The Support of Your Spouse

(FIRST DRAFT - the below has yet to be Proofed & edited)

Achieving great business success takes a lot of time, preparation and hard work. While a person is working their full time job to meet their current obligations, they must also be fine-tuning themselves – and this takes time, time normally spent with your family.

Family is the most important thing in our lives, but a proper balance is required when juggling work, education, and family. If you are in a situation, where your spouse is inflexible and requires that all of your free time needs to be with them – then your chances for great business success is slim to none. I have seen many people who had everything it took to be a great business success never achieve that success because of an over demanding spouse.

Many spouses either do not understand the dream for business success that others have, do not understand that commitment it requires, or are too greedy to allow it to happen. My only advice is for you to sit down when the timing for your spouse being receptive is right – and explain to them that you want to be a successful entrepreneur and for your family to have all of the rewards that comes with that. However, to become a successful entrepreneur, you will need to prepare yourself and it is initially time consuming. Additionally, once you have prepared yourself and ultimately have ownership in a business – you will not be working a 40-hour workweek until the business is stable and profitable; and you have a dependable, competent, and loyal management team in place responsible for much of the day-to-day operations. If your spouse is understanding and supportive – consider yourself lucky, as too many are not.
If you are in a rough marriage where your spouse is not only unsupportive of your goals – but also complains about virtually everything you do – you will need either to forget your goals or forget your spouse. It is near impossible to motivate yourself towards success while your spouse is tearing you down at the same time. You have one of three alternatives:

1. The most desirable alternative is to try to change your spouse’s behavior. Try talking, try counseling, and try whatever you think will work. Go the extra mile to satisfy you did everything possible before considering the next two more drastic alternatives.
2. If you are determined in achieving your goals and you spouse stands in the way of them – an alternative is divorce. This is time for a gut check. While it is near impossible to achieve great success and retain it with an unsupportive spouse – I guess it would not technically be impossible. However, where do you see yourself five years from now, ten years, twenty years, and thirty years? How happy do you expect to be with your “Life Partner”? Our life on Earth is so short, why spend it in a miserable marriage that you are convinced can never get better. Everyone has a “Soul Mate” out there somewhere. Someone they love and can never see themselves not being their life’s partner. If your spouse is not that soul mate and life’s partner – the better time to change your situation is sooner rather than later. The longer a bad marriage goes on – the harder the divorce will become; the more of your life was wasted; and the more difficult it is finally hooking up with your “Soul Mate”. It does not get any cheaper once you have achieved great success either.
3. Give up your goal and lead a miserable life wondering what could have been.


Finally, reward the spouse who supported you on your way up. The more money you have – the more attractive you become to others, and the more temptation opportunities you will find presented. Additionally, success goes to many people’s heads and in their minds and they become bigger than whom they really are. If your spouse supported you on the way up, it is only right to repay their loyalty with your loyalty. Be generous with them by giving them all you can comfortably afford, and make up for the time together, which was lost getting to where you wanted be. Goals (you did read that section – right?) generally start out looking financial – but mainly because you want you family to be comfortable and have the nice things in life. Once you achieve those initial goals – your goals should turn more towards your family’s increased happiness and security.