Today, April 11, 2025, marks 27 years of marriage to my life and business partner, Shane. We’re one of those couples who work together, and haven’t killed each other.
Our Story as a Couple Who Works Together
Shane and I launched our online custom furniture business just two months after our wedding. That same year, 1998, we bought a house, a truck, moved our shop out of our garage into a fancy facility, had a baby, and I finished college.
Why It Works for Us
Today, our business looks a lot different.
I run a coaching business and host a top-rated podcast. Shane has transitioned into a full-time artist, and has a side gig repairing windows and screens for historic homes.
We do all of this under one umbrella corporation and make strategic business decisions together.
We’ve learned a lot in 27 years about being a couple who works together.
27 Tips for Couples Who Work Together
Finding common ground is the key to our marriage. For the most part, we enjoy the same books, movies, games, and causes. In fact, we recently attended our first “protest” together. (That’s another story for another day.)
In no particular order, here are 27 other tips (we don’t need no stinkin’ rules) for working together while married:
- Give each other space.
- Separate your roles in business.
- Practice solidarity in parenting and marriage.
- Practice small gestures of appreciation.
- Go on dates.
- Retain separate friends and interests.
- Do stuff together that you both enjoy.
- Forgive.
- Forget the bad times.
- Cherish the good times.
- Don’t make comparisons to other people.
- Try stuff your partner likes at least once.
- Be flexible. Rules are for breaking.
- Be best friends.
- Be frenemies when necessary.
- Don’t expect your partner to read your mind.
- Ask for what you want.
- Be gracious when you know you are right.
- Concede when you know you are wrong.
- Understand that you will both change over time. Embrace the change.
- Have separate offices. (See tip #1.)
- Eat meals together as often as possible.
- Be your partner’s biggest fan.
- Celebrate milestones, big and small.
- Turn off work mode at a set time.
- Keep laughing.
- Fill each other’s gaps.
Your Turn
What lessons have you learned working with your partner? Drop your own rule in the comments—I’d love to hear it!
Here’s to working hard, loving harder, and laughing through all the weirdness together.
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