Balancing Marriage and Business

Slide into bed with an entrepreneur, and you wind up cuddling with his business. At a certain point, the entrepreneur’s spouse has to answer the question: Are you in or are you out? It is a question that surfaces in many forms over time. Are you in? In for as long as it takes this business to succeed? In for what is potentially a lifetime of financial risk? Or are you out? Out of patience, out of tolerance, out of your mind with stress and the bitterness of dreams deferred? The entrepreneur usually doesn’t pose the question overtly. Yet the spouse does answer it, by giving or withholding support, encouragement, warmth, and reassurance — the manifestations of love.

My single biggest “what if” involves having had a job rather than a business. Or having set out to close the business five years ago, or dump it on my partners, taking a “real job” instead, be it here or by being the one to relocate. In any event, it really is tough, not like simply having a job, even a relatively demanding one.

On another note, perhaps I couldn’t help being in business or flirting with the idea frequently, since tendency toward self-employment is genetic.