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Is it a good idea to work with your spouse?
Results so far:
| Yes | 33% | 281 votes | Total: 855 votes | |
| No | 67% | 574 votes |
Yes
by Luningning Sugbu
Created on: February 11, 2010 Last Updated: February 13, 2010
The question is quite relative and certainly depends on how compatible the couple's personalities are under the pressures of the workplace and the willingness to make the partnership work by the involved parties. The reason I leaned on the this part of the debate was because I worked with my spouse for eight years under an exploitative employer but we did survive partly out of desperation and mostly out of our determination to make our marriage work.
WILLINGNESS TO RECOGNIZE INDIVIDUAL ABILITIES
I possessed more experience in our line of work so though he has a medical degree, he willingly allowed me to train him and essentially became his supervisor just so we could keep our job at this time of extreme need. We're like fire and ice with regards to temperament so oftentimes when I get irritable and started to smolder during pressures at work, he assumed the role of ice cream in the heat of a summer's day. He seldom loses his temper in fact and is one of the calmest people I've ever met. Coming from a family known for volatile tempers, he sure is like a breath of fresh air. On my part, the best thing I could do was identify those situations which set me off and practice reining in my emotions when my composure and patience were pushed to the limit. It took years but the effort was well worth it in terms of preserving my energy and increasing my ability in dealing with more relevant issues.
Though a lot more couples work together towards making a start up company take off, recognizing and respecting a partner's niche in the relationship, though seemingly irrelevant to the money side of the business, I believe goes a long way into making the right decisions in steering the company to the right direction. In our situation, it helped us keep our paychecks coming and enabled us to steer our way through innumerable obstacles and to effectively deal with antagonistic people in order to survive.
LOYALTY TO EACH OTHER
All couples be they married or not experienced meddling friends and or family members who have their own agenda in mind. We tend to dismiss this fact as paranoia for the reason that we feel guilty to believe people close to us may not have our best interests in mind. It doesn't mean they are bad but its just part of life's inevitable need for competition in the pursuit of our dreams and complex desires. Having your own business and working with each other does elicit jealousy from friends and a perceived gold mine by relatives who can possibly scheme ways of destroying your relationship and getting their hands on your hard earned money. Accepting this fact and the ability to set each other as the priority when faced with situations of conflict of interest with family members and close friends cements the essential ingredient of trust in the relationship.
In trying times, it is so tempting to reveal to close friends your spouse's eccentricities and weaknesses as a way of getting back after a spat but this is a dangerous practice as this would present a weak point in your relationship. Those of your friends or co-workers who have designs of stealing your spouse or destroying your good working relationship would certainly exploit the situation. A co-worker may have heard one of our heated arguments at work which consequently reached my boss' ears. My exploitative boss then took advantage of the situation by introducing a middle aged lady doctor to my husband in the hopes of finding a chink in our armor of defense. Our loyalty to each other allowed us to devise ways of skirting the dirty maneuvers while still keeping our jobs in the same company.
WILLINGNESS TO PUT IN THE EFFORT
Hard work is something that no relationship can survive without be it a romantic, marital or more so a working relationship. The tendency to be complacent and take the easy route by totally relying on the other spouse's efforts is almost always the norm which is the fastest way to destroying any working relationship. Pretense can easily be perceived as familiarity with each other removes most room for manipulation. The abused spouse will feel resentful and used and with time exhibit signs of burnout. Walking away from it all becomes an inevitability that would cost a lot emotionally and financially when divorce lawyers become a part of the break up. This is never more true if you co-own and run a company together.
In our case, it would have meant losing our ability to resist exploitation by our employer and most likely the inability to keep the job and consequently our paychecks. Returning to my family without a job and possibly without a husband is too depressing to contemplate. I prefer to die fighting rather than admitting failure and walking away from it all.
Though we differ in our ability to put in hard work, assuring each other the willingness to put in the effort to keep on working together towards a common goal serves as an inspiration to repeatedly go beyond each others' comfort zone if that is what it takes.
