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

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