4 Tips To Maintain A Supportive Relationship

Some women often find that as their careers take off or when they decided to delve into their passion as a business, their relationships take a hit. They either find that their husbands and/or partners are not as supportive as they used to be.

This could either be true from the man's ego and insecurities acting up, or it could be that the woman has changed as the career or business thrives, taking her attention away from her family and thereby affecting the dynamics of her relationship with her man. Below are some tips to help to maintain balance in such a situation.


Making Time For One Another
“You’ve got to have balance between your career, your family and your love life. You have to have communication in your career, with your family, with your lover,” shares actress/activist/motivational speaker Sheryl Lee Ralph, one of Broadway’s original Dreamgirls. Ralph’s husband is another high-profile individual — Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent Hughes. They have been married for seven years.

As always, Ralph seems to have back-to-back projects. Her book, Redefining DIVA, is now in its tenth reprint and she is in the upcoming film Christmas in Compton, premiering November 2nd. She also runs the Diva Foundation, which raises money for AIDS awareness.

“My husband loves my career; he loves to see me doing speaking engagements, on stage, on screen, on TV, reading my, book, buying my book . He’s wonderfully supportive and an incredible man,” she adds.
Ralph tells us that even though she and her husband have demanding schedules, she tries to always plan a vacation for the two of them. “You need to make time to rest,” she says.

The Key Is Teamwork
Ola Jackson, founder and CEO of OWN: Onyx Woman Network, like any successful businesswoman, realizes that a company runs smoothly when everyone is working together. She also knows that marriages, too, depend on cooperation.

“You must be respectful of the fact that you and your husband are a team even if he is not directly involved in your business. You have to realize that if the business fails, your husband hopefully will be behind you. You also have to realize that if the business is successful your husband will be beside you,” says Jackson, who is developing the Onyx Woman radio show, creating more online television programming that will showcase women of color, and publishing the Onyx Woman magazine. She is also writing Homegirl, CEO, to be published next year.

“My husband is my number one fan. He thinks very highly of my capabilities and is very motivating,” adds Jackson, who has been married to Daryl Jackson, a disabilities advocate, for 27 years — after 7 years of dating. “I had a crush on my husband when I first saw him when I was 12 years old. We didn’t meet officially until high school,” she recalls.

Mutual Respect Is A Must
“Being an ambitious, hardworking woman, married to an ambitious, hardworking man means that we both understand when the other is focused on work and can respect that,” says former corporate attorney turned best-selling author and producer Tonya Lewis Lee, wife of film director Spike Lee. They celebrated 18 years of marriage on October 2nd.

“Spike has always been very supportive of anything I’ve wanted to do,” she adds. Lee just launched a film production company, ToniK Productions. One of the first properties she and partner Nikki Silver are developing is the young adult novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers. Lee also runs an online women’s health community, HealthyYouNow.com.

Honesty Rules
Former record company executive Vivian Scott Chew struck out on her own in 1998 to found TimeZone International, an international marketing and promotion company that specializes in marketing urban music overseas. Her husband, Ray Chew, is a musician, arranger and has been the music director for American Idol since 2010.

“Ray and I are really honest with each other. Sometimes our honesty may hurt, but we’ve found that we can get over the initial disagreement with rationality and openness, and maintain an even stronger relationship bond. Agreeing to disagree really works for us,” Chew says. “My husband is my partner, in all respects; we share our lives, we share our accomplishments, successes and failures. He was the first one to believe in me as an entrepreneur and 15 years later, is still my biggest fan.”

Chew and her husband are also partnering to create a 501C3 foundation, Power to Inspire, whose mission will be to act as a catalyst to insure that there are skilled, trained, knowledgeable musicians and music business executives in the future.

Source - Madame Noire