Excelling at Working with your Spouse in a Business

Spouses should spend at least one full hour each day talking together about subjects that have nothing to do with their work or business. – Brian Tracy

“Growing up in a very big family, working together and playing together, that is something that has been part of my life since ever I was born. It has advantages and disadvantages. It’s like an older style of living where everyone works in the family business.” — Margherita Missoni

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” — Dolly Parton

The word “marriage” brings up images of diamond rings, billowy dresses, and the promise of a long and happy life together along with the whole living happily ever after. However, successful marriages require much more than just these fantastical things, like co-operation, respect, honesty, consistency and trust. I believe that in this way, marriages and businesses are a lot like one another. Both can be a challenge, whether it is a disagreement at home or a financial decision at work, yet the reward of hard work for good reasons is always sweet.

Family business owners will tell you that co-ordinating business with a family life is no piece of cake, especially when you are working with a spouse. Couples who work together need to have an established system to work out their lives. We need to ask ourselves, “Are we aligned to what’s important to us?”, because what must be most important to us should be our values, what we personally need and how we go about living through these.

The golden rule of not messing up your business with marriage and vice versa is “Make time count: in your marriage, in your business and for yourself.” Aim not to get overwhelmed trying to balance work and family, you have to decide how to manage your time to take care of your own physical, mental and spiritual health, while also nurturing the business and marriage. You absolutely need to be able to leave work at work and talk to your spouse at home freely like two people building a life together. Likewise, never take a familial argument to office. Build trust in one another to not carry baggage from home to work and into business decisions.

I have worked with my husband for 40 years. We have also had our kids work with us over the years and I find that having different interests and hobbies gives rise to new and unique conversations on an intellectual and emotional level. This not only gives a diverse point of view, but is actually very helpfully to develop innovative ideas.

I think that taking a closer educational look at our diets is very important. What may be good for you, may not be good for your spouse, so I recommend you do your research and make sure you are getting your proper minerals and vitamins. Having a balanced diet will affect your emotions positively, giving you a fresher outlook on life.

Having routines and rituals that add to valuable time spent together for memories, trust and having our personal needs met creates family and business traditions for good family and business practises for children to follow.

There are numerous benefits of working with a spouse. You can depend on your significant other to handle routines, rituals, systems, when a situation requires you to take time out. There is nothing better to come back and find consistency continued. Communication is easier because you do not have to mull over what words are the right ones to use to get what is important to you, you can simply just ask without the political correctness that is required in the outside world. This level of communication can assist to sort out what is scrambled in our minds with reality. Also, for you to be running a business with a spouse, you both ought to have the same visions, which means you both are on the same team. Remember, it is never You vs. Them, it is always You Two vs. The Problem.

What are your takeaways from this blog post?

Tell us in the comments below.

Hugs Di Downie