Balancing Marriage and Business 2

Gary and I didn't quarrel much -- we were too busy just trying to keep the babies fed and the business alive. But after a while, we noticed a pattern. The fights we did have were about stupid things, unrelated to the business, and always took place in the car on the way back from my mother's house in New York. Back then, those trips were our only real vacations (unlike us, she had a bathtub and thermostats), and we dreaded returning to our life at the farm. That dread would convert to bickering on the bleak drive home.

The moment of truth came, as I suspect such moments do in most marriages hitched to a business. I had to decide whether it was possible to declare allegiance to my spouse but turn my back on the business with which his identity had become so entangled.

When we married, I asked Gary for just one commitment: that he never touch the $30,000 that was my father's legacy to me. It was to be my nest egg, a down payment on a home in the (likely) event that the business failed and we lost everything else.

In 1987, we moved production off our farm and began co-packing at a factory in Massachusetts. Without warning, our co-packer went bankrupt. We had three days to clean and relight the boilers at Stonyfield, hire new employees, and buy fruit, milk, and culture. And, of course, we had no money for any of that, except my $30,000. Gary came to me and said, "I need the cash." I couldn't straddle anymore. No weeping or wailing or gnashing of teeth would provide relief now.

In or out? Gary never put it that way, and I'm sure he didn't think about it that way. But that's what it came down to. I'm in, I guess, because you're in, and we're married, and my loyalty lies with you. I'm in, because we have employees and shareholders and customers who expect us to climb out of bed every day and do the entire scary and depressing thing all over again. I'm in, because I believe in your vision of a saner planet. I'm in, even though I'm convinced we're going to lose our shirts and take a lot of people's money down with us. I'm in, because your passion, your courage, your willingness to have a dream and run with it are a large part of what attracted me to you in the first place.

Goodbye, fantasy bathtub; goodbye, thermostat mirage. As I wrote the check, the door of my dream home shut with a thud. In my heart, a plea to my father: Dad, wherever you are, I hope you don't think your only daughter is a fool.