Working with your massage therapist spouse can be both rewarding and trying. Over time most of our difficulties disappeared.....meaning, in our case, he resigned himself to let me make most of the office decisions. Just kidding....well, sort of. For the most part we have the same ideas about what we want our clinic to be. Naturally we have our own styles when it comes to massage therapy. We both prefer doing real therapy over general relaxation massage and we both apply science and anatomy into formulating treatment plans for our clients. I tend to be more laid back and he tends to be more clinical, but we both shoot for professional. Our styles attract different client bases, but sometimes we recognize that what the client needs might be better served by a different therapist.
Luckily for us, we can refer our clients to each other if we determine the client needs a different area of expertise. If you ask a massage therapist what they think their strongest modality or best treatment is they will generally be able to tell you what they have the most success treating and how they do it. Hubby has a great reputation with the running and/or marathon crowd and he has a great deal of knowledge about TMJ issues due to his working in the dental field for over 20 years. I am known for specific neck work and headache management. Whereas both of us can give you a good therapeutic massage, sometimes we know that our client needs our partner's skills. This is one way the shared client comes into play.
Over the years we have developed a shared client base. Most were initiated by us referring clients to each other for specific treatment, but some were started by the clients not being able to get into see their regular therapist so they agreed to try the spouse. This works out well for all parties involved. The client gets the best therapy and if they want to shake things up a bit they can alternate between us for some variety. We will hopefully retain clients longer, not lose money, and get twice the word of mouth.
Is there a downside? Yes. Occasionally when we see each others clients, they decide they like the spouse better and decide they do not want to be shared. Now let me clarify that this is not problematic for us, but it can cause the client to feel awkward. They may feel guilty for changing their loyalty to the other therapist and in the super rare extreme case, they may feel so uneasy that they quit coming to either of us just so they do not have to feel odd.
We had a perfect example of this last week. I had been working with a client for several months for TMJ issues and arthritic hips. I had encouraged this client to see Hubby more than once but he was shy about seeing a male therapist. Last week I had a touch of a stomach bug and needed to re-schedule his appointment so when we were looking at the calendar I casually mentioned that Hubby could see him and he could keep his appointment. I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed. After his session he was so pleased with his TMJ treatment that he decided to rebook with Hubby.....but he was sheepish about setting up his next visit. When he asked me if it would be awkward or cause any problems if he saw Hubby again, I was quick to reassure him that I was perfectly OK with his decision. I reminded him that I had told him how much better at TMJ work Hubby was and then to break the tension I said "Hey babe, the money goes in the same bank account no matter who you see!" After a good laugh we set his appointment with Hubby and all was right in the massage world again.
I say share and share alike....and hopefully when I share it will be a 350 lb burly guy that just loves Hubby.
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