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Key points
- It is possible for a couple to manage a professional relationship after divorce, but it takes emotional skill.
- Both partners have to focus on the good qualities that drew them together.
- It is also essential to jointly support children and not use them as pawns to punish a partner.
It is not unusual for people to mix romance with business. Countless married couples work together every day. They invest their emotional and professional well-being in the same person. They expect to trust each other, and always have each other’s best interests at heart.
However, that’s not always the way things are. If something goes wrong on the personal side, everything can be at stake, leading to emotional and financial chaos.
When people get to the point of deciding to end a marriage, the decision is usually packaged with disappointment and anger. Sometimes one partner may still want to try to work things out, causing even more disagreement. If a betrayal has occurred, the rage it fuels can make it extremely difficult to find the harmony necessary to collaborate as a team in business.
Melinda and Bill Gates recently announced they are getting divorced after 27 years of marriage, saying in a public statement that “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.” In the same statement they also said they have raised three incredible children and built a foundation together that works all over the world to help people live healthy and productive lives. They continue to believe in that mission and plan to still work together at the foundation, despite their breakup. The question is, how to manage to maintain a professional partnership in the face of divorce?
There are many reasons people choose to get divorced. Although they may no longer be in love with or feel the passion for their spouse that they once did, they may still love their partner.
In order to be able to salvage a relationship to keep working together, whether in managing a family business or, in the case of the Gates, a famous foundation, it is important to consciously determine how to handle unhappiness about the marriage ending. Rather than seeking to retaliate or get even with an ex for letting you down, you need to focus on the qualities you still value in each other, the qualities that represented the best of you as a couple, as well as your shared history.
Splitting couples need to avoid using their children as pawns to punish the partner. Instead, as Melinda and Bill are doing, it is advisable to continue to jointly support them. That puts them on firmer footing for the next chapter: no longer as spouses but as business partners.
Core love and mutual past can serve as a solid base to sustain harmony and teamwork in a professional realm. Ultimately, it means concentrating on what both stand to gain rather than what each is going to lose in the process: prioritizing what was shared that was meaningful to both and preserving that.
Just because a marriage is ending doesn’t mean a working partnership has to end, too. With the right emotional skills, Melinda and Bill can continue to build what they created during their marriage.
