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Sally, an IT project manager in her mid-thirties, has been single for nearly a year and admits, ‘There’s no way I could have a decent relationship and hold down my job. I can’t scoot off to the car park just because it’s six o’clock on a Friday and I’m dying to see a boyfriend. My last relationship ended because my partner was sick of never seeing me and, when we did spend time together, I would bark a list at him, detailing all the domestic stuff we had to catch up with.’ No wonder she would tumble into bed and emit ‘no sex tonight’ vibes. However, Sally says she would like to get close to someone, ‘because I’m aware that my life is terribly unbalanced. While my weeks are filled with so many meetings I barely have time to think, weekends are empty and seem to stretch forever.’

So why has it happened? Sally admits she has spent the past five years putting her career first, ‘to the point where I’ve almost forgotten how to open up and get to know men on a personal level. I had one, eight-year relationship that went terribly wrong and my career has filled part of the void. But not all of it,’ she admits.

Like Sally, many of us are increasingly relying on work to fulfil our every need. A report by the Industrial Society indicates that barriers between work and home are crashing down and that ‘more and more people find love, friends and sense of community in their jobs.’ Yet work isn’t and shouldn’t be everything. If we’re coming home so late that we’re only fit to sink into a bath and blunder towards the bedroom, there’s something deeply amiss with our job descriptions, working methods or, more tellingly, our relationships.

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Is work wrecking your love life?