How Having A Mean Boss Could Affect Your Marriage

How Having A Mean Boss Could Affect Your Marriage

Trouble with your boss could also lead to strain on your marriage, a new study suggests.

Research from Baylor University suggests that people are more likely to report fighting or having feelings of irritation or resentment toward a spouse or partner if they also report having a supervisor who puts them down or gets angry at them.

"It may be that as supervisor abuse heightens tension in the relationship, the employee is less motivated or able to engage in positive interactions with the partner and other family members," study researcher Merideth Ferguson, PH.D., assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Baylor, said in a statement.

Researchers also found that the longer a person had been married or with his or her spouse or partner, the less effect the boss's abuse had on the home relationship.

The Personnel Psychology study was based on survey responses from 280 full-time workers and their spouses or partners, with an average age of 36. The average relationship length was 10 years.

Previously, a University of Toronto study of 1,800 working Americans showed that nearly half of them bring work home, and that doing so takes a toll on their personal relationships, the Seattle Times reported. The effect was even more pronounced among people with more job authority, skill and decision-making power.

And aside from personal relationships, a hostile work environment can have an impact on your health, too. A previous study in the journal Health Psychology showed that people who reported having a bad social support system at work were also two-and-a-half times more likely to die over a 20-year period than people who say they had a good social system at work.

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