How To Hire A Husband

In the business world, the worst mistakes always involve hiring the wrong people. The same is true in your own life, when selecting a partner. There is nothing in your life that will have a larger impact than who you marry. Marrying a good husband will increase your financial, social and human resources, reinforce your business model and accelerate your family flywheel. Marrying the wrong person will reduce your financial, social and human resources, cause friction in your family business model and often destroy your family flywheel through divorce.

Companies use job descriptions, recruiters and interviews to find the right person for a job. Many people are turning to Tinder, Bumble or similar apps to find a husband, but those apps focus mainly on filtering candidates by categories that aren't the most important. Imagine starting a business and you could only try to find a cofounder based on a picture, height or interests. A better way would be to look at your family business model and try to find someone that is in alignment and complementary.

It is essential that you know what your family business model is and what you want it to be before trying to hiring a spouse. Imagine going into a job interview and they don't even know what position they are hiring for. Do they need a CEO, a marketing director or a customer service specialist? If they don't even know what they are hiring for, how will they know what questions to ask? If you haven't already, get the book here and download the book resources here and work through the assessment family business model and resource forms. You could also have a potential husband do the same which would make this easier.

Family business model

Make sure a potential husband has a compatible strategy, culture and structure. It doesn't matter how attractive he is if he doesn't fit your business model.

Strategy fit

If you want be the homemaker and invest in the families human resources by being home for the kids and taking care of the family's health, look for a husband who can support the family on one income and who wants a homemaker. If you want to be the white collar and have your husband work as well, make sure you have a plan for how children will be taken care of if you have any at all.

Culture fit

You don't have to share all of the same beliefs and values, but large differences will cause friction. Having a common religion usually means there is significant culture fit, but not always. Just like there is a big cultural difference between working at a small company and working at a massive company, different types of careers from your family growing up can also cause problems. Meeting your potential partner’s family will give you a lot of insight into their family culture and into how your potential husband will behave and how he would expect you to behave.

Structure fit

What roles and responsibilities do you want and which ones does he want? Who is going to manage the finances? Who is going to manage the home? Who is going to manage the children? 

Selecting for human resources

What abilities do you need your spouse to have? Do you expect him to be the handyman in the home and take care of the cars? Do you expect him to invest a lot of time in the children or will he be gone working most of the time? Make sure the abilities, health, and time of the potential match are what you need. If you need a strong blue-collar worker, don’t select a person who has never done physical work.

Selecting for social resources

If your family business model requires strong social connections, make sure your potential husband has good social connections and enjoys building social resources.

Selecting for financial resource management

Make sure your potential partner has similar financial goals. A spouse that spends a lot of money, often referred to as a high-maintenance spouse, may match your family business model if you have the financial resources to support them. But if you don’t have the financial resources, a high-maintenance spouse will likely cause significant financial stress and possible divorce.

Check biological, demographic, and psychological influences

If you are getting older and want to have a multiple children, you need a husband that wants to have children soon. If you are in a female dominated city like New York or Los Angeles, you may want to move to a male dominated area to get married.

Timing when to partner up

Make sure to select a partner at the correct time for your strategy. You may not want to get married at the start of college, but you may want to get married before leaving college since you will have fewer interactions with eligible partners once you leave college. Also, if you want to get married in 2 years, you need to make sure you develop the dating skills and resources to attract the type of spouse you want.

Issues

There are always some issues. There is never a perfect candidate for a job, just like there is never a perfect husband. I was younger than my wife which was a concern for her. The most concerning issues are business model alignment issues, so make sure you work through those before getting married.