How We Make It Work

A behind-the-scenes look at balancing marriage, motherhood, and work when your husband is an entrepreneur... and so are you.

Dear Reader,

Here I am, voice-to-text after a morning run—cooling down, clocking extra steps, and thinking about a question I’ve gotten more times than I can count:

How do you and Michael balance it all?

Michael is a trial attorney and owns two businesses. He often travels out of state for trials—he was recently in California for a month, which meant I was home solo with the girls. I don’t typically share this in real time (safety first), but it’s our reality. He’s his own boss. He works a lot.

So do I.

I run my content business, I’m designing a children’s line for Dillard’s, and like many working moms, my schedule is a house of cards built on intention, flexibility, and support.

We’ve been together for 16 years. And what I’ve learned—what we’ve both learned—is this:

Marriage, especially once you become parents, is a constant death and rebirth.

Who we were in 2009 is not who we are now. In our relationship, we’ve had to get to know entirely new versions of each other—like dating different people within the same lifelong commitment.

We live in a state of ongoing communication, grace, and mutual respect for each other’s bandwidth.

Here’s a glimpse of what “balance” really looks like behind the scenes: