My company's return-to-office mandate is changing my relationship

I loved working from home alongside my partner; we'd built an easy routine together. When my employer announced an RTO mandate, it wasn't just a scheduling change — it disrupted a life we'd spent months building. I hadn't always embraced remote work; at first I missed the structure of an office and the separation between work and everything else, but over time I found a rhythm: mornings that felt mine, homemade lunches, clearer thinking.

Practically, the shift has been uneven. My girlfriend still works remotely, so I now leave each morning into a commuter version of London while she stays inside the life we'd created. That asymmetry forced conversations about mornings, who handles what and when, and the small, invisible agreements that had formed organically; those things suddenly had to be spoken out loud.

Money and time surfaced fast. We had been saving on food and travel by staying home, but commuting eats into that buffer and, more importantly, into hours that had once been ours.

rto mandate, remote work, commuting, london, partner, relationship, work-life, mornings, savings, commute time