For couples who share a workplace, balancing the demands of a job and family can be simultaneously easier and more difficult than it is for other couples.

Let’s start with the easier. Couples who own and operate a business together know first-hand what their partners are experiencing on the job, which can make spouses more supportive.

“When things get hectic and stressful at work, both partners understand what that stress and panic is all about,” says Lenore Davis, a senior partner with Dixon Davis & Co. in Victoria, a financial planning firm she owns with her husband, Howard Dixon. Spouses who work together are also more likely to understand when the rigours of the job cut into personal and family life, she adds.

Cathy Jacob, professional coach and owner of Tiger Lily Coaching in Dartmouth, N.S., agrees: “Being able to participate in a business venture with someone you trust and whose stake in the business is the same as yours can offer you levels of support that you might not get otherwise.”

Working together can also make the business more productive and profitable. “For couples in strong, mutually supportive relationships, shared work can provide an opportunity to be creative and engaged in a way that most couples never get to do,” says Jacob. “For those who own businesses together, it also offers the opportunity to build and design a fully integrated life in which they can work toward what they want — personally, professionally and financially.”

Michael Berton has shared Vancouver-based Integrated Planning Group with his wife, Cathie Hurlburt, since 1994. “We are able to work effectively as a team by using our very different skill sets to offer a wider range of services than either of us could alone,” Berton says. “One of us is very practical while the other is more visionary. Our personal styles appeal to different people, allowing one of us to serve clients better, depending on their personalities.”

Such individual traits also make for a better working relationship. Davis notes that her husband works predominantly at home, while she works primarily out of their downtown office. The arrangement helps them avoid the strain couples experience when their contact extends from early morning to late night every day.

However, keeping family and working lives separate can be harder to manage. “Lack of boundaries around work and home can be a problem,” says Kathy Jourdain, president of Chrysalis Strategies Inc. , a leadership development firm she co-owns and operates with her husband in Halifax. “You need to be even more careful that personal issues don’t float over into the work arena because your professionalism and reputation is at stake.”

For Berton and Hurlburt, the natural overflow of work into home life is not a significant issue. “More of a problem is managing children’s schedules,” Berton says, “and ensuring they have family time when our business schedules become busy at the same time.”

Davis and her husband strive to ensure that work does not invade all aspects of their lives. The couple will often meet outside the home — over lunch or at a pub — to discuss business. These boundaries help to separate the professional from the personal.

The distinction is important, notes Jacob: “Sharing work as well as family means sharing virtually every aspect of your life with your life partner. For some couples, this may be too much.”

Other business relationships have to be handled with special care. The personal/professional divide needs to be apparent to others, especially staff, Berton cautions. “We have to take care not to allow our personal connection to interfere with our fair and equitable treatment of our staff,” he says. “We all work together as a team, and while the fact we are married is no secret, it does not create an ‘us’ and ‘them’ schism.”

Couples have to determine who does what in the business, Jourdain says. She recommends assigning job titles to ensure role clarity. And, Berton adds, the partners have to agree on what is fair in terms of expectations: “One advisor may have the larger client book and heavier workload, while the other supports them by doing more of the domestic duties.”

Ultimately, says Davis, it’s critical that couples whose lives intersect in this way have at least one interest or avocation that is theirs, and theirs alone. “You have to have some balance of personal time,” she says.

@page_break@For Davis, that something is golf. Her husband recently took up the game, but he tees off with his friends, and she with hers.

In the spirit of the union, however, they might be persuaded to meet at the 19th hole. If only to compare scores. IE