I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost 12 years and I have been working in personal finance for the last 10 years. Nick and I are not currently married, and unfortunately I don’t think that wedding plans are anywhere in our near future.

As DINK couples we all love spending personal time with our spouses, and we all like to earn incomes from our lives at the office. However, sometimes the clear line between home and work becomes grey. The love of our life may be our spouse, but unfortunately sometimes we end up loving our job more than our loved ones.

Not so long ago this was my life, or should I say my relationship! I was working long hours to earn more money because I thought that having a high net worth would make me happy. I admit that I definitely benefited from my hard work, but unfortunately my relationship definitely suffered. When I look back on those three years of working 10 hour days at the office I am thankful that my boyfriend loved me enough to know that he was only temporarily in second place on my list of personal priorities. Eventually I saw the light and I chose a different path, I realized that I really liked my job but I really love my boyfriend.

If I didn’t have the love of my boyfriend to help me regain focus on my personal priorities I probably would have ended up with a great job but not much else. That is the great thing about being a DINK...we always have someone by our side to pull us out of bad situations. If we are always on the go, our spouse can help us take a minute to relax. If we are an impulsive spender, our spouse can help us learn to save; and if we get caught up in a chaotic situation, we have our spouse to bring us some stability.

I still work in personal finance and I still do really like my job, but I am happy to say that I really do love my spouse (or should I say my boyfriend). Our job may financially support our lifestyle, but our spouse supports us through everything else. A job is just one thing in our life, but our spouse can be everything.

Unfortunately I learned that the hard way to like my job and love my spouse, but at least I learned my lesson.