When you run a business, you’ll have days that are long and frustrating. You may spend extra hours at work and not be home much, either. When you work with your spouse, it can become irritating to never really get away from work, because you’re both always focused on what you can do to make the business run well and become successful.
Your business may be doing well, but if your marriage is suffering it is time to think about how you can take action. If your relationship has suffered because of running the business, you and your spouse may both agree that it’s time to end it. At the same time, will ending your marriage damage your business?
It’s possible to keep your business open
Depending on the circumstances of your marriage and what both of you do for your business, you may find that you’re completely willing to continue operating your business together but are interested in having other romantic partners. In that case, a divorce makes total sense, and you may be able to negotiate the division of the business in a way that allows you to both continue working with it.
For example, you may agree that you’ll both get a 50% share in the ownership of the business. Then, if in the future one of you wants to sell or move on to another career, there is the option to do so built into the business agreement and your divorce settlement.
Sometimes, people do work better as business partners than they do as a married couple. Other times, they don’t make good business or marriage partners. If you don’t want to work with your spouse and they would like to continue operating the business, you may need to negotiate further. You may decide to sell your share of the business to them or ask that they sell theirs to you.
In other cases, you both may decide to sell the business to someone else, so you can obtain a profit and move forward with other ventures while allowing your business to continue to thrive under someone else’s guidance.