Couples working together can be challenging

Working together as a couple can be both rewarding and challenging. While it can be great to share success and work towards common goals, it can also create unique stresses and conflicts that are not present in other types of relationships both  business and personal.
I have coached and worked with many couples in business and experienced the best and worse of how to work together. When the personal relationship goes wrong, the results are devastating and often ends with the business being sold or closed.
One of the main challenges of working together as a couple is the potential for work-related disagreements to spill over into personal disagreements. This can create a cycle where work stress leads to personal stress and vice versa, making it difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Another issue is that working together can make it difficult to establish boundaries between work and personal life. It's tempting to talk about work all the time, which can lead to burnout and a lack of time and energy for other important aspects of the relationship. The kitchen table is not the place to be always talking about business, especially when it should be for family conversations in front of your children. That's the opposite of what happened in our own family business a long time ago. The kitchen table was just an extension of daily issues within the factory. 
I have also experienced that working together can create power dynamics and conflicts of interest that may not exist in other professional relationships. For example, one partner may have more decision-making power than the other, or there may be conflicts of interest when it comes to promotions or salaries. 
To lessen these challenges, it is important for couples working together to establish clear communication, boundaries, and expectations. They should strive to keep work-related disagreements separate from personal disagreements and prioritize their relationship outside of work. I know that this is a near impossible task sometimes and it takes a lot of self discipline. Remember aggression begets aggression.
It is always helpful to establish clear roles and responsibilities and to seek outside support or mediation if conflicts arise. Again I have worked with couples and unfortunately by the time I am called in, its often too late.
The safe thing to do would be to set the ground rules right from the start. However, no one ever does that. As I say to startups, write the rule of the game now. The business rules that is. You could say begin with end in mind. We all plan for the start, but we never plan for an end.

​Bill Winter