Ask HN: Do you have a startup spouse?

Nice idea :)<p>A friend once gave me this advice:<p>"I work all the time. Day, night, weekends, all the time. Sometimes my wife will want some time with me, just to talk. But since I’m always busy, I’m usually at my computer when we have our conversations. What she’s noticed is, I only half-listen when I’m doing that. I’m splitting my attention between her and my laptop.<p>"This hasn’t been good. I could tell it was affecting our marriage. So I resolved to shut the lid of my laptop whenver she wanted to speak. And I’ve been doing that. It hasn’t been easy, let me tell you. But I’ve been trying."<p>I'm getting married soon and have been conscious of this issue as well. I've also found Meg Cadoux Hirshberg's column in Inc. Magazine to be insightful:<p><a href="http://www.inc.com/author/meg-cadoux-hirshberg" rel="nofollow">http://www.inc.com/author/meg-cadoux-hirshberg</a><p>Good luck!

My co-founder and I are both married with small children. We were both full time developers before founding our company. We started working on a side project at night for a few months and then heard about a local Utah version of YCombinator called <a href="http://www.BoomStartup.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.BoomStartup.com</a> (We're IActionable.com). We were accepted, but there were many late night discussions with my wife as we tried to figure out a plan to survive on the little investment money we would get. (compared to the nice comfortable salary I once had!)<p>Our wives are very supportive. It does take a special and patient person to support someone starting a company. But I do think my wife is somewhat excited to see me actually follow through and finish a project for once :)<p>I showed her your blog and maybe she'll comment with some experiences or thoughts sometime. She went through the list of roles you had and agreed that she plays many of those.<p>Good luck with the blog!

<a href="http://www.thestartupspouse.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.thestartupspouse.com</a><p>^Clickable.

Read it to my spouse as she lay in bed... she loved it!<p>And her first comment was can she have a business card... with the title "Startup Spouse"...<p>Awesome!<p>Just add a Facebook share link... so I can share on Facebook. :)

Good post. Another way to put it?<p>"Hitched to Someone Else's Dream" <a href="http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/hitched-to-someone-elses-dream.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080901/hitched-to-someone-else...</a><p>"I got sucked into his enterprise -- our livelihood now depended on it -- and though I had little input into its direction, I stood to lose everything if it failed."<p>Article echoes much of what my wife has dealt with in 15 years I've been building companies.

I'm assuming you've seen this, but if you haven't: <a href="http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html" rel="nofollow">http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html</a>

Luckily my wife and I are both developers. We've always worked together from corporations to a number of startups that we were involved in.<p>I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for a spouse who has to put up with a significant other working in a startup... Crazy hours, the highs, the lows, lack of sleep, bad moods, wondering where cash is going to come from.<p>On the other hand, doing startups together has been an immensely rewarding experience. Through our shared experiences we've become closer than I could possibly have imagined. So, for us, it has all been worth it - at least emotionally.<p>I really feel for people who aren't able to spend enough time together, or are finding empathy for a partner hard to muster. I can hardly begin to imagine how bad it must have been for the poor EA wives - awful.

Interesting topic-I love and have worked at startups for the past few years and my soon-to-be spouse has worked at a big corp. for an equal amount of time. We both work in tech,and he is sympathetic to my crazy hours and understands why I have to work on a Saturday, midnight, and "have to answer this email right now."I think as long as you unplug and have devoted time to your personal life, everything works out. In the past, I let work dominate my life which diminished my personal life. I think I am engaged today b/c I set time aside to grow in that way. It's all about boundaries and understanding, that's been my experience.

Nice first post and like how you've written it in a gender-neutral tone. It kind of depresses me as I envy people who have supporting partners, and feel as an entrepreneurial woman those attributes are harder to come by in a male partner. I know it's generalising, but most guys want to take the centre stage. Do they want to hold the home and emotional front together? Probably not. Sigh... :-)

My wife and I have been married my entire start-up career (going on 8 years). I think she'd more or less describe it much like me having any other job. I've never worked particularly long hours. I probably carry a bit more stress than others, but that's really it (and I've gotten pretty good at managing it).

My co-founder and I just got engaged :)

Me and my wife work on the startups together. She is good with people and I good with systems, so it makes a good team. It make more sense as all the the dynamics are already in place.

Very cool concept. My wife could probably write a book about what she puts up with... a supportive spouse makes all the difference. I'll tell her to follow the blog :)

No offense but, I read your list of "who will...?" and immediately thought: HELL NO, NOT ME.<p>That's what an assistant is for.<p>We hired two assistants (one on the way out) to do things like pick up things from the post office, sort out paperwork, fetch food, and naturally, learn a lot about business/our code.<p>And we work together!<p>If you love your wife/husband and want to keep that relationship happy, seems like you either have to marry a martyr... or protect those bonds by not turning your no doubt equally intelligent, equally valuable spouse into a go-fer.<p>Support is beautiful and all, but there are limits.