Ever since she met her husband, Junab Ali, Denise Ali has known
that she would always be, in a sense, "the other woman."
"We've known each other since we were 15," says
Denise, "and he's always talked about having his own
business. When it finally happened, it wasn't a big
surprise." Except for the timing: Their baby was 6 months old
in 2000, when Junab, now 32, quit his lucrative day job to start
San Antonio-based Mobius Partners, offering computer infrastructure
solutions to small businesses. Whenever Denise couldn't calm
their crying baby, she knew the noise might be disturbing Junab,
especially if he was on the phone--he was just down the hall in the
spare bedroom/office.
Do entrepreneurs make good husbands or wives? It depends whom
you talk to, of course, but clearly, marriage to an entrepreneur
can be difficult.
Even now that Mobius Partners generates $12 million and employs
nine, Denise, 31, admits that being married to an entrepreneur is
challenging. "My husband is a type-A personality," she
says. "He's a micromanager, and when there's stress at
work, it's stressful at home. We're married to the
business."
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Startup entrepreneurs tend to make the worst spouses, observes
Pam Brill, a psychologist, business consultant and author of
The Winner's Way. "During startup,
the major resource for achieving success is your own time. You
don't have a lot of extra time or energy to share with a
partner or a family."
But Brill believes that as the entrepreneur's business
improves, so does the marriage. "Entrepreneurs who can keep
their businesses and personal lives balanced make some of the best
spouses, for the reasons they're successful in business.
They're often spontaneous risk-takers, and can see outside the
box. It's only when they get caught up in that frenzy that they
seem obsessed with the business." Indeed, Denise says Junab is
almost always home during the evenings and weekends--one reason
they're looking forward to their eighth anniversary in
June.
Doug Fyffe, 48, usually finds it easy to incorporate his
personal life with Babe Ease LLC, the million-dollar, baby-friendly
product business his wife, Missy Cohen-Fyffe, 43, runs out of their
Pelham, New Hampshire, home. "My day starts with running our
oldest son to school, and I leave before the first employee
arrives," Doug explains. "I usually get home by 6 p.m.,
and [the three employees] are cleared out. But when I come home
early, our driveway's full, and it's kind of odd."
Rachel Poses also finds she can't avoid living and breathing
her spouse's business. Eric Poses, 31, started All Things Equal
Inc., a board game company in Santa Monica, California, in
1997--in 2004, he earned $1 million in revenue.
The company's driving force is the board game Loaded
Questions, which forces players to answer complicated questions . .
. like how your spouse's business affects your marriage.
"When we want to go on a vacation, it's wonderful because
we can do that," says Rachel, 31, who has been married more
than three years. But she knows that even on vacation, she
doesn't have Eric's undivided attention. "It's a
worry to leave the business because it's not like somebody else
is running it."
But being married to an entrepreneur can be rewarding, too.
"Without Missy having done this, I never would have seen this
side of her," says Doug.
And Rachel notes that while she and Eric frequently spend their
free time talking about board games, she isn't bored: "At
least we're not talking about insurance all the time."