Three ways to provide your partner with the support, tools, and investment they may need to succeed
We spend a lot of time looking at how you, Dad, can succeed in these kooky days. However, you ought to be prepared to support your partner (should you have one) in their drive to succeed. Your investment presents strong ROI, as you can gain relationship credit, tap into them for your own knowledge and inspiration, and make money through their investment. All of this leads to mutual, positive sum gains for your partner, you, and your family.
There are myriad ways to support your partner to achieve their dreams and goals.
You don’t need to invest all of your money or serve as a direct business partner in their endeavors. But, you can offer significant time investment. You can help your partner gain the knowledge and skills to launch into a new career. If you both choose to do so, you can provide monetary support for them to start their own business or to invest in a new venture.
1. Support Your Partner with Time Investment
You can spend your time doing the day-to-day family activities and duties to support your partner. This applies to any situation, whether your partner should decide to start a business, go back to school, get a certification, actively invest in a business, work on a non-profit, or dig in at their current job to complete a big project or try to get a promotion.
How do you help? Give your time! Serve as the daycare daddy with the kids all week long. Dedicate your time to making breakfast, lunch and dinner; do the laundry and dishes; clean the house and the yard; carpool the kids to and from school, and to extracurricular activities. When your partner gets home from a long day, give them a back rub, run a bath or just sit and listen to them.
The ROI on time is relationship credit. You will build credit with your partner by taking on these time-consuming activities. Your sacrifice should be paid back with interest by them.
2. Help Them as They Gain the Skills to Succeed
Support your partner if they decide to go back to school and gain a new skill. This may require all of the time investments outlined above. It may also require a monetary investment.
If your partner wants to go back to school, you’ll need to budget and plan. Make sure you review all loan options and, if possible, build up a cash reservoir. You’ll need to pay for their tuition and other expenses, like books, technology, class materials, and down to the amount of gas they use to go to school in-person (if that is still a thing).
While you may not directly give them the knowledge and skills, you are empowering them to gain such assets for success. Your involvement in their upskilling is an investment that can pay back in multiple ways:
- With their new skills, your partner could get a new job or promotion that makes more money
- Your partner could teach you a lot about different things you didn’t know about coming out of their educational journey
- Your partners commitment to grow and your sacrifice in their journey will demonstrate to your children the values of a strong relationship and the joy of helping the people you love
Need some guidance on paying for school? Check out our post “How to Pay for College These Days.”
3. Make a Shared Monetary Investment
Your institutional retirement investments are not commingled if you have a 401-K or IRA. You can share ownership of active investments through other methods, like investing in a start-up or launching your own business.
Your partner may want to start their own business. From brick and mortar to an online business the options to start a business have never been more ubiquitous or accessible in our history. The US Treasury is pouring money into supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs. To start a business you’ll need capital. It could be as small as a few hundred for a web domain, hosting and a laptop. On the other hand, it may require many thousands for rent, staff and inventory.
Your partner may have an early edge on a start-up and want to invest. We’d advise that you accept your partner’s proposal and look into it. Request the prospectus of the business and be sure that the start-up team provides you with key data, like Net Present Value, Cost-Benefit Analysis, projected Statement of Cash Flows and Payment Calculations.
Do your due diligence whether your partner is launching their own, or investing in an external business. This means reviewing together your current budget and positions. Look at your current long-term investments and objectives, like how soon you want to retire. Determine what you can remove from your monthly budget to still survive as a family. This is the pain of risk in order to potentially realize the joy of the reward. There’s always risk with reward!
When you have outlined your plan and determined your level of discomfort, then you can move to the next step.
Want more help to get you there? Check out these resources!
Next, make the decision together. If you are not invested 100% as a Dad and their partner, you risk carrying resentment into the relationship. It may not sound like a dirty word, but “I Told You So” is an absolute relationship wrecker. So, be honestly committed to this new investment.
Remember, this will also require time! You can’t just invest and walk away. You may not need to be active on a board or in operations, but you still must be involved with how your money and investment is being used.
By investing in your partner you’re also investing in yourself and your family. Your time and trust will pay dividends in addition to the other returns your partner can realize from their endeavor. Provide your honest support, Dad, and the reward could be massive.
