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We were out to dinner the other night when we met Lisa Boet, the co-owner of the Bamboo Café. Lisa is the creative brains behind the organization called Naples Originals. Its mission is to promote independent locally owned restaurants in the area. In effect it’s a marketing operation. But Lisa’s more important job is managing her restaurant’s business operations. Her partner both in marriage and business is her more visible husband, Philippe. He takes care of the front of the restaurant as its amiable host, keeping the patrons charmed. Their happy marriage makes the operation of their business that much more successful.

The face of marriage has been changing. Career women are making it easier for their husbands to no longer carry the whole financial burden. Those wives who choose to stay at home usually do so because they are raising children. Many marriages are not just commitments to be true to each other but something more. Some couples form successful business partnerships that enhance their marriages.

My brilliant and dashing husband and I have a business partnership that has endured more than 30 years. Our days are spent together 24/7. The benefits are many. We’re never at a loss of topics to discuss whether at work or play. We understand and support each other’s goals and the time spent reaching them. Working together in the same business gives us double strength as a married couple.

Trust is a necessity in both marriage and business. Since we are involved with each other on both counts our marriage is stronger for it. We share and understand the aggravations that happen in business in a way that is more difficult for couples who don’t work in the same business together.

Years ago, married friends told us that they made it a rule of never discussing their work with each other. Since they didn’t work together that meant they were ignoring or avoiding talking about what was going on in their lives during most of their waking hours. Communication is the lifeblood of a good marriage. I assume that theirs wasn’t a marriage made in heaven.

My daughter and her husband are another example of a happily married couple working together. She manages the business end and he is the outside person. She and her husband are a team working toward the same outcomes. It benefits their children as well, since their children get an inside look at what their parents are doing during family dinner conversations.

Like every relationship, marriage or business partners sometimes come to a place where they disagree. If this happens, it could mean the breakup of the business as well as the marriage. I’ve seen that happen over the years to couples we’ve known. They have a successful business but something bad happens to the marriage and everything goes.

There are ways to avoid such pitfalls. One of the most important ways to build a successful business/marriage partnership is to complement rather than compete with each other. That means sharing, not overwhelming or micro-managing the other partner. There has to be a clear division of duties: You run this side of the business and I’ll run the other. Who is best at what job is the question to be asked. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be discussions about the business in general, but it’s much less stressful if each one does what they do best. Criticism, if it’s constructive, is always welcome.

Thin skins and insecurities are killers in both marriage and business. There’s a saying in business that should be a must even when your partner is your spouse. “It’s not personal, it’s business.” Marriage is personal, but couples who work together in the same business learn quickly which is which, or else working together won’t work.

Reach Barbara Bova at babovacolumn@aol.com.