Thrive Again - Your relationship podcast

The Hidden Struggles of Couples in Business

• Michael & Amy • Season 1 • Episode 52

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Entrepreneurial couples face unique challenges as they navigate the complex terrain of mixing business with pleasure, creating potential ticking time bombs in their relationship unless key issues are addressed. 

• Separating work from love: Business conversations can easily invade personal time, transforming partners into co-workers at home
• Power struggles and role confusion: Working together amplifies existing relationship dynamics and creates confusion about decision-making authority
• Stress as the third person: Financial pressures and deadlines can push couples into survival mode, creating emotional isolation
• Different work ethics: Varying approaches to perfectionism, work hours, and standards can cause significant friction
• Loss of attraction and polarity: Constant business interaction can erode the mystery and space needed for romantic connection
• Daily check-ins provide awareness of each other's emotional state and challenges
• Clear boundaries between work and home life prevent relationship burnout
• Communicating vulnerably about issues rather than attacking helps address conflicts
• Dedicated rituals to transition from work mode to relationship mode maintain connection

If you're looking to elevate your relationship while working together, reach out via email or Instagram for free resources that can help address these challenges.


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Speaker 1:

1, 2, 3, 4 couples and singles who want to unlock their relationship potential and reconnect on a deeper, more meaningful soul level. We share insights, client breakthroughs and personal stories to help move your relationship from surviving to thriving. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Thrive Again, your relationship podcast. Today we have a little bit different topic, something that we thought was really prominent in our world at the moment, in not only just our relationship but with other couples that we're seeing in our community and in the wider world as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks, babe, good intro. You're welcome we're talking about couples in business and really the hidden struggles that can happen in the space where couples have just made a decision to maybe drop into an enterprise or a new project or a business, whether that be small or large to dropping into that space, and how conflicting this can be, how tricky this can be, how difficult the types of struggles that you can move through and actually why in most cases, it's actually a ticking time bomb for your relationship unless you address some key points.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's what we wanted to kind of speak into. Firstly, I guess we can get really excited about you know something that's new, a new adventure, new opportunity, become your own boss. You know there's no one to report to, so there's all these like amazing, amazing, beautiful, exciting dreams of having your own business.

Speaker 2:

but there's also a lot of struggles and reality that comes with that as well yeah, so we're going to give you the top five reasons why working with your partner can be incredibly unhinging in your relationship and can actually cause separation if not really addressed. So this isn't about really just bringing up these topics and leaving you guys hanging. It's really about just bringing awareness to if you're in business with your partner. You may be thinking about it. How about let's just consider these things and are there gaps? And if there are, can we make inroads into them? And are there some areas that we're not really turning up all that well because of a whole range of different things, and we're going to speak into those top five things in this podcast, so looking forward to that. So I wanted to ask you about us and you and I, babe, and what, what we've gone through in terms of like dreams of working together. Where did this all start?

Speaker 1:

yeah, it was funny. I remember um started very early in our relationship when we were backpacking through Europe together what would have been like um 06 07.

Speaker 2:

So 2006, 2007.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I remember writing in my little diary that I had at the time that, and I think we even made some plans.

Speaker 1:

We made plans. We made plans in that little diary. I don't even know what that is, but, yeah, we dreamt of having a business together and it was going to be a backpackers, you know, because we love that environment, didn't we? We loved, like, meeting new people, we loved um the culture, understanding how different people live, and for us, we're like, yeah, we can set up a backpackers when we move back home and we'll bring our children up there and they can mingle with all these different nationalities and anyway. But that was, yeah, like we said. It was like almost 20 years ago now that that Michael and I first had a dream of owning our own business and we got into a lot of detail back then, didn't we?

Speaker 2:

We got into a lot of detail, but before you know it, we were back at home and then we just dropped into our own jobs and our own separate spaces, which, in hindsight, was a good thing, and we're going to explain at the end of the podcast why that was a good thing that we didn't go into business back then and we waited until five years ago to get into business. So yeah we're going to explore that a little bit at the end too, so hang around for that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so let's dive into some of the reasons why working with your partner actually can be a bit of a ticking time bomb for the relationship. What's number one?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I actually think this is probably the biggest thing, and that's like noticing the difference between, or separating work from love. And I don't know about you, but for me sometimes, when I'm with you in the office and we're working together, I don't really feel love and I guess it's not really expected to experience love in that time. But sometimes that workflow type energy between you and I can be taken into the home after 6 pm and it's almost like I'm still with my business partner Maybe not intentionally, and this can sometimes just happen effortlessly and that there is the issue, because every conversation is about business, every conversation is about our clients, and and so the problem here is that there's no separation right yeah, no separation, no boundaries, no like, because it's exciting for us too.