If the basic requirements towards a lasting working relationship is met to some extent, complimented with the right temperament, street smarts, educational qualifications and skill, then considering to work with one's spouse may be a good idea.
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No
by Stephen H
Created on: August 08, 2009 Last Updated: March 15, 2012
It's not unusual to find married or courting couples working for the same organisation and even in the same office, but it is a less common occurence than a few years ago. This might be because most people recognise it is not beneficial to either your work or private life. You might think it should be ideal, spending your working life in the company of the one you love. In fact what could be better? Just because it may be true that your chosen partner is the person with whom you want to spend the whole of your life, do you really mean that to be every second of that life? All relationships benefit from a certain level of privacy and being married does not mean that you should do everything together. There are times when we could all do with a little time of our own. The ideal is to get a good balance and the question is whether or not working together tips the balance too far in the wrong direction. By examining some of the issues it raises, let's see if we can answer the question.
There are some savings to be had from working in the same office, for example, it does allow you to make some transport savings if you travel into work together by car. Of course, if you work in different offices but in the same area you will benefit from this also. Perhaps the most substantial issue here is the financial risk involved. If you are both working for the same company, while you both may benefit when the company is doing well, through bonuses for example, you are also both at risk of losing your job when things go badly, as they did in early 2009. If you are both working for the same organisation and it goes bust, all income into the family home is lost at the same time. Perhaps we should heed our parents' warnings not to put all our eggs into one basket.
A more day to day issue that will arise is around privacy. The office will, of course, be aware of your couple status. This will be particularly evident when you row, as every couple does. It's during these times that you might say disparaging things about your partner, heartfelt at the time, but soon regretted. Your office colleagues will be less likely to forget and your relationship will become the water cooler gossip topic. In addition, camps may form within the office supporting one of you against the other. This may be fine will you are in dispute with your partner, but will be problematic when things return to an even keel. All of this will add to your colleagues' view of you both as a couple and individually. It is likely your reputation will be undermined by displays from your personal life and this in turn could harm your standing, and therefore career prospects. This lack of privacy will put strain on your relationship and may damage the marriage. If you are a couple working together, the best advice is to keep your personal life out of the office.
One major advantage is the support that you can provide each other, particularly in the face of office politics. You will each be aware of the work situation of the other, when there is a particular busy or stressful time for one of you, the other will know to offer support. This support may be private, at home, or may be public, by supporting your partner in the office. The down side is that others may not accept your support for your partner at work as anything other than from personal motivations and so it may not have the desired effect. Worse though, may be when you take opposite sides of a work issue. Particularly if it is over something that you both feel passionately about. The argument over work issues could easily spill over into an argument about your relationship.
Depending on the nature of the work that you both carry out, it is more likely that both of you will be under stress at the same time. When something is happening at work that causes a heavy workload or there are particularly difficult times for the office, if you are both working for the same organisation, you will both be under stress at the same time. This is likely to spill over into your private life and put strain on your relationship. One of the symptoms of stress is irritability and a shortening of temper. When you are both under this level of stress, it is likely to lead to serious arguments which could adversely affect your relationship. Working together only increases the likelihood of this happening.
One area where there is a distinct advantage for a couple working together is that they can spend more time together, perhaps taking lunch and travelling to and from work. This might not always be welcome, but mostly would be good. Spending this level of time together and being in the same environment will also make it less likely that an office romance springs up outside of the relationship. Most affairs are with work colleagues and so working together will reduce the risk considerably. That said, committed couples may not consider this a high risk to their relationship in any case.
Overall, the advantages of working in the same office are far outweighed by the disadvantages and I think it is generally not a good idea to be working together. However, if you are working together make sure that you discuss your rules and boundaries around what stays in private at home, and what stays part of your work at the office, and does not come home. Being clear about this distinction will help considerably. You will need to ensure that you maintain a professional relationship at work and that does not interfere with your personal relationship at home.
Learn more about this author, Stephen H.
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