I can relate to this story, though my girlfriend came with a demanding job. It’s tough. It may be she needs to learn a new level of work-personal life balance.
My girlfriend works from home, and her job does not understand boundaries, at all.
Sometimes she just gets mad at me for no reason, and when we talk it out she explains she’s just under a lot of stress from work and as a result picks fights with me. I told her that for thanksgiving I really needed her support and to not be mad at me. She responded with “if I get fired from my job from not working hard enough are you going to take responsibly for me losing my job and pay all the bills?”
I then told explained to her her job was her responsibility, not mine and she needed to manage it not me, I just need her to be kind to me. She was kinder after that. On thanksgiving she got slack messages from colleagues asking her to call them and help them with stuff. She very bravely texted that she wasn’t available on that day and she would call them the next day.
I often have multiple calls talks with her about putting proper boundaries in place.
One time I got real sick and had to go to the hospital (I had given birth recently that time and has serious complications, her job gave her more work and didn’t see a problem with it). When she picked me up from the hospital all she could talk about how inconvenient me being sick was staring “my boss doesn’t care if you are in the hospital, he still expects me to get work done.”
I then had a talk where I explained I will not sacrifice my health and well being or my child’s health and well being for her job. She got mad, mostly at herself for putting me in that position, I think she was in denial of how I badly she was treating me. Needless to say my maternity leave was no fun because she worked from home and expected me to be there to support her at her job on her bosses schedule, and I was very sick and needed to care for a baby. I ended up setting very clear boundaries with her and her job, and monthly I have to restate them.
We got couples counseling and are getting better. She takes date night very seriously. I still regularly have to set boundaries and make it clear I don’t work for her boss, I have my own job. I’m often labeled as being unsupportive of her career and not empathetic to her job. But I make my boundaries clear. Her job is her responsibility, if she needs to back out of a commitment such as childcare, she has to hire a babysitter, it’s not my job to cover for her job (otherwise it would happen literally everyday). If she has to cancel a date night, she has a new one rescheduled right away and she is responsible for making that happen.
I’m really trying to establish that she deals with her own work stress and doesn’t take it out on me, she’s being doing well this this week, but anyways, it’s a journey.