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**first and last paragraph for short version**

My wife was sold a dream by an mlm. She joined it with out my support 8 months ago. Quietly spent $3000 chasing her dream. (A dream she didn't have until it was sold to her by an old friend from highschool). We are constantly fighting over it. I asked for counseling last month and she finally agreed.

 

Backstory. She had a year off for mat leave, went back to work last April and from what I can tell her mental health started to deteriorate shortly after (postpartum??). crying after dropping the baby off at daycare type of thing. Fast forward a few months she jumped into this mlm last summer and fell head over heels in love with the dream of getting filthy rich selling shampoo. She started to scream at the kids when they would interrupt her, would scream at me for not supporting her. Would get mad and depressed when she didn't meet targets. Would get mad with me for questioning her ty buisness. She spends hours a day on social media working her "buisness". Says to me "why would you hate something that has offered me nothing but support and uplifting messages". She's not even making money at it. We have seperate savings, she spends hers and has a large LOC. I've done better with mine and offered to buy out her buisness. She saw it as me trying to stifle and sabatoge her dreams, tells me that I don't want to see her succeed.

 

We bought a dream house in our price range last February. I offered to sell/rent the house at cost and go back to renting a small 2bdrm apt (almost half the price of owning) so we could afford her to stay home with the baby. Not good enough, she wants the big house and lots of money. Pours her heart and soul into this mlm. Even if she could make money at it, hundreds of people under her would lose. That's not right. It's an mlm. They are all scams. Period. Any company that sells dreams and where over 99.8% of participants lose money is a scam. Plain and simple. I can not support her journey, as she calls it.

 

Anyways we have some counseling coming up. Has anyone here been in a similar situation and recovered their marriage? Anyone been thru this and recovered with a new marriage? Advice would be appreciated, thanks.

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The only people who make money at MLMs are those who are successful in recruiting others to be "under" them and getting them to sell product.

 

Read up on the horror stories online (My favorite is a certain makeup company whose big money makers drive pink vehicles. They have something called a "husband unawareness" program where they encourage the women to put half the cost of product on a credit card their husband knows nothing about and pay cash for the other half so their husbands don't know how much product they're buying. And any husband who doesn't 110% encourage their wives to put all their time and energy into the program is a "bad" husband who the woman should divorce).

 

You may not be able to talk her out of participating, unfortunately. Those conferences and meetings they're required to attend strongly influence them.

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What did she do for work before the kid?

 

Honestly, if 8 months have gone by and she's still **** at making MLM work, it's simply not for her. There's not going to be a flip of the switch.

 

Now how big of a battle you want to make of it depends on how much you two need the income, or at the very least how much you need her not to be spending money on something that won't turn profitable.

 

If she's verbally abusing the children, that's its own consideration as well.

 

I know it's an anxious wait, but formal counseling will probably provide you better insight and advice than we could.

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It's good that you are going to counseling and certainly sounds like could be some post-partum issues going on. Formal evaluations and counseling is the way to go here.

 

Meanwhile, stop pressuring her to quit and shelve your disdain. The more you rant against it, the more she will dig her toes in. It's just human nature. If she is failing and it's been 8 months, she will need to and will arrive at her own conclusion that this mlm stuff is not for her skill set. However, the more you pressure her, the more displeasure you show, the longer it will take for her to admit it. Your own reactions and behavior are actually making that hard on her. Back off and give her room to save some dignity as she will eventually walk away from this. Right now you are literally pushing her into it deeper and deeper.

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Sorry to hear this is going on. It seems she's gotten lost in this world and the social media buzz. MLMs have been compared to and even considered to be cults Here's an article:Multi-Level Marketing Groups Defraud Consumers

she jumped into this mlm last summer and fell head over heels in love with the dream of getting filthy rich selling shampoo. She started to scream at the kids when they would interrupt her, would scream at me for not supporting her. Would get mad and depressed when she didn't meet targets.
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Has it occurred to you that your criticism makes it ~harder~ for her to walk away from this thing rather than easier?

