Two couples give advice on maintaining home-work balance

Jeff VanMaanen and Leslie Branham

Fitness coaches and co-owners of Equipt Fitness in St. Paul, married five years.

The couple admit that it's hard to avoid bringing work home, or home to work.

Jeff: "We are constantly working on our relationship. We have gotten much better at collaborating and using each other's strengths."

Leslie: "We don't have the luxury of stuffing things. We make it a practice to talk about issues and problems as they come up. Having the ability to openly vent with each other daily helps alleviate frustrations before they build up."

Mike Holland and Kelly Madden

Hennepin County public defenders, married 11 years, parents of two children.

Kelly: "The kids offer a forced perspective. Now I don't receive work e-mail on my phone. We don't talk about work in the car. I'm a public defender, but also a mother and a wife. At night, we play Panda games on our phones and watch movies on the Hallmark Channel. We go out on dates, sometimes overnight."

Mike: "We also take vacations. In our jobs, it's so easy to not do it. You have someone's liberty at stake. But it's better for the client if I'm not burned out."

Kelly: "Now it seems we bring more of our home life to work — where we went, what we ate. It's almost flipped."

Gail Rosenblum