Balancing Love and Business: A Guide for Entrepreneurial Couples

In the early years of her marriage, Victoria Rakusa was the quintessential wife. She moved to another city for her entrepreneur husband, had a daughter, and dedicated most of her time to her family. However, when she realized she missed having her own career, she faced a lack of understanding from her spouse.

Today, Victoria is the founder of an international brand of ready-made patterns, VikiSews, an educational platform, and an online fabric store. Her team consists of 68 employees, and her clients include over 200,000 people from 50 countries worldwide. Importantly, Victoria is a mother of two, and her union with her husband is now built not only on love but also on mutual support for each other’s ideas and aspirations. Victoria shares how she managed to overcome all difficulties and reach a mutual understanding with her husband despite past disagreements.

The Myth of the Self-Made Woman

The term “self-made woman” sounds inspiring. It seems that such women achieve everything instantly and effortlessly. However, behind this beautiful picture often lie years of hard work and relationship struggles, especially when the husband is a successful businessman used to being the “sole leader.”

Step One: Listening to Loved Ones is Normal

In the traditional relationship model where “dad works, mom stays beautiful,” everything is familiar and clear. The husband is the head of the family, and the wife takes care of the home, waiting for her husband to return from work. However, when this model changes, difficulties often arise. For example, instead of admiration for the desire to develop, Victoria heard, “Let’s have you just sit with the child, cook, and everything will be fine as before.”

After such a reaction from her husband, the first thought might be to return everything to its place and not test the relationship. Or, one might think, why have a partner who doesn’t understand you? However, it’s always easier to give up on the marriage or dreams than to put in a little effort to preserve both.

The first step is to understand that listening to loved ones is normal. However, each person’s life is their own choice and responsibility. After this realization, Victoria managed to explain to her husband: she wanted to do more than just take care of the home, but this didn’t mean that the family was no longer the most important. Business was not an obstacle but a complement that would allow her to feel more confident and happier.

Step Two: Separate Roles

It’s essential to learn to separate roles at home and in business. This way, there’s a chance not to confuse your significant other with subordinates and continue living in harmony. At work, we are demanding and strict leaders. In personal life, we are loving spouses who respect, compromise, and care for each other, without forgetting our own needs. After all, it’s impossible to give something good to another when you’re drained or filled with fatigue.

For Victoria, it’s important to feel physically well. Therefore, she exercises three times a week, even with a busy schedule. Check-ups and other health-related procedures are always the first to appear on her schedule.

Step Three: Asking for Help is Not Shameful

Before starting her business, Victoria was only familiar with the traditional relationship model, where the husband was categorically against nannies and housekeepers. However, with the advent of her business, everything became more complicated. At first, she tried to do everything herself, resulting in fatigue, burnout, and escalating relationship tensions.

Unfortunately, many women still live with the stereotype that all housework is exclusively their responsibility. There’s a feeling that this belief, like a genetic code, is embedded in our consciousness and passed down through generations.

“If I don’t do it, no one will. And if someone does, I’ll feel guilty.”

It took Victoria time to understand that asking for and receiving help is normal. It’s not a sign that she can’t cope but an indication that she wants to achieve more and make life simpler and more interesting. As a result, she was able to delegate some household chores.

At work, she also sought the help of a mentor—a woman with a family and business who, without constant stress, can combine everything. Victoria adapted her experience and structured business processes to have more time for herself and her husband.

Step Four: The Financial Stumbling Block

In many families, finances are a significant tool for influence and dependence. The presence of money in both partners highlights the problems and strengths of the relationship. The appearance of her own funds plunged Victoria’s couple into a difficult period.

After all, most girls get married to be “behind a husband” who will be the main breadwinner in the family. Victoria’s husband coped well with this role, so he didn’t understand what she was missing and why she wanted to start her own business. “We don’t need anything anyway,” he thought.

However, finances are part of self-care. It’s important for a woman to have her own safety net and financial plan. For example, for the past few years, Victoria has been saving for retirement and feels much more confident in many ways.

Additionally, she no longer lives in the paradigm that only men can earn significant money. Women can also build careers and businesses on par with men if they have the desire to realize their potential.

After both of them realized this, they saw that their union was not a matter of benefit. They are self-sufficient people who can provide for themselves, choose how to live, but stay together because they are good together.

Step Five: Don’t Hold Grudges

Victoria didn’t feel enough support when she started her business. Therefore, despite the mutual understanding they later reached, echoes of past disagreements and resentments still lived within her.

However, grudges are a shaky foundation for any relationship. They can accumulate inside for a long time and then unexpectedly explode like a volcano of claims, instantly turning to ashes what has been built over the years.

To prevent this, Victoria went to a psychologist. They worked through all past grievances, and in their place came gratitude to her husband for their journey, which allowed her to know her true self and understand what she really wanted in every sphere of life. As a result, they both gained freedom to be themselves and a family that became even stronger.

Conclusion

Developing a business and not destroying relationships in the process can be challenging. However, if in any situation you continue to communicate, hear yourself and your partner, you can build a harmonious union based on understanding and openness. In such a pair, it’s easy to support each other, find compromises at crossroads, move in the same direction, and together think of new routes.