My husband and I moved to Portugal and then started a business together. Somehow, our marriage and company are still intact.

• My husband and I moved to Portugal and then we were both laid off.

• Even though I was worried it would destroy our marriage, we decided to start a business together.

• But we used the skills we learned in our relationship to improve our business.

“Do you think we should divorce work?” I asked Cody, furiously scribbling something about a client meeting in my notebook.

“What do you want to say?” she said as she blushed and looked at me. “Honey, we literally just made it LLC paperwork He filed with the IRS. We can’t give up now.”

It was April 2025, and Cody and I were still living out of suitcases after moving to Lisbon.

We had both recently left our previous jobs within a few days of each other. In a moment of sweat and panic, we decided to really try being entrepreneurs of our own micromarketing agency. I would bring with me nearly 15 years of experience in content, brand development and strategy, and he would bring his own idea. project management skillsand also manage the finances of the business. We would be an unstoppable CMO/COO team.

It didn’t take long for the cracks to appear.

I was wondering if we’d work well together

I had my doubts about working together from the beginning; Cody knew this.

When we have just the time corporate affairs In the US, we would run to each other to complain about things that might happen at work, just like our business partners do. Did something strange happen at the meeting? I would pour the tea for Cody at dinner. Had an awkward conversation with a boss? We would laugh about it on the weekend.

At the end of the day, we were each other’s safe space. We would enjoy what was going on in each other’s professional worlds without the pressure of needing to be a part of it.

I liked this balance. We kept the job at work and when the job was done it was all about us.

When we decide moving to Lisbon and making a fresh start was like partners who built a ten-year marriage on the basis of sharing everything However work.

Still we started to build our business

When we found ourselves unemployed just a few weeks after spending our entire lives on the ocean, we decided to bet on ourselves.

Most companies in the USA They wouldn’t hire us in another country, so we set up our LLC and website. Then we started informing our relatives that we were available for rent.

To the public we looked like a real business, but inside we worked like fish flapping their wings on the forest floor.

This man, who before could read my every thought and complete my sentences, no longer knew how to accommodate all the requests we received. I had no idea how to do tax I was in two countries and when he asked me something about numbers I just stared blankly at him.

After 10 years, we knew how to overcome conflicts as a couple. But owning our own business made us bite our tongues. Frankly, we had no idea how we would work together.

But eventually we found that the tools we used in our marriage actually worked to build a business together. First: communication – about what we need, about tasks we hate doing that the other person is better at, about burdens we need help with that we don’t want to name.

Things really started to work out when we realized how we could leverage each other’s strengths in business as well as in our relationship.

Not giving up gave us a new spark

My wife and I were comfortable American DINKS: a dual-income, childless couple who had worked their way up the tech field for nearly a decade, putting aside about $3,000 a month to pay off six-figure student loan debt for our degrees. We would take those salaries, invest as our financial planner recommends, allocate a large percentage to local organizations, and of course, travel.

But at the end of the day, we’d still close our laptops, quickly grab our smaller screens, and spend two to three hours after dinner passively staring at a larger screen.

Today we realize that we will never see these salaries again. I’m not the “director” of anything. He is not anyone’s “manager”. Instead, we are entrepreneurs. We’re doing less than half of what we did before, and even if we wanted to re-enter the search full time jobs The job security we thought we had in our fields no longer exists. Layoffs appear to have decimated the industries we previously worked in.

But what we get in place of these salaries is the joy of seeing each other transform into entirely new professional people, along with peace of mind as we create a deeper quality of life in a new country.

Today Cody and I achieved record income for 10 months in a row. Today, I serve as a partial CMO for (two!) brands, and we both back four more in conservatism and build brands for solopreneurs, too. We are off every Friday. We work in bars in London and cafes in Paris.

Most importantly, we’ve learned to never let the pressures of work overshadow the shine of a tough, beautiful marriage that we’ve invested in from the very beginning. He’s the only coworker I’ve ever loved and I’m so proud of us.

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