Partners 24/7: you might think sharing both a bed and a business with your partner would be an impossible situation. These couples have found a way to make it work.

Scott Fagan and Eric McIntyre are both chefs. So when the longtime couple decided to start a catering business together, it seemed like a sure success. But their first attempt to work together was like a novice trying to bake a souffle: The process was difficult, it tested their patience, and the venture ultimately fell flat. It happened while Fagan and McIntyre were students at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. They clashed over their prices, their menu, their presentation. "It got to the point where we thought, This is going to destroy our relationship," Fagan recalls.

While there are no exact statistics on the number of couples who are also business partners, Justin Nelson, cofounder and president of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., says it's an upward trend, more prevalent among gays than straight people. "They run in the same circles, do the same things," he says. "Same-sex couples share the same ideas and aspirations. It makes sense to start a business together."

But Fagan and McIntyre and other gays and lesbians who are partners in business as well as in life say it isn't always easy to work side by side. It's true they can support each other in ways those who are strictly business partners cannot. But there are many potential pitfalls, including those that come from spending what Fagan calls "sick amounts of time with each other."

Lesbian couple Paula Harris and Celia Sack found balance by establishing boundaries. Their San Francisco-based pet food and accessory store, Noe Valley Pet Company, grew from a dog-walking service to include the pet supply boutique, which most recently debuted its first original product, the Happy Muzzle, a stylishly patterned cover for a dog's snout. As business burgeoned, the couple stuck by some self-described rules for working together.

For one, they never work weekends. "We decided that we are not going to burn out and go crazy," says the 49-year-old Harris. They also keep personal disagreements out of the workplace. "We always promise people--and we've really delivered on it--that we don't get into any personal drama with each other at the store," says Sack, 37.

Work inevitably follows them home, but they stop talking about it the second one of them says she needs a break. "That is a real challenge for us because we share the same day," Sack says.

Los Angeles furniture designers Glenn Lawson and Grant Fenning also recognize the need to leave work out of home life. "We'll realize that we haven't spent enough alone time, so we'll go to dinner and agree 'no work talk,'" says Lawson. "We're very good at realizing we need to shut it off."

The couple met through a mutual friend who knew Lawson would be attending Art Center College of Design, where Fenning already was studying. While still students, the couple opened Rm. 107, a shop whose name came from its street address and snug 600-square-foot space. They specialized in furniture from lesser-known mid-century designers, and business flourished.

Now running the Lawson-Fenning design company, both Fenning, 38, and Lawson, 34, say some people try to peg one of them as "the boss" and the other as "the boyfriend." But they're equal, they say. Though Lawson oversees billing and Fenning handles production, the creative lines are blurred. "We truly design together," says Lawson.

They credit good communication and a similar aesthetic for their workplace harmony. "We're in an aesthetic business," Lawson offers. "If Grant were into shabby chic and I was into supermodern minimalism, it wouldn't work. That's too far apart."

For Fagan and McIntyre, a little distance is critical to being coworkers. It took years of working apart before the couple found the missing ingredient for working together: They each needed a niche.

Today, the master chefs are co-owners of Tip of the Tongue Caterers in New York City, where Fagan is the savory chef and McIntyre the pastry chef. "We've come to recognize each other's strengths," says Fagan, 38, adding that they work better together because of the experience gained apart. "It enabled us to work together without killing each other," adds McIntyre, 36, who spent more than three years as a pastry sous chef at a restaurant in the Flatiron district while Fagan first developed recipes for South Beach Diet Online and ZoneDiet.com and also catered solo.

At Noe Valley Pet, Harris manages payroll and taxes while Sack selects and buys inventory. "By adopting different spheres within the business, we don't step on each other's tees," Harris says.

Work hasn't always been as smooth as a chihuahua's coat for Sack and Harris. The couple came to it from different backgrounds. Harris, who worked for six years as a fund-raiser for the Names Project Foundation, which owns the AIDS Memorial Quilt, was accustomed to talking through decisions and reaching a consensus. Sack, who worked for seven years as a cataloger for a rare-book auction gallery, was used to making decisions independently.

"Paula was really upset that I made decisions on my own," Sack says, "and I was annoyed that we always had to talk about everything before we made a decision." Now they know which decisions merit discussing and which ones don't. "We've gotten used to each other's styles," Sack says.

Dual-duty partners have "an insular kinship," says Nelson. "They get to be who they are, all day, every day, with someone they love."

Some days Fagan and McIntyre rise at 5 A.M. and begin the 40-minute commute by subway to Tip of the Tongue's kitchen, preparing for back-to-back weddings. As grueling as some weeks can be, the two men support each other by being able to sense when one is struggling, even if he's maintaining a strong face for their crew. "We see each other's secret signals," Fagan says. "I can recognize when he's in trouble or needs something."

The chefs have met couples for whom work became a competition--a battle over whose vision to follow--and they've vowed to avoid that. "Even though I'll have my strong opinions about savory and Scott will have his about pastry, we know that the other one is the one who knows what he is talking about," McIntyre says.

It's that kind of intuition and sensitivity that can merge two separate identities into one. Harris notes, "Some people have shopped us for years but they'll come into the store and see both of us there and say, 'I didn't realize you were two different people.' That can really make you feel bad or you can just laugh."

"The 'we' took a while for me to get used to and be comfortable with," says Fenning. "Now if I know that I was more involved with the project or less involved, it doesn't matter. It's creation we did. You don't get hung up on that."

At the 2001 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, Lawson and Fenning debuted their own line, now featured in two Lawson-Fenning showrooms. The eponymous collection often juxtaposes organic with synthetic, a signature look that's drawn critical praise and much attention in "shelter" publications.

Despite the accolades and the high profile of their showrooms, the couple emphasize the importance of keeping things in perspective. "It's only furniture," Lawson says. "Everyone who works with us, we let them know that this isn't earth-shattering stuff."

Fenning and Lawson speak for many couples when they say the best part of working together is being on the same schedule. "We're both busy at the same time and we're both not busy at the same time," Lawson says. "When we go away on vacation, we're in the same headspace, whereas we'll go on vacation with other couples and one is on their BlackBerry the whole time and the other one is comatose because they're at two different speeds. We're in sync."

Henneman has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco magazine.