Working from home with your partner

[Xieta]

Hello, I would love to hear your thoughts and advice about my situation.
I'm moving in with my boyfriend. I am in love with him. We're not really alike, but we do in many ways complement each other. I know I can relax when I'm at his side, and at the same time I love working on making sure he feels the same way. After a year of being together on spare days and getting lots of stress from trying to make time to see each other (we live 2 hours appart, so it wasn't easy to find 4 hours for the trip plus the time we wanted to spend together) we decided to move in together. And then it hit me. We're both freelance translators. We work from home. We're going to live together, to work together, and even more, in the same room.
I guess there's a positive aspect about it, which is that while we can work on the same project if we need help or if we're running out of time, normally he has his projects and I have mine, so no decision-making or anything like that. We should just be sitting one next to the other, and that's it.
I was ok with this, but a few days ago I started freaking out about it, and now I guess I just need a little perspective. Any thoughts?

[uberinquisitive]

If you're freaking out about it - DON'T MOVE IN!

Living together is very stressful, especially if you're together all the time.

Why don't you get an apartment closer to him instead?

So, stay with him temporarily, and you both can look for an apartment/roommates for you nearby.

[mtrimpe]

I've done the same as you are going to do now for about 9 months and it has been a wonderful experience. Working together as freelancers means you get to live together 24/7 and that closeness can be a truly wonderful thing; you can truly immerse yourself in each-others work.

That's also where the most difficult part for me comes in: dealing with distractions. When working together I had a lot of distractions and initially it greatly diminished my focus. I was used to being able to focus on the problem at hand 24/7 with full focus and now I had to deal with interruptions often several times each hour, which really threw me off.

For me the trick was to always let the distractions come and completely go with them for the full 100%. When you're partner asked for some of your attention give it to them with the same full focus as you give your work. That way you don't lose focus but just shift it to your partner temporarily. It also makes the distractions take far less time.

If this is your only source of income and you're highly dependent on it, then I do suggest you get a backup plan. Just in case you can't get it to work you need to have the ability to quickly get set-up somewhere else. This can be as simple as knowing a cheap hotel you can rent when you need to focus, or you could have the funds ready to quickly get your own place when you need to or a friend at whose place you can crash when you need to.

[SmartAlx]

You have a 50% higher chance of separation/divorce if you live together before marriage.

I'm with uberinquisituve. Wouldn't it be better to move closer to each other? It should be much easier for both of you than most to move closer to each other because you work out of your homes.

[Alison Jenkins]

I work from home and my husband was at home for 3 months a while back - we worked together so well he now regularly works from home when he can. I dreaded it to begin with as before he worked very long hours so was never around. But it worked really well and has now changed how he views work and the flexibility of working from home.

Alison

[SmartAlx]

Yes, married couples have been successfully working together for thousands of years. The husband would run the back of the house in the restaurant while the wife ran the front of the house in the restaurant. Or vice versa. Even today many couples that work out of the house have harmonious business relationships. The plumber's wife will run the books and manage the phone while her husband is out on jobs.

This is why I don't have a problem with office romances, as long as both are in it for the right reasons.
All of the people I know who split after they started working together didn't split because they started working together. They split because they were too immature in their relationships. Their relationships were doomed anyway. Working together just accelerated it.

Working and living together without the commitment of marriage is likely to accellerate things in the wrong direction. I REALLY think this is a BAAD idea. You need mutual absolute commitment, knowledge that the other won't EVER call it quits so you will work together to fix the problems when things start to go sour. Marriage gives that to you like nothing else. Well, it used to before people started to believe that 50% of all people will divorce. (In fact 80% of PEOPLE only marry once and remain married.) That false statistic gives people a fatalistic attitude and I believe it contributes to lowering the 50% casualty rate of marriages to an even lower number.

[Doku]

You are both freelance writers, and you will work together.

Let me see if my guess is correct. You are going to be working in the same room, but not for the same company, not on the same projects, etc. Is that correct?

I would suggest that you work in two separate rooms. There will likely be times when you are translating spoken words, not just visual text. The other person starting/stopping/replaying the audio will drive you nuts... but you won't want to say anything because you know that that is part of their job. Eventually, it will come to a head, and cause major conflict that could have been easily avoided.

Ignore the people who say that you are more likely to get divorced, or more likely to stay together. Even the people who study marriage for a living can not agree which is correct. The only real secret sauce for making a marriage work is this: All marriage has conflict in it. You have to WORK to make a marriage work. The key is communication, and the willingness to work together to make it work.

--Doku

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by SmartAlx

You have a 50% higher chance of separation/divorce if you live together before marriage.

You will have 100% less worries if you don't let statistics determine the course of your life. Make conscious choices based on what works best for you in your particular circumstances and you'll be fine.

[SmartAlx]

Originally Posted by JimOfferman

You will have 100% less worries if you don't let statistics determine the course of your life. Make conscious choices based on what works best for you in your particular circumstances and you'll be fine.

Uh huh. And how many people going through their divorce believed that?

If someone isn't willing to take advice from scientific studies, then why would that person be on a forum like this? We are all here to get advice on how to improve our lives because we don't know what will work best for us. Statistics gives us a black/white easy way to draw the lines. Of course you need to take all advice, especially from statistics, with a grain of salt. But it's pretty dumb to just dismiss them out of hand, especially if it's your life and someone else's life you are talking about, and the statistics are so clear cut about it.

