My wife and I have run a successful business together for twelve years.

During these past twelve years we've grown our business, had two kids, built a house, taken plenty of vacation time and (most importantly) have a better relationship now than when we started.

Here are a few helpful tips that we've learned along the way.

Defined Roles

The clearer your roles are the easier it is to maintain boundaries between them.

Split the tasks and responsibilities of the business into clear areas of focus for both of you and do your best not to meddle into each other's work. Develop a rhythm of weekly meetings to handle the areas where your two roles overlap.

Defined Work Times

It's way too easy to bring up work at the dinner table, while brushing your teeth or just before bed (the worst!).

Define the work days and hours for each of you and stick to them. One may be a morning person while the other is a night owl. That works. It's important to communicate when you want to talk about work topics and then protect all of the time outside of that for your personal life.

Trusted Third Party

Find someone else who you both trust and respect to act as a sounding board for you.

A coach, consultant or even a therapist can act as this third party. The most important thing is that you have someone with an outside perspective that helps you navigate the intertwined nature of your personal and professional relationships.

Find this person before you need them.

Communication Channels

Find the communication tools that work best for you and stick to them.

Email, Slack, Asana. Whatever it is, use it. It's easy for couples to form a bad habit of talking about work in person and then fail to document and track it. This creates an opportunity for way too many things to fall through the cracks.

Utilize The Enneagram

The Enneagram is "a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions."

There are a TON of resources out there to help you understand and explore the Enneagram. I was a skeptic at first. After learning more and working with an Enneagram coach, it has become the framework for all of the relationships within our family.

I can't overstate how beneficial learning more about myself, my wife and my kids through the Enneagram has positively affected our relationship and business.

Running a business with your spouse is incredibly rewarding.

You will challenge, stretch and grow your relationship when you run a business with your spouse. There are some incredible benefits to working together in a shared vision that you can't replicate in any other way.

Hopefully a few of these tips that my wife and I have learned along the way will allow your relationship and business grow and thrive together.