Speaker 1:

You know we're passionate about what we do and we we're constantly, um, you know, thinking about our clients, wondering how we can help them more or what we can do. But yeah, after the first year or so of doing this, we learned pretty quickly that having no boundaries, no separation between work and our intimacy and our love and our connection is a recipe for disaster, because it just drains us where we're not. We don't have any energy for each other, we're not able to let go of of the busy mind and all the the tasks and the doing and just be present yeah, I think we've got enough responsibilities in our own life, let alone taking on other people's responsibilities.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, the danger is that we've just become co-workers in our own home yeah, so it depends what business you guys are in and if you're in a relationship, and sometimes it might be easier to leave, but it's just the conscious awareness of are you able to separate it and are you coming home and still talking about it, still discussing things that are work related?

Speaker 2:

Just something that really helped us was having a ritual or something that breaks the mold of the co-working space and the dialogue about work stuff. So I know sometimes after a big day at work we just cuddle for 30 seconds. Sometimes we just do that and in a way that helps communicate to me that we're done with that. And I saw you today and I witnessed you and your magic and I was doing my thing. And can we just leave that behind and now be in love with each other in the home space? And even if that's just moving to family responsibilities, that's okay too, but let's leave work at the door yeah, yeah, definitely having some sort of disconnect.

Speaker 1:

So you know the difference. Yeah, cool. What's the next one? What's the next reason why working with your partner may actually be a ticking time bomb?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm going to speak about power struggles and confusion around our roles, because business and when we're in business together as a couple, the one thing that that will do is polarize what already exists in your relationship.

Speaker 2:

It's going to amplify things. So if you feel like you're not respected and the mechanism that you use is you're going to get louder, then that's just going to come into business too, because often what happens when we're in relationships and we can't separate the two, is those dynamics become bigger and and louder and become more of an issue. And so to think that you can separate your relationship from business, you've got to be kicked like you're kidding yourself. There. There are going to be things like power struggles that come in, like who's in charge, yeah, who's making the call on things? Um, who, who's the one who's, yeah, making the harder decisions. And if there's resistance from your partner in that space because just in general in your relationship that's a friction point then how the heck are you going to get business done properly when really we're just having internal kind of um bickering and arguments within the business like that's actually at play?

Speaker 1:

yeah, can you remember what happened with us in our first few years of business? Do you remember?

Speaker 1:

tell me I remember, um, yeah, our, like you were saying, it amplifies the current state of your relationship working together, right, and our current state when we first started was a little bit, um, unbalanced oh yeah yeah, I was, I was all in and I was like this driving force which I usually am, I think, often in life um and I, my idea of business was you're in the office like all day, every day, and you just work, work, work, work, work.

Speaker 1:

If anyone knows human design, I'm a generator, so that makes sense. But, um, yeah, your, your idea was business of business was completely different, like you kind of showed up in the office a few hours a day and you're oh, oh yeah, I'm done Off, you go and you disappear. And it was caused so much friction for us because I guess we didn't have the communication that we needed at the beginning. We didn't have the awareness of who was doing what roles, what the expectations are. There was a lot that was kind of unspoken. We didn't discuss or communicate well. We didn't have team meetings. We didn't have or communicate well. We didn't have team meetings. We didn't have so many little things that make our business run so much smoother now that weren't in place and perpetuated this power struggle problem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and one of the things that I think we do so well now is we speak up about when we're hurt or when our partner says something. When you, you know, I don't know. When you say you're scrolling on your phone when I'm really trying to go through something important with you, it makes me feel like you don't care and that I'm not really respected in this business. So like, even though that might be dramatic, it's actually a key part, because if I didn't speak up about that, she wouldn't know about it and I would continue to just swallow it down and maybe this underlying resentment that you don't really respect me plays into the business and so, therefore, we're at battle, at odds with each other, even if it's silent yeah, it can be.

Speaker 1:

It can be confusing because we we don't know with clarity. Like you know, you think about normal jobs. Well, you know you're not having your own business. You go to work, this is your role, you do your role, you know, like you're a paramedic, you knew what your role was, you know. But in business we have all sorts of roles. You know, we have the marketing role, we have the consulting role, we have the sales role. We have all of these roles. So it would cause all sorts of conflict and confusion between the two of us because we weren't sure how to run our business well at the beginning and it caused a lot of stress yeah.

Speaker 2:

so once we were able to really hear each other and sink into deep presence with each other when we're sharing, then we were able to gain those missing pieces and it wasn't so much of a power struggle anymore. It was like, oh, I get you. Now I know why it's important for you to leave the office. Can you just give me an idea in advance of when you're planning to leave the office, so that I can be okay in my nervous system and I don't see that as being that you're abandoning the business and you don't care about?

