don't need to share your problems with your colleagues, you do not know when that will be used against you.Not trying to scare you but that's a fact. Please understand that marriage related problems are very common these days. Our life is indeed very stressful, whether you are working from home or office doesn't matter. We have lots to take care of , peer pressure, parents, in-laws, friends , children, relatives , social media etc. Also , the goal of life has changed, these days is to become financially free by 50 or 45. So life is tough. The best thing to do is not compare your life with anyone, try talking to yourself and see what is going wrong. Work on those points. Talk to your spouse and see if that helps. If not, take help from the counselor. My personal suggestion would be talk and solve.. however, if you feel your spouse is cheating on you, then you need a divorce lawyer. Anything else there is a solution.

To be clear, it’s not that I want to share details of my personal problems, it’s that I want my management and team members to understand the sudden change they’ve seen in me is of a personal and temporary nature, NOT because I’m working a second job or stopped caring about the work or something else. There’s flexibility to look past temporary “life happens” stuff for a time, but if they think I’m working a second job or am quiet quitting then they’ll get rid of me asap. They probably have been thinking that I’ve burned out or am close to it, but the solution to that is a long vacation (they’ve been pushing me to take more time off) which is just going to make things worse.