My husband was born in Colombia and was raised with a business mindset, to work on your own no matter what; his father and uncles own businesses. It was one of the things I loved about him. He came down here to the states and started working for his friend since he wasn't able to get a real job due to his English - which continues to be an obstacle today.
Since we've been together, (1 year and some change) he's been picking up things and trying to find financial freedom. He has always been against working as an employee so he tried to pick up a bunch of self-employment gigs and courses. The thing is, he is scared to fail, or choose the wrong path, and he is very, very indecisive. But he will pick up any shiny new "get rich quick" thing that the internet gurus dangle in his face! It's concerning.
Below I will outline the history of his business ventures. But for now, let's start with the present day one and my concerns.
His most recent venture/idea: to open up an online business, amazon reselling. We agreed it would probably take time for the business to grow and so we agreed he wouldn't quit and would keep working a few more months until the business started taking off. Even his mentors advised this.
Well, his job is getting increasingly more physically demanding and he feels that he no longer withstands being on his feet 8 hours a day. So just this morning he told me he will need to resign soon. Like, sooner than we had agreed, in about 3 months actually. We're moving into an apartment in a month. He argues that he has enough savings to live on for a year, in other words, he has enough to pay his half of our expenses for a year.. the problem is he can't just get into another job because of his English. He is very, very limited in his options (if any) so that just makes things even more challenging.
(For reference: We each make roughly $2,400 a month... and god forbid something happens because neither of us can support the other.)
This obviously caught me off guard as we had specifically agreed that he wouldn't quit his job cold turkey without anything to rely on. He got very upset with me and asked me, "well how else am I going to do it?! And then he said, "some days you support me and other days you don't. And that's how we are."
This hit me. He wasn't 100% right but he wasn't 100% wrong either. I do feel that I am hot and cold in regards to how I support him, but that's because it is so hard with how all over the place he tends to be. I feel horrible about that because thats what marriage is about. Unconditional love and support. And what am I showing..
And then in a very stern and almost rude voice he said, "I need to dedicate 100% of my time on my business and that's what I'm going to do."
Now the history of his business ventures: He first tried door-to-door sales, (solar panels, and water filters) but didn't quite pursue it seriously, and also got pretty lazy bc he had to walk a lot, and be in the sun, and the rain. I actually did it with him.
Then he started a coding program to earn an online certificate, which he just finished! He hopes to get a job in that.
Then, he had us split $2,000 to pay for a real estate investment course. Come to find out you need at least $70,000 or to be in contact with investors.
Then he found out you could pay a trading company to give you a trading account and $50,000 and do live trading - and he managed to get somewhat far (?) but it had a bunch of pointless rules and if you violated the rules they revoked your account and he did, and lost the account.
Then in the summer, he was still against working regular job so he started doing Uber eats, Amazon deliveries. His car started to fail due to stress of driving so much so he had to stop.
Then he started working a regular 9 to 5 job, as he ran out of money (savings) and had to start making ends meet again. His schedule was chosen so that he could do trading in the mornings. I thought this was insane but, he was willing to take the risk. And then he told me he wanted to quit his job to pursue a faceless YouTube channel about soccer, and that if it didn't work out in 6 months he'd go back to work. And more recently, he found out about the flipping houses industry and wants to get into THAT as well but there's a mentoring course that is recommended to get your foot in the door I guess, and he doesn't have time or money. As you can probably tell, the man has many many many ventures/ideas.
So, what's going to be different this time around? How do I know he's going to stick to something? And just the overall instability just stresses me out. But I guess that's how businesses are built when you have to do it all yourself... Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way in a better position than him, I don't even have a career! But I think I have more of a direction and am not as impulsive to jump into the next get rich scheme that I hear about.. I do know what I want to pursue (content creation) and it is also self-employment but it is going to be a lonnnnng road.
We just got married this month and although I was happy on the day of, I feel like *** now because obviously partnership and marriage requires support. I remember him saying that the primary reason why his last relationship didn't work out; she didn't support him. That stood out from me since the beginning. I tried to hint at him the fact that I wanted us to grow individually in our careers and such before we made the choice to get married, (which was a big concern of mine before we got together, not in the sense of I wanted a partner with a lot of money, or a successful career but I did have personal career goals that I wanted to accomplish prior to getting into another relationship. I made this clear to him in the beginning. He understood and pretty much told me the same thing.)
Well of course we ended up falling in love, and while we did not throw out our pursuits out of the window, now we do kinda struggle with juggling our relationship and our personal goals... again, something I wanted to make sure I avoided....
I didn't want to mention this bc I felt like I was giving him the impression that where we currently were at in life, wasn't good enough to decide to commit. Ugh. So I dropped it. And now I'm at a crossroads because I really don't know if I have it in me to continue to ride on these countless rollercoasters that I've been on. Part me of feels horrible because he is trying. He is trying so hard to make something of himself. I love him and the love he gives is so pure.. but I often question how genuine MY love is... and if it's conditional or not.
I'm wondering if I should just wait out a year, see what happens, if the business grows and somehow starts paying the bills...if not, we're honestly so screwed.
any insight or advice would be invaluable, the wisdom on here is unmatched!! Thank you in advance.
