I (35M) am becoming increasingly concerned with my wife’s (33F) relationship to her job.

Quick Context: My wife worked hard to finish college and advance in her career. She’s been at the same job for something like 6 or 7 years and she’s the breadwinner in our household. I make about 2/3 of her salary and didn’t finish school. My job is significantly less stressful than hers.

Actual Question: My wife and I approach our work lives very differently. I see it as time that I have to sacrifice in order to enjoy my real life (everything that isn’t work) whereas I think she considers work to be just as real and important as home life, if not more so. It’s because of this difference that I am here to ask advice.

She pours all of herself into work. She says she’s tied a lot and that she can’t ever catch up at work. At least a couple times a month she has talks about upcoming work things that are weighing heavily on her and this often leads to tears. She tells me about instances at work where she is embarrassed about tearing up or crying in front of people. Yesterday she told me that after a particularly bad meeting, she sobbed in front of a few corporate employees. That’s what made me worried enough to come here.

Like I mentioned, she works super hard and has a ridiculous amount of responsibility. She’s a salary employee and works 50-60 hours per week including going in a lot of weekends. Recently I took a weekend trip to visit friends and she couldn’t go because she had to work over the weekend. My friends expressed that they were worried about her work life balance because her job does often prevent them from being able visit us or her being able to visit them with me. I just kind of agreed and thought “that’s just how she is about work. It’s extremely important to her,” but the more I think about it, them more worried I am that it may not be healthy.

It’s also totally possible that MY relationship with work is the abnormality. I give what I would consider to be a normal amount of effort at work but I rarely prioritize it over anything else in life.

So I am asking here because I want an outside perspective. I love my wife very much, she works harder every day than I do in a week, and I want to take care of her. If her relationship with her job is totally normal and healthy, I want to continue to support her. But if it’s something that needs to be addressed, I want to help her.

How do I best address this with her?

Thanks in advance.