Should you work with your partner? 5 surprising things I learnt when my husband worked in the business
There’s a trend in my female entrepreneurial circles. I am going to call it, “I want my business to get to the stage where I can retire my husband (or partner) trend”. But by “retire” it actually means the partner works in the business or takes up more home duties rather than takes up golf and does nothing.
It’s not a new trend, for men. In fact the tradie with the “tradie wife” doing everything behind the scenes is a scenario that has been round for years. That tends to go under the radar, but flip it and some people seem to think it is bold or unusual.
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My husband worked at Ready to Boss Legal (then The Remote Expert) for about 18 months during covid in 2020 and 2021. It wasn’t a covid reaction, it was a decision we had both spoken about prior to the pandemic hitting the shores and it happened during covid.
I also have many colleagues and friends who have done this – in fact my 2020 mastermind group with Clarissa Rayward of Happy Lawyer Happy Life was full of people either doing it or about to do it.
I also regularly see people online from Denise Duffield-Thomas, to Tracy Harris of Mums with Hustle to my buddy Mim Jenkinson who also have online businesses doing it too, and being really open about it.
With so many people doing it? It must be a good thing right?!
I am going to give you the typical lawyer answer and say “it depends”. I can’t speak for everyone else but I do know some of my friends love it. For me and Ed (my husband), it was far more nuanced with pros and cons to the scenario. Below I have shared 5 of my big discoveries from our 18 months of togetherness.
1. The extra support to do all the life stuff was incredible
The number one advantage for me was being able to balance family things alongside work things far better. We were able to work as a team rather than in two separate work silos while juggling a kid and a house.
After 8 years of being the parent who does school pick-ups, packs lunches and generally runs around I was looking forward to stepping back a bit from that role. Initially, I loved having a break. I felt that it also helped Ed appreciate what had gone into that role. He understood on an intellectual level what was involved and we have always shared parenting and household chores, but to do it almost exclusively was a different experience for both of us and one I am pleased we shared.
But, fast forward 6 months or so and I found I was at my desk working far longer than before and that was not good for my physical or mental health. I felt really burnt out and stressed and I also missed the general social interaction and activity I had from doing a variety of things and going to things like athletics training. Ed also found he was missing the intellectual challenges of his senior role in insurance once he had been doing this for a while.
2. Not everyone thinks like me
Until I began working with my husband I assumed everyone thought like me. What’s that like? The best I can describe it is an entrepreneurial brain with a whole bunch of ideas sparking in my head that I may not always communicate. I can also see the big picture in an instant and know the type of business I could build from that.
I quickly realised that not everyone thinks like that. Other people love structured roles and think more logically and sequentially and Ed is one of those logical behind-the-scenes people. This was great for the business structure side of things in terms of invoicing and processes, but when I was trying to communicate ideas and got excited about online business we weren’t really on the same page.
While being different is not a bad thing at all, my husband was able to see perhaps what I could not 2 years ago and that was that the legal services side (where he was almost exclusively working and I was being forced to work to bring in income) would stop and the online business that was my passion would take over. If he hadn’t gone back to the world of insurance in early 2022, I would have made his role redundant earlier this year with my switch to contract templates and legal information only.
3. The care for the business was amazing
The only other person who has the same level of care for your business and your income from that business is your spouse because it is what pays the bills and sustains your family.
And that was true with Ed, it was lovely to be on the same team and have that level of support. This is a level of loyalty you don’t always get from people who aren’t members of your family.
4. Identity is important
The biggest learning for me was identity. My identity, Ed’s identity, and our family identity.
I thought it was no big deal to do business together as well as life. Many married people go into business together and it looks to work. I grew up in a house with a family business and didn’t think twice about it. But the first hint things were a bit unusual from the outside was a family get-together where a family member who isn’t always the nicest made some snide remarks about Ed being “my secretary”. He knew to take it with a grain of salt but I do think it stuck.
Ed would also refer to the business as “your business” or “Emma’s business”. At times I would correct that and say, “our business” but I don’t think it ever felt like his business or a joint thing. At the time he worked in the business, it was a business I had built up that hinged on my qualifications and experience in legal services. I was “the face” of the business and Ed was happy to stay behind the scenes doing work and studying law. However as time went on, he wasn’t sure he wanted to practice law.
After some downtime away from the insurance industry where he had over 20 years of experience, Ed also missed insurance. He missed being that person with seniority and knowledge. When he was headhunted back to a more senior insurance role in late 2021 he decided to take it.
At first, I felt a failure and wondered why it wasn’t rainbows and lollipops for us with this amazing family business. Because it seems that way online when you look from the outside in at many of the examples I see online. But then online can be deceptive and we don’t know what goes on behind the scenes in similar work situations, and I think it is important to remember that and do what is right for you.
5. Burden of being the golden goose
That feeling of failure I mentioned above slowly turned to relief when Ed did go back to a corporate role and was getting a regular paycheck from somewhere that wasn’t our business.
And in fact, that is what I felt the most as the months passed with Ed back in a salaried role. Relief. Pure and simple. I was no longer the golden goose.
While he was working with me, Ed had become worried that the business hinged on me and worried that if something happened to me, what would happen to him, to our family, and the business? This was a good question.
It turns out I also felt the burden of providing for the family and getting work in keenly too. On reflection, I did more legal services work than I wanted to during that time and took on work I would rather have passed over to someone else because I knew the business was the only source of income for our family while we both worked in the business.
My takeaways from working with your spouse? You will never know unless you try but always be open to trying something else.
Our 13 year wedding anniversary is next week and I want to give thanks to the man I married for being brave enough to realise he did need to go back to the corporate world (albeit working from home which has kept many of the perks we had anyway) before I did and in doing so giving me the freedom to make that leap to legal contract templates and precedents only. The freedom to give up the legal services side of my business has been the greatest gift of all in this experience.
PS, did you know I now offer business planning sessions and business mentoring sessions? You can find the link to book here!
Cheers,
Emma x