When Husband and Wife Work Together

Some couples manage their lives with the continuous exposure to business, while others find that it's just too invasive and intrudes into family matters.

One of my clients worked with her husband for over 14 years. They had a company with up to 30 employees. When they sold the company, many people assumed it was because they got a divorce.

They didn't. But why WOULD people assume that?

There's a danger in husbands and wives working together. 

All too often, business "discussions" continue at home and into the evenings, weekends and vacations.

Often couples who work together consider being apart a vacation!

Ouch.

  • Did my client and her spouse argue about the business? Yes.

  • Did they have visible disagreements in the workplace? Yes.

  • Did they have different styles of managing the company? Yes.

  • Did owning the company put a strain on their marriage and their family?  Yes.

So, how is it then they DIDN'T split up?

Most of the problems they experienced were early on.

They learned the hard way, that in order to continue to stay married and continue with the business, they had to set clear boundaries. Here are a few easy things that made a difference immediately:

  • Drive to work separately. As un-green as this is, it gave both of them space. Space to come and go as they pleased and space to be alone. The 30 - 40 minutes before and after work became meditative by listening to  music, inspirational and funny CDs. And they each bought the car THEY wanted.
  • Place offices as far away from each other as possible. Again - space. Imagine how boring your relationship would be if you saw each other constantly. (Not to mention the potential for normal spousal irritations.)
  • Establish clear responsibilities that only interact when needed. For instance, one focused on customer service issues while the other focused on sales. After a period, one became focused on sales and development while the other focused on changing the infostructure of the business.
  • Eat lunch separately (most of the time.) This gave them things to talk about at dinner. 
  • Turn technology OFF at home. It took a while to learn, but it became clear that they didn't HAVE to answer email and phone calls related to business 24/7.
  • Turn OFF work talk at home. With this boundary set, it became easy to discuss only items that needed to be discussed away from the office. This eliminated a lot of unnecessary banter about clients, customers, projects and gossip.
  • Family first. There was never an issue at work that kept them away from their children. If one of their kids called, they took the call, period. It didn't matter who they were in a meeting with, or where they were. If they had to go home, they would.
  • Don't force the kids into the business. Their children grew up to have very different interests than their parents. There were no expectations of the kids taking over or working for the parents (other than busy work here and there that they were happy to get paid for.)
  • Get outside professional help. I mentioned they were a client, didn't I? It became clear that they needed outside objective help.This continued even as they got a good rhythm going.

Without clear boundaries, separating the business and the marriage, there were unhealthy consequences to the marriage and the family.

And truth be told, there will always be issues that will strain a marriage when both spouses work together in a family business.

But, this is no different than being realistic that any partnership will have "issues" and "problems" to work out.

If you have successfully navigated family business, marriage and family, let me know how.

If not, let me help!