Career Couples

“OH my gosh, you guys are just the cutest!”

“It must be so much fun to work with your husband every day.”

Sari and her husband often hear those comments when clients watch them working together. And they smile and nod. But the truth, Sari says, is more complicated. “There’s nothing cute, cool, or fun about working together as a couple. You can be an incredible team and your workday can contribute to your marriage. Or it can be an utter disaster.”

For most of human history, it was the norm for couples to work together. They ran family farms or businesses in or close to their homes. Professor Glenn Musk, a professor at North Dakota State University who has spent the last 20 years studying couples who work together, writes that about a third of businesses in the US are run by couples he calls “co-preneurs.” Many more aren’t officially manned by family, but receive regular, often uncompensated help from spouses or partners.