Speaker 1:

it Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Cool. So yeah, the power struggle and role confusion is number two, so number three. Moving on, what's the next reason why sometimes businesses are really difficult for couples?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just stress becomes the third person in the relationship. So stress is financial pressure, it's deadlines, it's meeting expectations For us of clients, just everything that pushes us into some form of survival mode. And we've got to recognize that business inherently will have drivers that are going to move you towards stress. And so how well do we manage stress? And I know for me, like my um, my growth area is that sometimes I put other people's needs first, so therefore I'm not honoring myself a lot of the time. So that's an area I need to keep an eye on, otherwise stress or my patience really wears thin and, yeah, I'm not really able to self-regulate to the level that I need to absolutely, and you know, I think stress is a part of life these days and it probably impacts a lot of couples, not that are just in business, but in any, any job.

Speaker 1:

But it's important to have this ability to regulate your emotions better or to manage your stress better and do things that are good for you, you know, to make sure that that's a priority for you, because you and I got we get to places in our relationship where we completely forget about ourselves. You know, like we weren't. We were there not that long ago where, you know, I was having some sort of breakdown because I just couldn't handle the pressure anymore. But we have the tools to be able to support each other. And I think about other couples that are in business that maybe don't have that ability, and maybe one just shuts down and goes quiet and just tries to deal with it themselves. But this also impacts the energy of the business too. So there's a whole other energetics at play which we won't go into today. But if we didn't have the support for each other and the ability to communicate what's going on internally, then this could cause all sorts of issues.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there becomes an isolation within a business. So each of you feel like you're an island and you're isolated in your own ball of stress. And when you bring up the stress, then the other person is like, well, what about me? Like I've been toiling over here, like my back's nearly broken because I've been doing over things over here and I haven't really received any recognition or appreciation from you, and so you can see how, all of a sudden, we're individual balls of stress and feeling isolated and alone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think.

Speaker 2:

What do we do, like you know, to really help mitigate that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I guess it's the daily check-in. You know we check in with each other. We have a little meeting it might only be for five to ten minutes each morning, before we start our day in the office, just to ask each other like what's going on for you? So then we've got more awareness. We don't just dismissing, keep trucking on. You know, and that's what we learnt, you know, this is through our own mistakes that we've learned to do these things as well yeah.

Speaker 2:

So a check-in could be just yeah, how are you feeling at the moment? Um, what's your biggest challenge right now? What's something I can celebrate you for? It might be just three questions, and that what that does is that gives, firstly, the other person to really drop into where they're at so that they can voice it and so that can be heard, but also so that they actually know themselves. So I get that. If amy's a two and then she tells me why, maybe it's because it's the her hormone cycle right now, that's where she's at. Oh cool, I get that. Now I totally forgot about that because I don't feel those changes internally. So now I can be more of a support to you and I can lead with direction and with focus.

Speaker 1:

You just take the back seat and I got this so there's a support element there, but we can only support each other when we know the missing pieces yeah, yeah, communication's key, hey, yeah yeah so yeah, uh, the next issue that causes a lot of conflict in relationships when they're working in business together is they have we have different work work ethics, and I think we used to as well. You know we have a difference in how we show up for work, how much work we put in. I was a bit more of a actually, yeah, I was a bit more of a perfectionist, getting everything right. You're a little bit more laid back it depends in what context.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I think I had a big element of perfectionism as well, which I expected of you, which you wouldn't turn up for as well. So it depends in what area.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, now they just kind of get magnified under the pressure of a business right like these differences, um, and they can cause a lot of disharmony, a lot of issues.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like an example of that whole perfectionist thing is, yeah, like I'd have a certain standard that I'd need things at, particularly like with images and you know, even like little memes or things that we were creating and I'd get you to do them. But then when you do them, you show them to me and then I'm like I tinker with them one or two more times and you're just like, oh, what's the point? And everything I do can't be right. Yeah, it's not good enough for you. Yeah, and so that could be the meaning that you make out of that whole thing. And for me, like I've also got some element of control that I need to let go of there too.

Speaker 2:

So speaking into those issues, not speaking from those issues, is the key. You know, like speaking from those issues is more of a triggered reaction. Oh, you just control everything that I do. But speaking into them is, hey, you know, when you question everything that you, that things that you put forward, like I feel really insecure in those moments and I feel like you, you know, and everything that I do, it's it's not good enough for you. So that's speaking into the problem. That's more of a vulnerable expression. Is that, is that sort of. Is that kind of a good example? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, and I think just just generally how, how we're brought up, it all plays into it, like our work ethics you know like what, what our idea of work is, like this all has impact on how we show up in the workplace and it may be completely different to you, and I see many couples in business.

