My service regularly attracts business leaders, business owners from around the world. These people are high achievers looking for growth-orientated solutions to their marital problems.
They are time-poor and want a step-by-step solution-based process.
They want someone to tell them what to do to fix what seems impossible to fix.
One of the trends I see is when a person sells their company, it’s not long before their marriage starts to suffer and they enter an unexpected crisis.
You see when a couple stops being busy with their work and kids leave home they can lose their success identities, resulting in them feeling lost not seeing how they will get their needs from their marriage.
Now how their life should be, doesn’t reflect the reality of how it is and the couple enter marital stress.
These couples/individuals have worked their whole lives to build a company they could sell and be free to live life on their terms.
The problem is they have put a massive amount of effort and time into planning the success of their business, they missed a critical piece of the puzzle.
Their strategy didn’t include ensuring their relationship success was a part of their design, they wrongly assumed it would be there with little effort.
Marriages need constant energy and if it’s not fed what it needs it dies and so many couples are unaware of its death until they end up just the two of them and no connection.
One ex CEO had made his fortune leading a global brand.
The problem was he forgot to invest his wife in his plans. She was living a separate life, and when he cashed in, their connection was dead and we had to rebuild it.
Couples are not understanding how to keep their business life and their marriage alive and in their quest for financial freedom, they are losing emotional security and emotional connection.
Another business leader spent seven years leading a landmark case that he eventually won.
He was absent from the marriage for that time, thinking his wife was with him on his quest to win the case.
He went home to celebrate, and she was genuinely pleased for him, but she asked for a divorce that same day.
You see, when a marriage becomes the cost of business success the people with the money quickly discover how important that marriage was and how unimportant their money really is.
It’s so important to keep the marriage alive because business and money are not what most people value in the end.
The quality of their connection is where the value really sits.
I have some clients who tell me the money is done, they don’t have to work another day in their lives.
They have all they need, but the disconnect quickly reveals itself when the couple is put on this new path.
Imagine working your life to free yourself so you can travel the world and have an adventure.
Only to find you have a family that loves their home and doesn’t want to spend months or years away.
So what if their retirement plan is different to yours?
Imagine this you have worked your whole life living the identity of a business owner respected by their industry selling your company and now your identity has gone.
Your now at home with a wife that has felt ignored for years who does her own thing and really doesn’t respect you or like you.
Smart people sadly are not getting this right which is why I see so many coming for help at a time when they should be enjoying their lives they have worked so hard for.
Imagine the wife of a retired businessman who historically has been so relieved he’s going on another business trip is now exhausted by him being at home all the time and jarred by his take over bid to run the home the same way he did his business.
Or how about the businessman who came to me for help, he sold his business in his late 60s.
He got bored with his home, golf, home existence, so he reinvested the lot in a new venture that collapsed and now cannot afford to retire in the UK.
When life-changing situations happen, many couples go into crisis.
Kids leaving home causes stress as the couple who lived their life as mum and dad now don’t know how to be husband and wife.
Retirement for some brings up fears of their mortality, and some with no warning just leave or have an affair.
I meet many husband and wife company owners that end up as great business partners but in the end hate their relationship.
Some people have health issues, so they leave to get the best out of their few years they have left.
Each phase of life needs understanding and planning so both people can step into their new phase together.
Whatever retirement should look like it should be full of love, connection and pleasure not stress and worry.
Living a retirement life with connection problems really does equal a poorly managed plan that needs help getting back on track.