Do You Love Your Work More Than You Love… Love?

A typical evening in the Auteri household.

Shortly after getting married, I started seeing my husband a lot less.

No, he wasn’t having an affair.

I was.

With my work.

First, I started working nights at the New York Sun. I headed over there after finishing my day at Routledge, an academic book publisher where I was working full-time. Then, after securing additional hours at the New York Sun and getting onto my husband’s health insurance, I left Routledge, only to start an editorial internship at Nerve. I was exhausted, but I was also excited: I was finally pursuing the full-time freelance lifestyle I had wanted for so long, and I was hoping that the time I put in at Nerve would open even more doors for me.

My husband? Well… we barely saw each other. He was already gone by the time I woke up in the morning, and already asleep when I finally arrived home from NYC.

I was unhappy with the state of our relationship, but what could I do? It was my own damn fault. And within six months, I was able to match the salary I had previously been making in book publishing, and had also broken into a number of dream publications, including Nerve and Time Out New York.

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