Working with your spouse can be a dream come true. You get to build something you love with the person you love, and you have a partner who understands the highs and lows of your entrepreneurial journey like no one else. But it can also be a recipe for disaster if you’re not careful. When your co-founder is also your life partner, the lines between work and home can become hopelessly blurred.
So, how do you keep the business from taking over your relationship? How do you switch off from “work mode” and just be a couple? To get some answers, we turned to Matt Evans, who co-founded The Garden Room Studio with his wife, Elle. Their story, shared on the Work This Way podcast, is a masterclass in how to make a business partnership work without sacrificing your personal life.
Here is a 5-step guide to setting healthy boundaries when you work with your spouse, based on their experience.
Step 1: Define Your Roles (and Respect Them)
One of the biggest sources of conflict in a spousal business partnership is a lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities. Who oversees what? Who makes the final call on different decisions? Without clear roles, you can end up stepping on each other’s toes and creating unnecessary tension.
Actionable Tip: Sit down together and write out a clear job description for each of you. Be as specific as possible. Then, make a commitment to respect each other’s areas of ownership. Trust your partner to do their job and resist the urge to micromanage.
Step 2: Create a “Third Space” for Business Talk
When you live and work together, it’s easy for every conversation to turn into a business meeting. You can find yourselves talking about cash flow over dinner or debating a marketing strategy in bed. This is a fast track to burnout and resentment.
Matt and Elle have learned the importance of creating a “third space” a designated time and place for business talk that is separate from both the office and your home life. This could be a weekly meeting at a coffee shop, a daily walk, or even just a specific chair in your house that is the “business chair.”
Actionable Tip: Agree on a specific time and place for your business conversations. When you’re outside of that time and place, make a conscious effort to not talk about work. If a business thought pops into your head, write it down and save it for your next designated business talk.
Step 3: Schedule “No Work” Time
Just as it’s important to schedule your business meetings, it’s even more important to schedule your personal time. If you don’t intentionally make time for your relationship, the business will always find a way to creep in.
“It’s easy to let the business take over everything,” Matt shared. “We’ve had to be really intentional about switching off and making sure we have time for our family that is completely separate from work.”
Actionable Tip: Schedule a regular date night, a weekend getaway, or even just an hour each evening where you put away your phones and laptops and just connect as a couple. Protect this time as fiercely as you would protect a meeting with your most important client.
Step 4: Have a Clear Disagreement Protocol
Disagreements are inevitable in any business partnership. But when your partner is also your spouse, those disagreements can feel much more personal. It’s crucial to have a clear protocol for how you will handle disagreements before they escalate into full-blown arguments.
This might include taking a break when things get heated, agreeing to bring in a neutral third party (like a mentor or a coach), or simply having a rule that you don’t go to bed angry.
Actionable Tip: Sit down with your partner and create a simple, 3-step disagreement protocol. For example: 1. Acknowledge the other person’s perspective. 2. Take a 10-minute break to cool off. 3. Come back together to find a compromise.
Step 5: Celebrate Your Wins (Both Business and Personal)
When you’re in the trenches of building a business, it’s easy to get so focused on the challenges that you forget to celebrate the wins. Make a conscious effort to celebrate your successes, both big and small. Did you land a new client? Pop a bottle of champagne. Did you finally solve a tricky problem? Go out for a nice dinner.
And don’t just celebrate your business wins. Celebrate your personal wins, too. Are you a great team? A supportive couple? A loving family? Those are the biggest wins of all.
Working with your spouse can be an incredible journey. By setting clear boundaries and being intentional about protecting your relationship, you can build a thriving business and a strong, happy partnership.
