Why does my wife see things in my family that I refuse to see?

Because the spouse usually carries the emotional ledger of the family while the founder carries the operational one. The founder is focused on the company, the next deal, the team, the strategy. The spouse is watching the kids, the marriages, the dinner table, the patterns. Kris Kluver, in The Dysfunctional Family Office, has Joanne tell Robert directly that he built the business partly for the family but mainly because he loved building it. Robert had spent thirty years not letting himself hear that. The spouse usually knows the truth long before the founder does. The founder usually has to be willing to hear it. When the truth finally surfaces, transition work actually becomes possible.