Help! I Married An Entrepreneur!

When Bryant and I started dating, his plan was to become a college basketball coach…then it was a teacher…

And later it was to be an orthodontist…

Clearly, neither the college b-ball coach or orthodontist thing happened…

After a couple years of teaching (picture Bryant as a teacher. Weird, right??) and on his hopeful way into dental school, he and a friend decided to take another route. They established their own performance coaching company roughly 5 years ago, and it’s (Praise God!) done well.

First of all, I should never have been surprised Bryant went into business for himself, because he was never one to let “the man” hold him down. Plus, he’s extremely intelligent and hard-working.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned a lot regarding marriage, business ownership, and being a business owner’s wife. Whether you are working full time or not, it’s not easy being an entrepreneurial spouse.

(I’ve tried both. Unfortunately, one is no easier than the other.)

Actually, and at the risk of using less-than-stellar word choice here – it sucks a lot of times.

I’ve had to carefully and intentionally teach myself how to be supportive, encouraging, patient, as well as be an effective administer of bossiness constructive criticism, at times.

So, if you are also married to an entrepreneur, please see below on some survival tips. And please (please?? I still need some help here myself.) comment below if I have missed any major points!

Survival Tips for the Entrepreneurial Spouse.

1. Life = balancing act. However, balance does not mean equality. And this is unfortunate, especially since we’re talking about relationships here. But in the long run, our spouses and us will both hold heavier weights in different areas (and times!) of your life.
2. Don’t be judgmental. Now, this is going to be hard all the time sometimes. A lot of times, probably. But when they throw out ideas like taking over the world one cycling bib at a time… we have to take a deep breath, nod, and suggest, “Why don’t you sleep on it?” (Because, really? Our world ruled by spandex bibs)
3. Grab your tool belt. We need to start accepting the fact we live with a builder. Our building doesn’t start with the framework already in place, but the plot of land the building is laid on. Us and our spouses will be building from scratch.
4. Close the door. I know when I am in the middle of something, one of my biggest pet peeves is to be interrupted and bothered – I need my space. However, I have no problem barging into his home office to have him hold the baby while I use the restroom or (take way longer than needed to) brush my teeth. So if there’s a door, shut it and don’t open except in emergencies.
5. On that note… Don’t ever look in the Home Office. Ever. Remove it from your brain as part of your home or else you will swirl down a vortex of believing My Home Will Forever Be Subject To Bike Crap {or insert your own entrepreneur’s product} doom.
6. You are ultimately part of the brand. Whether we like it or not. This could mean our cars get wrapped in obnoxious marketing pieces. So we need to get used to it.
7. Let go. We will have to let go of a lot of things. Money, time we think our spouse should be spending with us, and our idea of stability and security.
8. Just keep swimming. It’s a deep ocean out there.