When your spouse is also your workmate

Working alongside one’s spouse is not an easy feat. However, if done right, it can give you a deeper respect for your spouse’s professional skills. The following guidelines can help you achieve a better work-home balance when working with your spouse.

Respect is key

If you are always respectful of one another, maintaining a balance between work and home will be easier. Even in a situation where one partner is superior to the other, courtesy, kindness and respect should be maintained.

Always being respectful will ensure that both of you get along in all aspects of your lives and will prevent both of you from hurting each other. It will also help to avert small disagreements from sparking into full-blown arguments. Remember, working with each other will always outweigh working against each other.

Set a clear distinction between work and home

Most couples strive so hard to ensure perfection at work forgetting about their marriages. Separation between work and home is easier said than done and is becoming unrealistic and unachievable to a staggering number of couples. You do not need to put up a different persona when at home and at work. Both of you should be yourselves but still be professional. Issues arising from work should be sorted there and the same applies to those arising from home, too.

Can you show public display of affection at work? The answer to this is that as long as it does not make other co-workers uncomfortable, you can go ahead but don’t go overboard. You can choose to always sit together at lunch and share a meal or even check up on each other if you both have separate working spaces. The first requirement to working with your spouse is to ensure it doesn’t violate any office rules.
Set clear boundaries on work discussions during personal hours, whether that’s not having any such talks on evenings and weekends or abiding by a 20-minute limit.

Find ways to maintain your own personal identity

Couples should ensure that they give each other space to work and thrive. This will ensure that they maximise on their strengths. If one of the spouses wants to chip in an idea to their spouse or wants to disagree with them, they should do it professionally just as they would to another employee. You can both leverage on each other’s unique strengths. This can be delegating work responsibilities based on individual abilities and interests and also ensuring that you complement each other. The key here is to keep it professional at work and ensure that you have a level of separation that’s comfortable for both of you.

Work in different departments

If working in the same division is not working out, married couples should opt to work separately. For example, one of them could work in the office while the other in the field. It is all about preferences and which one will work for you as a couple. At the end of the day, the marriage comes first and if working together will not do it any good, then one of you should consider changing jobs.