I recently had a lunch meeting with an inspiring lady named Marlene Chism. She wrote a guest post about the effects of drama keeping you from your success. During the course of the conversation, Mrs. Chism commented upon my relationship with my spouse and encouraged me to write about it. Taking Mrs. Chism’s advice in the belief that others may find value in my elaboration, I am proceeding forward with doing so.
Many of you that are married, in a strong relationship, civil union, or other descriptor where two people live their lives together depending upon one another and caring for each other, will be able to identify with the following arrangement. I typically work outside the home while my wife works inside the home. This is a simple sentence that you have probably heard many times but few of you have taken the time to actually evaluate the impact of the implications of that sentence. I will be writing form the point of view of the man working from outside the home and the woman working inside the home, not to stereotype but because I am writing from my present experience. Adjust the sex to orient the story to apply to your particular situation.
I have heard couples where the spouses, who share the aforementioned situation, fight over money. The fight generally stems from some kind of financial dominance, guilt or resentment. The individual who leaves the home to work and collects a paycheck, earns the revenue, brings home the bacon, or whatever your term may be is typically considered the breadwinner. Because they are the breadwinner, the natural perception is that the money is theirs. The individual that works inside the home feels like they need to ask permission for things to be purchased or worse, they feel like they do not contribute to the family’s wealth. This type of thinking is poisonous. I have written on support teams and family is one of them. Support teams are vital to your success and as such, you should view the individual that works in the home as a vital member that contributes to your overall success.
This post makes the assumption that the individual that stays home actually participates rather than capitulates to laziness. My wife is one of the hardest working individuals I know. And let me put this out there for the entire world to read, “I Could Not Do This Without Her!” I will remove the emotional aspect from this temporarily and appeal to the fiscal nature of things. Without my wife undertaking the responsibilities that she does, I would have to hire the following people:
- Full time baby sitter to take care of my sons
- Private tutor to teach my sons
- Maid service to clean the house
- Maid service to wash the clothes (everyday)
- Personal assistant to accommodate my miscellaneous tasks
- Bookkeeper to reconcile the statements of 2 of my companies
- Web marketer to handle promotion of my various entities through social media
- Body guards to ensure the safety of my sons
Fiscally speaking, you can see that it would cost me quite a bit of money to hire competent entities to accommodate the above responsibilities. Now, many of you may not have as full of a plate as I do, but the example should show one thing, my wife is an integral part of my support team. Two things that she does that I can’t hire out for, that I did not list above, are give me peace of mind that my family is safe and taken care of while I am out of the home and grant me calm, with loving arms, upon my return home. To me, those are priceless. I can concentrate on what I do best, professionally, because I do not have to worry domestically.
Because my wife is an integral part of my support team, she has the same rights to the revenue I generate as I do. The money in our accounts is ours. We make major spending decisions together, but that is because we decide all things for our Home Team together. This point is a digression, but we recently implemented the Jar System and it dramatically assisted with our money management and made spending decisions much easier. If you want to know more about it, contact me.
Do not undervalue the individual that works in the home and supports you while you are out of the home. Worst yet, do not let that individual undervalue them self. I know that sounds odd, but they often times do. They feel that because their efforts do not directly lead to revenue generation that their role is less vital. This is where you need to step up and remind them of how important their support is. In order for this to work, you must have respect for each other and not take advantage of each other. If you treat your professional team members with respect, treating your home support team with respect should be a given (as should their respect for you). You must align your goals and work towards them as a team. For you will either grow as a team together to reach your goal or you will grow apart as individuals destroying your team. If one member is standing still while the other is progressing forward, the divide will continue to grow. Moral of the story, life is a team sport. Value and respect all members of your team or you will truly know how important they were when they are no longer part of your team.
Tags: Money, responsibility, spouse, support, team
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Chase,
You and your wife are role models for the entrepreneurs of the world. We so often take for granted the things in life that we need the most. I will use your example and your article in my corporate seminars to show how teamwork is not just a word we use in business but the lesson is UNIVERSAL and applies to all of life. Thanks for being such an inspiration to all of us.
Thank you for the compliment. We sincerely appreciate it.
Great story Chase. I agree about the help of the spouse at home. We just started this last year in 2007 about October. With the absence of our son living in Australia my wife just felt lost at work as a registered Nurse so she came home and has stayed at home dispite a few part-time gigs to see if she wanted to go back but she never did. The thing i would like to be able to add is the part were Mandy helps you so much with the business as we have tried and she cant seem to find anything that interest her about what I do besides the fringe benifits. Anyway its nice to have some one here to keep order and really to keep me in check about remembering to add family in a busy work life. Thanks again for your articles and i always enjoy reading.
Paul – Don't rush it. I tried to fit Mandy into our various businesses. What helped me the most was to help her with her financial education and then she started to evolve into the positions that catered to her particular expertise and enjoyment. Your wife worked as a registered Nurse, she may be able to give you better insight to expand health insurance coverage or expand your life insurance side. Read the book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (I know you have a copy) and then pass it to your wife. I would start there.
At a deeper level I'd be interested in knowing how they chose their roles in work and in marriage, and why and what change they see evolving over time in the ways they support each other
Thanks
Kare – Please read the above reply to Paul as for roles in business. As for our roles in Marriage, we are a team and as such, we act as one. On a team, you have the team member that performs the best in a particular role act in that role. Similarly, we perform the roles that we do best and the ones that we are equal in capability, we balance the load to maximize our efficiency to grant us more time with each other and our children. Once we were able to work effectively as a team at home, business was not a problem.