How to Work with a Type A Wife

When people find out that my wife and I work together at the business we own, we get a lot of: “Wow…I could never work with my spouse.”

To be honest, I am not as involved in the day to day of the business as I use to be.  But the first seven to eight years?  There was a LOT of together time.  And it didn’t always go well. 

We had much to learn about business, ourselves and how to forge a functional relationship.  One of my particular challenges was that, well, my wife tends to be a Type A person.

What the heck is a Type A? 

Let’s get into that a bit before moving on.  What the heck is a Type A??  My favorite source of info, Wikipedia, explains it this way:  The theory describes Type A individuals as outgoing, ambitious, rigidly organized, highly status-conscious, sensitive, impatient, anxious, proactive, and concerned with time management. People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving "workaholics". The article goes on to explain that this is only a theory, open to a lot of speculation and interpretation. 

If this is a Type A women….bet on her.

But certainly, we all know or have known someone that at least approximates a fair number of these characteristics.  My lovely wife being one of them.  However, she is also lovely.  And completely unique.  And can make a mean martini.

Back to working with your spouse.

Ours is a business forged in necessity and determination. The first two years in business we took a total of two days off.  The first year we took Christmas, the second we decided on New Year’s Day. The first decade or so, we never took off more than 4 days in a row, and that always included a weekend.

This period of being a workaholic taught me a couple of things:

-If you really put your mind to it, almost anything is possible.

-I never want to do it again.

She, however, was just getting warmed up.

For years we worked in the same office, in our cramped C-grade headquarters we moved to from our garage.  How did that go?  Let’s just say the staff finally pleaded with us to get separate offices. I guess the stress was starting to creep into our (sometimes loud), eh, conversations.  Looking back, the separation of offices was sort of the beginning of me letting go and her running things. And better times. It still took a lot of adjustments, but at least it felt like were on the right path.

We began to play more to our strengths.  Hers- being a CEO and having the reigns.   Me- support her and be a creative type with business experience to offer.

So, the take away?  Just give up and let the Type A have their way if you want to survive in a relationship with them?  In my experience, that’s really not going to work.  It takes a lot of understanding, conversations (maybe even loud sometimes) and mistakes to make it work.

It also takes a very honest appraisal of the personalities and talents that each person brings to the relationship.

Here is my retort then, to those who say, “I could never work with my spouse.”  Yes, yes you can.  But it may not be easy, and you had better be able to adapt.

More soon.