Model the household on the investor's capital being unavailable and the spouse's income stopping for an uncertain period. The invested funds must stay at risk, so they cannot be treated as a reserve. Build the buffer from separate assets, and size it against the longer of the plausible timelines rather than the sponsor's projection.
Cost the gap, not just the filing
Add to the budget the items a career pause creates: private healthcare cover, continued professional registration so the spouse can resume work later, retraining or licensing where a field requires it, and housing in two places if the family splits. Government filing fees, legal fees, translations and medical examinations sit on top of the capital and recur across family members. Ask any adviser to itemise scope so the household knows which later steps are already paid for.
Hypothetical example: an investor considering a hotel refurbishment project plans for the spouse's income to stop for nine months, and it stops for twenty-two. A first review would build the buffer against the longer plausible timeline rather than the expected one, and would fund it from assets outside the investment, since capital at risk cannot serve as a reserve. It would also separate the recurring costs of a career pause, such as maintaining registration and private healthcare, from the one-off costs of the case, because the recurring ones are what a long delay actually multiplies.