Employee says his company's RTO policy is affecting his relationship: Girlfriend works remotely

The return-to-office mandate is revealing how much of the couple's relationship had been built on the life they had created around being home, the employee said. (AI-generated image)

A London-based employee, whose company recently announced a return‑to‑office (RTO) mandate, has shared that the change in routine has disrupted his life, increased his expenses, reduced his available time, and strained his relationship with his girlfriend.

The employee, who has not been named, told Business Insider that his girlfriend also works remotely and together, they had built a routine and a life of working from home for a year.

Built‑in rhythm disrupted

"When remote work first became part of my life, I resisted it," he said. "I missed the structure of an office, the separation between work and everything else."

Gradually, however, remote work became an essential part of his life, allowing him to reclaim mornings, cook meals, think clearly, and share an intentional, comfortable routine with his partner. The couple, accustomed to structuring their days around each other while working from home, had calibrated their small London flat into a functional shared workspace.

According to him, the RTO announcement “wasn’t just a scheduling change,” but a disruption to a supportive domestic system that had taken months to build.

Exhaustion alters the relationship

Since the mandate, the employee said almost nothing in their relationship feels the same. "Commuting to London isn't cheap, and the daily arithmetic of transport, lunches, and the small expenses that accumulate when you're out of the house adds up faster than expected," he said. Moreover, the daily commute left him exhausted. What earlier felt natural now requires deliberate planning: shared lunches, breaks together, and evening downtime have shrunk, replaced by recovery from the office routine.

With both partners previously working from home, the sudden change has forced them to reconsider how to divide space, chores, and emotional bandwidth.

"The return-to-office policy hasn't damaged anything between us," the employee said. "But it is revealing how much of our relationship had been built on the life we'd created around being home... We have only been doing this for a few weeks. Something tells me the real adjustments are still ahead."