I think people aren't willing to let pretty much anything get in the way of their indulgent behavior, even if they suspect that it could result in heartache. It just feels too good and damn the consequences. Maybe people don't do that all the time, but there sure is a lot of it going on these days.

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by SmartAlx

If someone isn't willing to take advice from scientific studies, then why would that person be on a forum like this?

Because all really practical advice on how to live life doesn't come from those scientific studies. Nor are those scientific studies going to provide any help or consolation when your relationship does turn sour. These forums do.

But we aren't even talking about real scientific evidence here, only about a claim you called scientific but neglected to back up with any actual research.

[Xieta]

Well, first I want to say thank you for your replies and sorry for not replying until now.

I have to disagree with SmartAlx. Marriage is not the only way to get a commitment. At least not for me, and not for my partner. We've talked about this, and for us our word is just as strong as a signature on a paper. If marriage was that strong, how come so many people divorce and get married so many times? For me (and also for my boyfriend, we've discussed this), making the decision of living together and sharing all of our time means a huge commitment by itself. There may be people who don't take unmarried relationships seriously, but it just depends on how you see it. It's like religion, I may not believe in God (or a certain God) but I know some people who wouldn't do anything "disapproved" by this God. For me, my principles are just as strong.

Doku - We're both translators, yes. We'll work normally on different texts, so we have the advantage of not being involved on the same project (so there'll be no problems about who's doing more, whose option is better, etc) but also we'll be able to get help when needed.

We've spent weeks working and living together before. I moved in with him for 10 days twice, and we've been working on the same desk for very long hours, and those days have been the greatest in terms of productivity and quality. I didn't have te distraction of his phone calls right in the middle of my work or the stress of thinking I had to finish before a given time so I could catch the train and go visit him or the interruptions of other people who don't understand I'm not just writing emails.
Also, having him besides me motivated me a lot. He's really organized and hard working, while I tend to be very easily distracted. But seeing him work really made a difference in the way I worked.
About interruptions and distractions, we tried to schedule our work hours and include some breaks and successfully managed to stick to those. Obviously, there's always a last minute job to be done that keeps you awake until 3AM or working all Sunday, but we've generally managed to do well with that.
About having somewhere to go, we're going to live right off campus (we share adress with the University, it's the same road) so I have a truly huge library open 7AM-11PM every day and 24/7 in january, february, may, june and september. I love to work there for a change, I can take my laptop and use the free wireless there, so it's great. Also, two blocks away lives a good friend of mine on her own (no problems about me crashing there) and about 15 minutes away my best friend (no problems either)

Uberinquisitive - It's not that I'm freaking out (English is not my native language and I'm not so great at it) it's that I didn't even realize about the living/working situation until I started looking for desks for the office, and then I started freaking out about not having freaked out about it, like "Should I be worried? How come I didn't think about it? Why didn't we talk about the possible difficulties of this? Is it because we don't think there'll be any? Is it because we don't care?"

About the statistics debate... Yes, I know they say there's a very high chance of failure. I'm not talking about failed marriages after having lived together... I think exactly the opposite. If you live together before you're more likely to know better the person you're marrying and not get bad surprises than if you don't. But even if that's right... what about couples who don't get married and just keep living together? Oh, back to the statistics. They may say there's a high risk of failure. And I don't want to ignore that. But there's another reading to it. Those same statistics say it works for some people.

Let's say 70% of couples living and working together break up. But if, say, 30% of couples break up, it's a raise of 40% over what we would normally have, not more. And anyway, there's still a 30% who don't break up. What if we want to work as hard as we have to to make sure we are in that 30? We both want to be freelancers, it's not a temporary job. So, what should we do, not even try until we can have a house and rent two offices out of it? Or never trying to live together?

[SmartAlx]

Marriage does make for a strong bond. 80% of all people remain married.

[veranadine]

I can't say what works for anyone else, but I have a similar situation with my partner.

We do not do the same line of work, he owning a web design company and me writing freelance and doing channelings, but we do live together in a very small flat and both work from home.

We have several little things that make this work.

He works at the kitchen table most days. I have a little folding table that I usually set-up in our bedroom or study space. We also alternate in using the couch for comfort.

So even though the place is small, we have some balance between mobility and privacy.

Also, though we take our lunch break together, we both have other things that we fit into our days. We take walks alone, we take short naps alone, we do yoga at separate times.

This allows you to feel like you are still living your life for you.

I also go and do my work while sitting at a cafe in town by myself sometimes. I like having the change of setting and having a waitress refill my tea when it empties.

What is most important is to make sure to get some variety into your schedule. Take every Wednesday (or any day) for yourself, go to the salon, get a massage, visit the library, whatever it is that you like.

Also, we have one day a week (No P.C Day) when neither of us touch any work and we simply share our day together, cuddling, going places etc...

Don't fall into the dual traps of only spending time together when it has to do with work, or alternatively, spending so much time together doing the same things that individuality becomes like work.

Good luck and joy!!!

Blessings on Your Journey,

[Xieta]

Thanks, Veranadine for sharing your situation, it's really motivating, after all the thoughts about how it's almost impossible, to see how it has worked for somebody.

And, despite it being not so nice to hear, I also thank all the other replies because they give me material to think about and prepare me to face the future challenges.