What happens when boy, who is a freelancer, meets girl, who is a freelancer in another field and both have home offices. Physical attraction and similar interests mount but the question remains, this boy and girl make a relationship work along with their career when both work from home?

The answer is: yes, a couple can survive marriage when  they are around each other 24/7 with out killing each other or threatening divorce.You do have moment when there are disagreements but that is normal in any relationship.

There is a normal amount of adjustment when a couple decides to take the plunge and we aren’t just talking marriage here, folk. Just like in any new working atmosphere new techniques and strategies must be learn.  The office sexual harassment wears off eventually, (well calms down after a while besides it’s just us for now.) You have those untamed days of course but one of you snaps back to reality and realize work needs to be completed. After all there is a time for work and a time for play.

OK, seriously we delegate tasks. Once inside the cave well the office we are professional most of the time. The biggest adjustment was changing old habits. These changes started long before the legalities of our relationship were underway. I found myself asking Thumper’s advice on many ideas I had for developing my business. One might say the first step was becoming a sounding board for each other.

Mainly it was me, who had a control issue. It isn’t easy to take on a partner even if he is your husband. There was stubbornness and competitiveness on my part for a while. This man blew into my life and is now taking it over hook, line and sinker! It is almost like being vanished from your throne until you realize the it is a step up from what you have been use to.

Freelancing has become more popular over the last few years. The idea of working out of your home may not be for you. The separation  of personal life and work is felt needed by some. But there are others of us who find having a home office has  solved many common issues. My husband asked me only last night which came first the chicken or the egg. I actually had to stop and think why I was going to give him my answer.

What I am sharing with you is what it is like to be 24/7 with your spouse. Sharing everything including office space. In everything there is an upside and a downside to it.

Many people would be skeptical about being with their spouse so much but there is a method to our madness. Frankly it is simple. Thumper has his career and I have mine then we have our  growing little empire that we work together on.

But  face it there is always compromises in every relationship.

The Benefits:

• flexibility with managing your time:

Time is very important for all of us. The advantages of a home business is you can work around your personal life. This takes self disciple because you need to be productive and not take advantage of being the boss. In some situations you can work a 16 hour day and take a day off. You can schedule you meeting and projects and those tedious tasks that need to be done. The phone can be turned off and the answering service turned on to prevent distractions.

• low overhead:

You are probably paying a mortgage or rent already. So if you are lucky enough to have an extra room this is a great way to get off the ground. Being soul employee has many benefits at the beginning. You have are able to learn every aspect of the business from the bottom up. This is very important not only are you able to save money by doing everything yourself but when you do need to hire someone it makes it easier to delegate work tasks.

• tax write off for having a home office:

There are strict rules you must follow in order to claim a tax deduction. The office space must to used pacifically for work and nothing else. You have your business phone and internet services besides the utility bill for the room which is figured out by the size of the room compared to the rest of the house if it is 15% of the house or apartment this is the amount you can use as a  deduction along with deductions for mortgage or rent,  insurance and if you have a security system these are all write-offs.

• no commute:

You don’t have to worry about being late or finding a parking space. You just have a short commute from one room to another. No trains or buses and no vending machines or fast food restaurants to deal with. This is also a plus since it relieves you of stress. We can make fruit shakes anytime.

• Meetings by phone:

Meeting have a whole new meaning. You don’t even have to get dressed up for them. Just punch the speaker button and your in.

In our case there is always something new brought to the table. Thumper has clients on three different continents. I am into finance and investing. We are both entrepreneurs, who don’t want to work for someone else but for ourselves.

Our day begins when we want it to. It isn’t a typical 9-5 job. Sometimes we may work long into the night and we have even worked a full 24 hour in order to get lose ends tied up before taking time off.

If  we decide to take a day or two off, work has always been taken care of or tasks can wait a couple of days. This is one of the advantages of working for yourself. There are still deadlines to meet but you decide when you do them. I am more flexible then Thumper is on this issue. The end of the month is my busiest time.

When taking time off, the evening before we program the cellphones and email to the right messages and do what needs to be done. It isn’t always planned a week in advance so our clients find out we aren’t available when they call or email us. Work will resume the following day or two later. We may only sleep in for 15 hours after working a 16 hour day. Or we play hooky and do something together.

As long as the job gets done you can manage your time. Often Thumper works six days a week. This is easy to do especially when you are a  web designer. My day job ends on at 3PM on Fridays. This gives me a chance to assist Thumper if he testing a site  or wants my feedback on a design.

When a couple decides to work together it is very important for them to husband and wife first then partners in business second. Before deciding on merging you have to have a deep respect for each others business savvy and ethics.

What I have found is Thumper is gifted when it comes to problem solving. I would even go as far to say it is always the case he knows best even when it comes to my end of the business. Running ideas and problems past him is usually a time safer for me.

He is tenacious, clever and has creative genius and they are only a few reasons I married him.

Many of our personality patterns had been developed prior to living together. We discovered we had to learn to live life like we were sky divers flying tandem instead of solo. For those of you who haven’t skydived,  only one person wears a parachute. This person is the one who is going to control the entire execution from jumping out of the plane, to controlling the stance of the free fall to knowing when to pull the cord to release the parachute at the height needed to make a safe landing. The other person is bound to the person wearing the parachute by a  harness they are strapped into . Freelancing, sort of like free-falling especially when you are in business together.

I don’t procrastinate. If something needs to be taken care of I find the time based on the importance of the task. I don’t sit on it until I feel the stress and pressure. I fit it into my schedule. Where my husband’s thinking is more along the lines of  who are these people that think I have the time for this. Now we are talking clients or even the motor vehicle department. Thumper always makes time for friends and family.

The Disadvantages:

• The office is too available and often to tempting to pass by.
• People work instead of enjoying quality time together.
• You have trouble sleeping you think, may as go to the office and start working on something.
• Conversations become only about business and nothing else.
• Power struggles about who is the boss.
• Disagreements about clients.
• Distractions by the spouse.
• The wife may feel she is in her husband’ s shadow, she has lost her identity.
• Often the wife is taken for the assistant or the secretary.
• Sometimes unwarranted jealousy.

Who is the boss?

I am not going to say there isn’t one. What I will say is we compliment each other well. When discussing matters and decide whether something is worth the risk or not. When we don’t agree it is usually Thumper who has the final word. Why is this? Because even if I am right it avoids an argument besides I don’t claim to know it all but I do know taking risks is all part of business. The title that is important to me is being his wife. I do tease him by saying I allow him to wear the pants in the family and I do!

As far as I am concerned, I love having my husband in charge and he never puts me in his shadow if anything he lets people know I am his strength as he is mine. I do not feel less in any way but more important on a whole basis. We have a mutual respect for each others knowledge in business but our family life is more important to us. So I usually kick back and have a glass of red wine with the boss before bed, then I sleep with him. Not a bad deal at all.

I believe if you are self confident and know how to accept who is better at what – having your husband as your business partner is a blessing.