DECATUR - The old adage, "¦ and they lived happily ever after," probably didn't take into account the married couples who end up working together.

Marriage, by most accounts, can be trying enough with the normal, everyday stresses at home. Add an eight-hour, or more, workday, and you have all the ingredients for a tension-filled relationship.

Megan and John Medina have been together for eight years, and but for a few months, have always worked together in some way, Megan said. Today, Megan is the manager and John the executive chef for Doherty's Pub & Pins.

"There are times when you want to kill each other," said John Medina. "There are times when you take it personally, and the problems you have at home get amplified at work. You just have to work through it.

"It has its ups and downs and challenges."

John is just as quick, however, to point out the advantages.

"I know her; she knows me. When it's busy, I know I can count on her," he said. "She knows my mind set. I know her pet peeves.

"I think we have a common goal in the food business. We have the same interests."

That commonality is a definite plus for the Medinas, when trying to live and work together.

"The statistics don't look good (for married couples working together)," said David Wence, owner of Decatur Psychological Associates. "I think there are some built-in pitfalls: trying to separate work life from home life. People who do it successfully find a way to separate it.

"If there is a conflict in either area, it can spill over into the other."

Trying to keep home life and work life separated is the real trick.

"We try very, very hard to keep it all business when at work," Megan Medina said. "We try to keep our personal business out of work. We try to keep work out of the home. There will be new servers who don't know we're married.

"I treat him like I treat any chef. Business is business when you're trying to take care of the customer.

"For us, it's natural."

Her husband agreed.

"We try to leave the heated arguments at home, although it doesn't always happen," John Medina said. "I might yell at her about something at work, and she'll say, 'You didn't do the laundry last week.'

"You can get on each other's nerves being around each other so much."

Trying to walk through the front door of work after having an argument at home "would be extraordinarily difficult," Wence said.

"Some of the advantages would be economics: sharing office space or sharing staff," he added. "It becomes a co-worker relationship."

That, to a degree, is somewhat of the case with Kit and Pete Paulin.

They'd been married 21 years before they started working together in 2003. Their working relationship was born of necessity after Kit Paulin was promoted to branch manager of Wachovia Securities and needed help managing her portfolio.

Pete Paulin still had his securities licenses and was looking for new challenges after successfully running 300 Below for nearly 15 years.

"I went from CEO to salesperson; she went from salesperson to manager," Pete Paulin quipped. "And now she's the boss of me 24/7."

All kidding aside, he is quick to point out what has made it work for them.

"One of the reasons that it works for us is that we're both completely different," Pete Paulin said. "She is strategic, long term- and detail-oriented; I am tactical, short term- and concept-oriented.

"If we were both the same, it might be a problem."

For couples considering working together, Kit Paulin offered advice.

"You also have to protect your own time and space," she said. "Consider each other's talents: Are the skill sets there to make the model work?

"It's worth considering, but be realistic."

rpansch@herald-review.com|421-6983