I Love/Hate Working With My Husband

We were on our way to an event a little while back, and I don't even know how the conversation started - but by time we got to the venue, I was in tears and babe was angrily walking a good few paces ahead of me.

As I darted to the restroom to fix my face and get myself together, I bump into Mark and Erin - 2 people I would really rather not be crying in front of - and hastily make my excuses and sit seething on the toilet trying to calm myself down.

As I come out, babe is talking to Mark and I dutifully wait for him to finish up and then we walk into the event in stony, awkward silence - I'm sure the body language was screaming "sheesh... that couple don't even LIKE each other anymore"!

As we walk through the foyer, John ambles up to us and says "hey guys, I know it's going to be a crazy day so I wanted to run this by you real quick..." and he starts to explain that him and his wife want to run retreats for other married couples working together and for babe and I to share how we do it so well.

You gotta laugh.

I told John the whole story later, as I apologized for our briskness earlier in the day. It was kind of amusing, and ironic.

So many people ask me and babe about how we work together so well.

And it drives me crackers, because we do... but we don't.

Ya know, we have 4 kids (one with special needs), we work mostly from home, we run 3 separate businesses all on top of moving to the US and continuing to manage our life as we left it back in England. It's a lot. I'm not even going to pretend for a moment it's not.

We're always in each others space, and juggling the rest of the needs of the family. Babe is technically 'the boss' and there are moments when he isn't a very good boss to be honest, and many more when I'm not a very good employee.

Yesterday, something went wrong and I don't know... babe was tired and I was fed up and we just kind of attacked each other (verbally... though I did want to hit him lol) - babe said that our 'working relationship' was 'dysfunctional' at times.  I don't think he actually said 'at times' but giving him the benefit of the doubt I am inserting it, as I think that's what he meant :)

The problem is that there is no working relationship. There is just our relationship. Our perfectly imperfect relationship. We love each other very much, and we get on really really well. But normal life just spills effortlessly into our working life. Like...

Woke up in a bad mood? Don't you ask me for that report again.

Had a tough afternoon with the kids? File your own bloody papers.

Had back to back calls today? Well, let me tell you about my doozy of a day.

Etc, etc. (don't even get me started on the constant one-upmanship of why my day was so much more tiring and stressful than yours...)

The problem is you would never, never ever treat your colleagues the way you treat your spouse.  You would never ever eye roll at them, refuse to do a task, or stonewall them the way you might a spouse.

Of course eye-rolling, stubbornness, stonewalling are just general examples... *cough, cough*

I used to work in the financial sector in London, and you know, if your boss was irritating or demanding or whatever - you couldn't just storm off or start crying. If you managed someone you couldn't just ask them to fix a minor issue as they were getting into bed or tell them they were being hormonal or emotional when they didn't do what you wanted.

(On the plus side, most people can't suggest paddleboarding to their colleagues in the middle of the day and get a huge thumbs up either)

There's this blurry line when you work together as a couple, and no matter how much we say we're not going to cross it (me: "babe, I am not talking about budgets in bed") - you do. Well, we do. We LOVE our business, and we are friends with people we do business with and our clients.  It's just a plethora of blurry lines and grey areas to be honest. 

All the time, trying to best navigate the choppy waters of working with your spouse. I'm sure that 'yikes, I'm probably not going to get lucky tonight' has crossed babe's mind once or twice after an enthusiastic business disagreement.

Some days it feels impossible. I'm like, 'nope, I'm not doing this anymore' and babe has always said if it started to seriously affect our relationship that would be it.

('That would be it' means I would get fired by the way. LOL.)

Most days (ok, perhaps an equal amount of days) it feels awesome.

We have so much in common, so many shared interests... we've been able to travel the world (gotta love that 2 roosters story) and the business is as much a part of me as it is a part of him now. The business wasn't originally 'my baby' but it's all wrapped up in my identity and I wouldn't give that up easily.

We laugh and joke about the day to day happenings, and there's no 'disconnect' when we talk about our days, because they are so intrinsically wrapped up together. 

We each have our 'area' that we work in and we both accept (almost all the time) that we are both control freaks and we both don't like being told what to do so we navigate each others weirdness fairly well.

Some days stink. And when they do they are off the charts smelly. Really soul destroying.

Some days don't. And they are days of epic proportions, where we look at each other incredulously like: "this is our JOB??? we are so darn LUCKY"

The rest are just the regular days, grinding. Waiting for it to be a socially acceptable time for a glass of wine.

So next time I get asked how babe and I work together so perfectly, and it's all perfect and we are all just so perfectly lucky... forgive me if you get a front row seat for the Sooze-special aforementioned eye roll.

It's just another example of that "outside-looking-in" thinking: everything is sparkles and roses and glitter and kittens for those guys over there - when actually I firmly believe we are all a bunch of colossal misfits jumbled together somehow making it all work. We are doing our best, messing things up, correcting, adjusting, and growing.

I believe this is what makes our entire existence valuable and meaningful - the fact we can make something of all of this mess, and love each other any way.

It's not actually all that special, or that unusual. But it is beautiful I think.