Building a Thriving Business and Maintaining a Healthy Marriage
In today’s society, many husbands and wives are also married to their careers, which can make it difficult to maintain a healthy and happy marriage.
Other married couples, like Luke and Maisie Knowles, combine work life and home life as husband-and-wife entrepreneurs.
The co-founders of FreeShipping.org, a one-stop destination for consumers to find online retailers that offer free shipping deals, the Knowles have what they call an added challenge and benefit that most husband-and-wife entrepreneurs don’t share. They work from a home office — side by side — just a few feet away from each other. And they have an infant daughter, Isabelle.
“We have friends who are married and work from home, but they have offices in two separate bedrooms,” Maisie Knowles said with a grin. “Luke and I find it more productive to work in the same room, because when we need to ask each other a question, all we have to do is speak up. That way, we don’t have to keep getting up and walking back and forth.”
Concocting the ideal recipe to combine a thriving business and a successful marriage is not easy, Luke and Maisie agree, especially when you work together at home, but it can be done with understanding. “As a married couple, when you move from conventional office jobs to working together in your own business, you go from not having much time together to being around each other most of the day everyday,” Luke said. “It can be a challenge to define life as husband and wife, and life as business partners, because it’s hard to separate the two. Still, we would rather work together in our own business than go our separate ways in the morning working for someone else.”
Working together from a home office saves Luke and Maisie time, money (since they do not have a commute), and the aggravation of being stuck in traffic. They also do not need to pay for child care and have more family time.
“Typically, one spouse remains at home with the child while the other works long hours and doesn’t spend as much time with the family as he or she would like,” Maisie said. “I am able to continue working while caring for Isabelle, and Luke is able to spend more time with us.”
