Grant WattieRelationship Expert l 40+ Years Experience | 5,000+ Couples | Author Love Without Limits™

Should We Stop Working Together to Save Our Marriage?

5 Sept 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

2:00

In this monologue, Grant Wattie addresses couples who run a business together and wonder whether they should stop working together to protect their marriage. He shares his own experience of building a company with his wife Christine for 14 years, ultimately selling it because the business had become the center of their marriage and they had not done the work to shift that focus. Wattie emphasizes that the real question is not whether to end the business, but whether the business has taken over the marriage and whether both partners are willing to move it back out. He outlines three primary pathways: (1) restructure the business with new roles, clearer boundaries, or one partner stepping back; (2) keep the business unchanged but intentionally rebuild the marriage around it; and (3) in a minority of cases, actually end the business. He advises couples to first gain clarity on the pattern driving their situation before making a major decision, recommending his low‑cost Phoenix Protocol workshop ($7) as a tool to see the pattern clearly and decide what needs to change.

Chapters

If you have started asking whether you should stop working together to save your marriage, you have reached the point most couples in this position eventually reach. It feels like the only 2 options left are end the business or lose the marriage. I want to tell you plainly because it matters, those are really the only 2 options, and the business is really what actually needs to end. 14 years into building a business with Christine, I reached exactly this point. The business was doing well, which made the question feel almost shameful to ask. We eventually did sell that business. What I want you to hear is why, because people usually get that part wrong when they repeat our story. We did not sell it because a business and a marriage cannot coexist. We sold it because the business had taken the center of our marriage, and neither of us had done the work to put it back. Selling was the right call for us in our circumstances at that time. It is not automatically the right call for you. The real question underneath, should we stop working together, is a different one. Has the business taken the center of your marriage, and are you both willing to do what it takes to move it back out? Some couples answer that by changing structure— new roles, clearer boundaries, one of you stepping back. Some answer it by staying in the business exactly as it is and rebuilding the marriage around it on purpose. A small number truly need to end the business. Far more need to end the arrangement where the business runs the marriage. Before you make the biggest decision available to you, do the smaller one first. See clearly what pattern you are actually in together without the shame or the panic driving the read. That is what the Phoenix Protocol workshop is built for. It is $7 at phoenix.grantwattie.com/workshop. Workshop. See the pattern clearly first, then decide what actually needs to change.