Speaker 1:

One just wants to work, work, work, work work because that's their, that's their mechanism and maybe it's fear-based, maybe they need more money and the more time they spend in there. But the other one's like hey, just chill out, it's okay, like why is work so important, let's just relax. And this can cause all sorts of really big conflicts between the couple yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 2:

And if there's expectations that aren't spoken about or written down, then if I'm working till 7.30pm and you're knocking off at five, then I'll likely have resentment for that extra two and a half hours that I'm doing. But we have never made an agreement on that. Hey, like 5pm we knock off, or that we work till 7 30 pm. So these are the unwritten expectations that sometimes can play in business as well absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's important to kind of get those clear first yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So the fifth one is loss of attraction and polarity. So this is interesting because I think the same energy that creates romantic desire, like mystery and playfulness and space and it, it kind of just gets drowned out when you're constantly in this work mode, this business mode, and what happens there is that we don't get to witness our partner in their true essence, we're only seeing them in the driven um business mind and that's often not attractive it can be but most of the time it's not because most both of us are in our heads and we're task orientated and we're trying to fulfill these responsibilities right yeah, absolutely, and I think the other part of this is we can just get so consumed in life and work that we forget about each other

Speaker 1:

we forget how to connect, we forget that we're actually intimate you know, romantic partners and not just business partners, and that loss of attraction can actually kind of just disappear. I guess other couples can experience this who aren't in business as well, but I feel like it's something that needs to be paid extra attention yeah, yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I wanted to just round this out by saying that we're so.

Speaker 2:

I'm so grateful that we didn't drop into business back in 2007 or 2008 when we got back from traveling, because I really worry that if we did do that, it would have really enhanced the power struggle that was there between the two of us already and I don't think that we had the skills to be able to navigate that and I worry that that would have been the end of our relationship. We did work together in the French Alps for six months and that was. We knew it. We'd known each other for about nine months and we did that for a whole ski season and there were moments in there where I felt like leaving and it was very much on a cliff edge you walked, yeah, you walked away down the road, yeah because it was the way that I was peeling the potatoes.

Speaker 2:

It just wasn't right. And again, like it's not about the potatoes, it's about the fact that I kind of felt that you were controlling me and for you you were probably seeing that I just I just wasn't turning, I wasn't reliable in your eyes. So there was this demand for reliability and maybe work ethic that perhaps I wasn't giving you to the level that you expected. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, so, thank goodness, we waited and we've been in business now for five years together and working alongside of each other every day. But we have learnt to make some big changes in our schedule, in our life to ensure that we can continue to have the romantic relationship and the business relationship and partnership too, and we've talked about some of those points that we've we already implement. But we now work with couples. You know as well other business owners who struggle with this same dynamic and that's what we we highlight with these guys. You guys have got this added pressure. You know life's busy, life's stressful anyway. The relationship is confusing sometimes and hard to manage, but then you've got this extra level of business on top of that. It can add so much complexity onto a relationship if it's already a little bit disjointed or not deeply connected. So, yeah, it's nice to be able to support those couples to find their groove and their relationship in business and in the romance.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, probably three of the main areas that really come to mind. For me is, firstly, managing stress, so just really understanding how we can kind of honor ourselves first, honor each other, give each other that space that we need. Another one is just communication, and communicating with presence and awareness, considering the other person, not listening, you know, you know to respond, but listening to really understand what's happening with that person. Those check-ins are a great part of that. And then, of course, just having that emotional intelligence and really dropping into understanding the emotional element and being able to speak vulnerably about what's really coming up. They're the main areas that I feel are missing and the gaps.

Speaker 1:

Can I add one more Please? I think it's really important to have boundaries. Yeah, have clear boundaries of what's work, what's home, and being really strict with those, because it can filter through so simply and you and I do it all the time. I think you walked in on me the other day and you started talking about a client. I'm like I've got kids here. I don't want to talk about this now, but we do it, it's human but. I think it's important those boundaries.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, beautiful. Well, listeners, whether you're in business or not, maybe you're actually looking to get into business with your partner and this is something that you've thought about. If you know, this is something that you've you've thought about. Like, if you're looking to up, level these areas of your relationship, then this is our genius, because obviously we live it too right. So, reach out, send us a message, whether it's via our email or via instagram, and we've actually got heaps of free resources that we can give you that can help you in these areas that we just spoke about. And, yeah, definitely as part of that is our offerings, and some of that can be private coaching as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you so much for listening again and being a part of our community. Very grateful Thanks guys.