Spousal teams are often powerhouses in small businesses. However, all of that energy has the potential to be destructive, upsetting the balance in domestic life.
The fact you did not get along as a married couple does nothing to detract from your skill in cooperatively leading a company. However, your divorce brings about significant changes in your legal relationship, some of which may have benefited your business.
A problem: change of legal status
Among other things, your marriage was a contract. It allowed certain types of protection, decision-making power, and mutual responsibility similar to a restrictive corporate partnership agreement.
Divorce is the dissolution of that contract. That means that most of your protections, rights, and obligations vanish the moment you finalize the process.
A potential solution: reestablish a relationship
This may not seem like the best time to talk about entering another contract, but it could be something to consider for the future of your business. Rather than liquidating and dividing the assets of the company, you could instead move forward as business partners.
Writing a new partnership agreement could be preferable to splitting up the company. It could provide more stability for employees, clients, and other stakeholders, for example. It could even allow you to better define your professional rules to suit the developing needs of your organization.
Although many couples are wary of this idea at first, they often start to see more and more opportunities as they consider it. That said, it certainly is not for everybody — division might be preferable if either you or your spouse has lost interest in running the company, for example.