Ask HN: getting married tonight - tips for success?

Tonight I am getting married. I am also 3 months in to a new venture that is obviously taking up a lot of time.

I am curious what pointers HNers might have for maintaining a healthy marriage while also growing a successful startup.

My mom is a psychologist, so I'll tell you what she told me before I got married:

A Native American couple was to get married, and the medicine man came to them and said, "There are three of you here: the groom, the bride and death. The relationship you have right now will die. But from its ashes can spring a new relationship. That new relationship will be different, less exciting in some ways, maybe, but deeper and stronger. And that new relationship will die, but from its ashes a new one can spring again. This will go on and on for your lifetime together."

Expect that your relationship will change and be prepared to change with it. Expect to forgive the past and expect to discover the future.

About balancing work and a new venture, my only advice is to always make clear to her/him that s/he is the first priority. You may have to spend more time with the venture, but it is always number two. And be prepared to continually show, over and over, what you feel is obvious: how much you love them and how important they are to you. Never assume they know.

P.S. Congratulations and my warmest wishes for your future together!

Get off the computer and pay attention to your new wife!

Don't piss her off and most importantly she's always right :)

I've been married and divorced and I'm still in my late twenties. Not sure I can help you with any maxims on maintaining a healthy marriage but on the startup front I would suggest you strongly consider a pre-nup - or if the wedding is this evening, a post-nup.

I sincerely hope you never end up in a divorce situation but during mine (under California law) I had to give up 50% of my equity and options rights in the startups I've been involved in that occurred during the marriage because they were 'community property' (ie owned by the couple).

I'm not a lawyer, but if you have your own startup and your wife isn't a shareholder and you divorce she is entitled to 50% of anything you vested during that time. It works both ways if she is also involved in startups (ie you would get 50% of hers) and to that end you could agree to trade/cancel things out. I was able to buy my ex-wife out because I didn't want her to remain involved in the company but it was very costly. There's a longer and more gory story in here but this isn't really the place to get into it plus confidentially issues come into play.

When you get married, you don't really want to think about divorce. In the same way when you form the company documents for your startup, you don't really think about an IPO or an exit - yet in both cases at that end point some of the decisions you made at the start will come into play and so it's important to get things in order now.

EDIT: Another tid-bit of info - if you exercise options or sell the company your spouse has to sign-off agreement on the documents. Again, if you end up estranged from your wife that can cause all kinds of delays and issues.