3 Keys To Working With Your Spouse
Working with your spouse can either be the most rewarding thing in your marriage, a train wreck, or somewhere in between. While working together can have its pro’s and con’s, we feel the benefits outweigh the risks. Including financially.
What’s in this article:
The Institute for the Study of Labor found that couples that go into business together earn more than if they had separate careers.
Some other benefits are that you get to work with someone you love and trust, bring together complementary skills, get to spend more time together, and can take time off together.
Of course, these same benefits can cause some friction. Complimentary skills mean different things. And differences can often cause arguments and conflict. Spending more time together sounds romantic but can also feel constricting at times. Also, it’s easy for work to bleed into your home life and feel like you’re always working.
So how do you ensure that working with your spouse maintains its benefits? Here are three keys that will keep your marriage strong and benefit the business.
1. Remember, you’re on the same team
Disagreements are inevitable. Just don’t let disagreements become a source of turmoil. So remember, you're on the same team. Neither of you wants the other to fail. If one fails, you both fail. But one wins, you both win.
Unfortunately, when a couple works together it’s easy to take a business disagreement personal. Whenever Kay Lee disagrees with me or has a different outlook on an issue, I sometimes feel like she doesn’t think I’m smart or she’s trying to impede progress.
Your enemy is not your spouse. The enemy is the enemy.
Neither of those things are true. She just sees things differently. And many times, she’s right. So whenever I feel those false thoughts, I remind myself that she loves me and take a step back from the emotion. Instead of protecting my ego and sticking to my guns, I let her know that I’ll think what she says. And I do.
She’s often surprised when I come back to her days later and tell her that I agree with her thoughts.
Having different points of view is a good thing. Since there are usually multiple ways to solve a problem, the more options you have to consider the more likely you’ll come to an optimal solution. Having someone on your team you can trust posing different options is good for your business.
2. Working in your strengths
A common mistake we see business owners make is using their spouse as cheap labor. They have an administrative or bookkeeping position to fill so they ask their spouse to fill it instead of paying an experienced person. The problem is, many times, the spouse isn’t skilled in those areas and they end up being a bad fit for the task.
This results in conflict in the marriage and the business suffers because of it.
Yes, I made the same mistake. I had Kay Lee handle Quickbooks early on in our business. Not good! I’ve never heard my wife use so many creative words in my life. LOL Even though I’m much better at numbers, math, and dealing with computer programs than she is, I had her deal with the bookkeeping. Why? Because I didn’t want to deal with it myself. At least it made sense in my head.
When you’re both working in your strengths it’s like 1 plus 1 equals 3
On the flip side, having her in charge of outreach, connecting with people, and booking podcast interviews while I handle the technical aspects of our business is a much better use of our strengths.
So make sure the jobs you each are doing match your gift, skills, and talents. This will make for a better marriage and your business will benefit.
3. Create boundaries between work and home
All this togetherness is nice. But it can be easy to feel like it’s business 24/7. For the sake of the mental and emotional health of your relationship, having boundaries between work and home is essential.
Neither of us responds to business related calls, texts or emails once dinner starts. We have a no shop talk policy at the dinner table. I take an electronic Sabbath on…well…Saturday. No work related computer work or social media on that day.
Taking a break from business reenergizes your mind, body, soul, and spirit. This will make you more productive when you get back to work.
With technology, it’s so easy to always be connected and available. We’re like Pavlov’s dog, we jump at any notification that goes off. If you think about it, very few things are true emergencies. Responding the next business day is appropriate and the sky will not fall.
Are we perfect? No. But that’s the beauty of being married to your accountability partner. If shop talk creeps into the dinner table, one of us will give each other the eye and we stop.
Click here for a [FREE] tool to help you create better boundaries between work and home.
Summary
Working with your spouse can be the most rewarding thing for your marriage AND business. It’s definitely been amazing to do life and business with Kay Lee. We even get to travel together for business which fills our travel bug too.
Remember, you’re on the same team and your differences are good for your marriage AND business. Hopefully these three keys have made you think. There are always ways to do things better in your marriage and business and I’m sure your spouse has a few ideas as well.
The Authors
Robert and Kay Lee Fukui are the husband and wife team behind Power Couples by Design™. They assist married entrepreneurs create greater work-life balance to succeed at home and in business. To learn more about them, click here.
