Tips on How Not to Let Work Ruin a Relationship

Work killed Karl Plunkett's eight-year marriage.

Well, at least the way Plunkett went about it. A die-hard, devoted journalist, he put in a decade of 80-hour weeks covering crime, politics and the Royal Family for the Windsor Express, a publication in West London. "I basically lived in my newsroom," recalls Plunkett, 40. "I'd see my now ex-wife at about midnight and just fall over because I was so tried." A "little too much drinking"--Plunkett's words--didn't help, either.

In 2007, around the time he and his wife split, Plunkett took a public relations job at Pimlico Plumbers, a London plumbing-and-repair company. While he misses the thrill of reporting, he says he now has a chance to lead a healthy home life, shared with his new girlfriend of eight months. Says the chastened scribe: "When I'm not working, I make sure to shut everything down, so we can really spend time together."

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