So happy together: Couples require rules in the workplace

Ten years ago, Steve and Angie Noe started their own business because they always wanted to build something together.

The lessons learned along the way were valuable and sometimes hard. Steve realized that he relied on Angie too much to take care of the office side of their cleaning business, Duraclean Services in Greeley.

Angie learned that she wanted to pursue something on her own. She did last spring, and now she runs The Coffee Pot, a coffee shop in downtown Greeley.

“It really strengthened us to work together,” Angie said. “We’ve had so many obstacles to work through.”

Some people balk at the idea of working with their husbands or wives. As difficult as it can be to set boundaries between work and personal life — and as easy as it can be to expect too much of each other — working together can add a lot to a relationship.

“You have to learn to appreciate each other’s strengths,´ said Terry Anna of Masonville, a business and life journey coach who also works with his wife, Carolyn, a licensed professional counselor. “You have to learn to read each other’s stress. More important than anything, you have to put your relationship before the business.”

Don and Mary Tennessen of Greeley had been married about two years when they both decided to leave their jobs in the corporate world — both worked in development and marketing in the senior housing industry — and switch to real estate. They are broker associates for The Group Inc. in Greeley.

When they first started, they’d go out on appointments and do as much as they possibly could together. Then they got a good piece of advice from their own business and personal coach: They needed to “divide and conquer” if their business was going to grow.

Now they go their separate ways much of the time. Don works more on land and development deals, and Mary prefers the residential side of real estate.

The biggest surprise in working together for the past six years has been discovering each other’s strengths. Don finds it easy to organize things and figure out how systems work. Mary is good at building relationships.

“We used to have this perception that we were similar in so many ways,” Don said. “But we are really different in a lot of ways. We can now recognize how to use the differences to bring out the best in both of us.”

Angie Noe also learned a lot about herself working with her husband. She’s a first-born, take-charge kind of person and feels compelled to work a lot — perhaps too much, she said.

“I’m so goal-oriented, I guess I got engulfed in it,” she said. “It was easy for me to try to do it all.”

Angie still helps Steve with some of the paperwork required for the cleaning business, but now she concentrates more on the coffee shop. Steve has learned to do some of Angie’s former duties on his own.

The result has left both of them feeling like they have more time for each other and their three boys.

“When you work together, you are focused on the same goal,” Steve said. “But the downside is, it can be consuming. We often felt there was no time away from the business.”

Setting boundaries can be the most difficult part about working together as a couple. The Tennessens said they usually set aside a predetermined time to turn off their cell phones and postpone any discussions about work until the next day.

Terry and Carolyn Anna set aside time each morning to ask each other two questions: How is it going personally, and how is it going with the business?

Terry said he and his wife have also learned to think differently about conflict. “People think conflict is bad, but it actually breeds intimacy if you know how to resolve it,” he said.

Working together has led to such a deep knowledge of his wife; Terry said he feels he knows Carolyn better than he did his first wife of 24 years, who died in 1992. He and Carolyn have been married for six years.

“There is this deep connection emotionally, not just in business,” he said. “By recognizing each other’s individuality, we see so many facets of each other we might not have seen if we didn’t work together.”

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