 

Consider behaving in ways that create a soft place to land for your wife rather than position yourself as her adversary.

 

Yes, the money is lost already. It was lost the minute she 'invested' it. The mistake has been made and seeing the failure play out will be punishment enough. I don't know what you could possibly gain by being adversarial and unsupportive. You're just beating a dead horse and making this harder for everyone. If you work together, it will go much more smoothly. It doesn't have to be a total loss.

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I wish MLM's could be made illegal. I cannot tell you how many times an "old friend" from HS has contacted me, via Facebook or other means, to "catch up", only to then try and pull me into their MLM. Cosmetics, skincare, beauty products, household products.....all such a miracle....friends hocking their stuff all over Facebook. I've hidden/unfriended so many I've lost count.

 

I digress.

 

This is a tough one, as the MLM, to be "successful" (whereas success is defined at getting a victim's money) has to behave like a cult. They have to prey on people who believe what they're selling (not the product, but the idea), and act as a group against naysayers, such as yourself. This is unfortunately to the detriment of the spouse who won't buy in.

 

I don't have an answer for you, other than therapy maybe?

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Most MLMs are successful only when you get more people to sign up under you. THe only reason to join is if you use their product personally and you can get it cheaper by being a rep and then casually let friends know that you offer it and sell it passively OR you have to understand its all about signing others up and you lose lots of friends that way. if she had a business model where she brought product wholesale under her own branding, etc, then she could understand better about profits and losses but there is always another program to buy into and another and another in one MLM.

 

I think that if she is spending money that should be used for bills and savings and you are not seeing any profit, then you need to put your foot down and say that she needs to turn a profit in X amount of time for you to be behind her on this further. Otherwise, she is just tossing money down the drain which should go towards your child's education or more. Maybe its the social network that she craves she is getting - but she would be better off joining a facebook chat group.

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another approach "can we agree that i won't have any negative opinion on how you choose to make money as long as you are bringing in at least X a week or month from it. She can choose to do her MLM, or work at a part time job at a boutique, or do a professional job telecommuting or whatever she likes, as long as she is bringing in X. If she is doing MLM for here on out, her profit after expenses that is put in the joint account must be X a week. She can figure out how to do that in any way she wants -- whether her MLM just breaks even and she takes on someone else's small child a few days a week while they are at work, works outside the home in addition to the MLM or figures out how to make the MLM profitable.

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Agree. There is a vast difference between an at home style business and MLMs. Just like cults and religions...huge difference in culture and goals.In MLMs only the top wins usually bilking folks out of money upfront and misrepresenting any success they may have.

 

Bigbedroom, read books by Steven Hassan:

Combatting Cult Mind Control

Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves

Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

It will open your eyes.

I wish MLM's could be made illegal. I cannot tell you how many times an "old friend" from HS has contacted me, via Facebook or other means, to "catch up", only to then try and pull me into their MLM. Cosmetics, skincare, beauty products, household products.....all such a miracle....friends hocking their stuff all over Facebook. I've hidden/unfriended so many I've lost count.
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Thanks for the tips about trying to approach it so that I'm not the bad guy fighting her. I will have to try them. The hulk smash the mlm hasn't had the desired affect. So she has a full-time job. Complains to me that her friends blow her off when she tries to hang out. I reckon it's the mlm that helped chase her friends off. She's to stubborn to admit that she ed up. Before we met she had failed at 4 previous mlms. Money she spent on it now charges interest on her line of credit.

 

I give 97% of my paycheck to us trying to make this work. Keeping the last 3% for personal spending. I let her have 8% of her paycheck for personal use. Any leftovers we try to save for oh crap moments and then alternate between house upgrades and trips.

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Yikes she seems hooked on this despite the obvious havoc it wreaks. Read the books, they may help find an approach to understanding this self-destructive cult-like situation. Has she ever considered a real job?

Complains to me that her friends blow her off when she tries to hang out. I reckon it's the mlm that helped chase her friends off. Before we met she had failed at 4 previous mlms. Money she spent on it now charges interest on her line of credit.
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