Working Couples: Balancing Stable & Entrepreneurial Careers

Whose career goes first? 

When it comes to dual working couples, there are some important and ongoing questions to ask each other along your career paths. 

When couples have very different career types and levels of financial stability, the question of whose career goes first is critical to sort out as a couple.

There is not one right answer. Rather, this is an ongoing process of how each partner relates to their own career and that of their partner. This will determine your success as a couple and in your respective careers. 

Understanding Working Couples in Different Careers

Why do we choose the careers that we do? This is a large question and one that has been studied extensively by vocational psychologists.

What we find personally meaningful and the way that we get compensated for that work has real implications in the way we experience our intimate relationships. 

For the purposes of this article, I will highlight the challenges faced by couples where one person is drawn to a “stable” career—one in which their income is relatively consistent and predictable—while the other partner is drawn to work and career that is variable in the amount or timing of income they earn. This is often the case when it comes to entrepreneurs, business owners, freelancers, consultants, and mission-minded professionals.  

When one person has consistent, predictable income and the other does not, this creates opportunities for the balance of what is a fair financial contribution to become muddied. The topic may be filled with resentment, regret, and remorse as the years of the intimate relationship unfold. This can flow both directions and is not limited to either partner in the relationship. 

Navigating Financial Stress in Mixed-Career Couples

Is it safe and okay to talk about your different career choices and directions? Or perhaps one or both of you become defensive when the topic of career choices comes up. 

We don’t have perfect crystal balls to help us predict the impacts of our career choices. Giving your partner the benefit of doubt with regard to picking career paths and understanding that we evolve in our career paths will likely produce better outcomes, whatever our chosen path. 

In some cases, we leave the known world of relative income stability to pursue something more meaningful or where we have more control over our time and energy but are left with greater variability in our income. This does not come without trade-offs, some of which are not fully apparent when we make those decisions. 

Financial stress comes in many forms and from a variety of sources. For mixed-career couples, unexpected tax liabilities, changes in the market, or mental health challenges can sideline economic productivity or profitability. 

When these experiences happen, the partner with the stable income can feel the burden of needing to support the family while the other partner figures out what to do next. This can set off a cycle of disappointment, frustration, and anxiety about how things will play out financially going forward. 

The Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur in a Stable Job Partnership

Being an entrepreneur in an intimate relationship with a partner that has a stable job can play out several different ways. In an ideal world, there is appreciation and healthy financial transparency about both partners' financial realities and expectations. 

But more often than not, there can be feelings of isolation, enablement, blurry transparency, and sometimes outright financial infidelity in the real world. 

Perhaps your appetite for risk and reward is high, so you picked a career with more upward potential. Or maybe you felt like you couldn’t fit into other work cultures, so you hung up your own shingle, thinking you could do it better on your own. 

In some cases, running your own business can become like a noose around your neck with less autonomy rather than more. Trying to estimate the timing of sales, expenses, and taxes has become a confusing mess of a problem, so you have given up trying to even set any expectations for yourself or your partner. 

Or perhaps you are doing great, and the income keeps increasing—but so does the spending. Every time you mention that you closed another big deal, new furniture, a trip, or a new toy ends up on your credit card. The joy of the big deal blinds you or your partner to the financial reality of income volatility.

Supporting Each Other’s Career Goals and Dreams

In healthy couples, both partners support each other's career aspirations and the ebbs and flows of their professional lives. There are, of course, limits to this support. It is not unending, despite what religious or cultural teachings might encourage. 

Some people have trouble saying to their partner, “This career path is no longer working for our family, and something needs to change.” It comes across as uncaring or critical, with the possible consequence of creating alienation and more hurt feelings. 

Our emotional investment in our work or business can make us very sensitive to feedback about the negative impacts it is having on our family. It is the responsibility of the family member with variable income to be open to feedback about the impact work is having on our spouse and family. There is a range of helpful balance between doing what we enjoy and finding meaning in and what it is costing our family to pursue a given path. 

Communicating About Finances and Stability

Some couples or individuals may focus their communication around methods of debate, either formally learned or developed over the course of life. While there can be a place for healthy and productive debate about finances and what represents reasonable stability to your family, more often than not we need to shift from a debate mindset (where we are seeking to prove our point and build a case for why our point is correct) to a collaborative communication style. 

With a collaborative communication style we enter into mutuality with our partner, we see the value of their perspective and ours. We are working towards a win/win solution. This is easier said than done for those of us that have been schooled in the art of debate, which is by definition win/lose. 

When it comes to intimate relationships, it is important to not lose sight of what lies beneath our communication patterns: our attachment styles and history. This is the way that we have experienced close and intimate relationships. The level of emotional depth and intimacy we are open to is guided by our attachment history. 

If you are getting hung up in communication, exploring more about each of your attachment histories is a great place to start. 

Finding Common Ground: Stability vs. Risk-Taking

While it is common to think about things in terms of this vs. that, we actually want to reframe our discussions to this AND that. 

Stability & Risk-Taking

The common ground is that both stability and risk-taking offer you opportunities. When we have a foundation of stability, there is more room to take risks and recover from failed attempts if they don’t work out. At the same time, taking risks allows you to experience a bigger world and new experiences that would not come from playing safe. As we build our confidence in taking risks, it can create a positive feedback loop of being open to taking on new challenges and risks. 

From an attachment perspective, some of us learn that we shouldn’t take on any risks because if we fail, there will be no one there to care for us. On the other end of the continuum, some learn there is no one there to care for them, and so they must take the risk and responsibility upon themselves. 

Between these two ends of the continuum is a way of being with each other that creates a safe base to go out and explore the world and know that you have a home and relationship to come home to. The fear of rejection for failing can paralyze some in the face of being financially honest with their intimate partner. 

Creating a Shared Vision for Financial and Career Success

Success is a moving target. There is not a fixed amount of success. 

In creating your shared vision for your family’s financial and career success, consider both internal and external realities. 

Internal Realities Can Include:

• What it feels like to be with each other
• How relaxed you feel around your finances
• How connected you are to your dreams and aspirations

External Realities Can Include:

• Types of career achievements you reach
• The amount of money you have (income, investments, assets)
• Things you own or experience

What do you want to say is true of your relationship over the course of your life? 

Now?

In five years?

In ten years?

At the end of your life?

Giving space for exploration and curiosity about crafting a shared vision for your life can help orient and clarify the directions you go with both of your careers and the amount of risk you are willing to take on. 

Couples have benefited greatly from the Therapy-Informed Financial Planning™ process that helps them work through their money differences and clarify how they want to be connected with each other. 

Schedule your free 30-minute consultation today. 

Wishing You Healthy Love and Money,

Ed Coambs

MBA, MA, MS, CFP, LMFT, CFT-I