Business ownership and healthy relationships often seem to exist on a permanent collision course. “When you work for yourself, there are so many things to do You” says Nikki Levy, who left her job as head of scripted content at DreamWorksTV last year to start the podcast. Don’t tell my mother, where she now spends 50 hours a week hosting, producing and booking celebrities, a group known for vague communications and fragility. “When I work too much, I’m not really pleasant to be around,” Levy says. “And that’s a lot for a partner.”
Entrepreneurs say work inevitably becomes the third member of the relationship. “We give everything to companies, not to each other,” says Cena Martin, community manager integration coach, 30, whose husband also owns a small business. “One of us is always going one way, thinking about a client or a project.” Needless to say, movie night disappears, and so does intimacy. We asked three happily married entrepreneurs how they keep their relationships as healthy as their businesses. Here is their advice:
