Why Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are doomed

When Suzanne Darmory married the 6-foot-4-inch, brown-haired, blue-eyed man she met working at an ad agency in her 20s, she thought he would be her greatest support as her career grew.

Instead, he became a thorn in her side.

The pair ultimately ended up at different agencies, but their professional lives were closely intertwined and they often worked on the same accounts.

Darmory ran creative, while her husband was on the sales side.

It felt like they were competing against each other.

“[We were always] wanting to outshine each other with better work, better results and a happier client,” Darmory, 50 and a Greenwich, Conn. resident told The Post.

Things got even more complicated when they had children, and Darmory felt she had to be the one to put her ambition on the back burner.

“I ended up taking most of the time at home,” she said.

The tipping point came on a trans-Atlantic flight to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – a global event for advertising and communications professionals held every year in France.

While her husband slept, she was left to comfort their crying baby for hours, surrounded by their colleagues.

“All of my old bosses were on the plane. I had to walk [my son] up-and-down the aisle the whole time,” she said. “It was not fun.”

Had they been in different industries — and had she not had to see her spouse snoozing while she dealt with a hysterical child — Darmory said it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad.

Working in the same industry ultimately exhausted their marriage.

They divorced in 2013, dividing the major conferences in their industry, so that they can each have their separate moments.  

“He goes to Cannes, and I go to South by Southwest,” she said.

Working with a spouse can be tricky. This week Kelly Ripa, 50, and Mark Consuelos, 52, started co-hosting ABC’s “Live!” together, and, by most accounts, the couple — who have been married since 1996 and have three children together — bombed.

Viewers harshly criticized their “painful, fake banter” and their on-air PDAs and TMIs.

Experts say such a bumpy broadcast is to be expected.

“Couples who work together have to deal with switching back and forth between these personal and professional roles, and understand what that means for their relationship,” says Smriti Joshi, chief psychologist at Wysa, a Boston-based mental health app.

“We sometimes also see challenges arise in this case around power dynamics and independence. For many of us in relationships, work is an outlet for independence and provides a separation from our home life. When these blur, or when the status of one partner is different in the professional setting – say they’re a manager or boss, versus the more equal footing that we strive for in relationships – greater understanding is needed.” 

Relationship coach and host of the “Smart Dating Academy” podcast Bela Gandhi noted that if both partners have big egos, a power struggle is likely.

“You can’t be looking to compete with each other – competition is the death of a relationship. You’re a team,” she told The Post.

Those who do decide to mix marriage and business should strive to keep things equal and celebrate their partner for their strengths, rather than showing resentment.

“[If] You’re in business together, [it’s] because you bring something to the table, and they bring something to the table, it’s not about who is having the bigger spotlight,” Gandhi said.

That’s how it’s worked for Sam and Rob Masabny, who met more than two decades ago in Hoboken.

They first worked together at the tech company HubSpot — he in the collections department, she in customer service — before starting their own company.

They now run a lifestyle brand and treehouse called the Woods Maine, in Norway, Maine.

Sam is in charge of the employees and retail operation. Rob handles all of the finances. They each split parenting duties equally.

“We’ve found our complementary spaces. Even when we were at HubSpot, both our roles were very complimentary. I saw him as an expert. I respected his expertise, and he respected my perspective,” Sam said said.

But, she admits, working with the old ball and chain can strain a union. They’re both passionate about work, but Sam says her husband can turn off the stress of the day easier than she can.

“It’s hard [for me],” Sam said, “Rob has a man cave.”

For Debra and Ed Ruh, it took some practice to get the balance right.

The two had been married for decades when, in 2006, they began working together at a tech consulting company Debra had launched.

It proved difficult and Ed left after a year, then returned in 2008 to try again.

This time, they strived to have healthy boundaries.

“At first he was just really patient with me. I think after a while he probably got sick of being so patient so I started learning how to do things so that it worked,” Debra said of Ed, who passed away in March.

“I’m more impulsive than he was. I didn’t want to worry about the business rules and spreadsheets. We balanced each other out.”