My husband refuses to give up on his failing company

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Dear Pay Dirt

My husband and I have been working together on a startup company since December 2013. It’s in an industry that has taken a huge downturn since right after he started. They haven’t secured any funding. They can’t afford to complete the next very important step because they are out of money. Two business partners were his, and one was his close friend. This friend, who is now the main partner, just accepted a full time job and has given up on the startup. The other partner is now working a very limited amount of hours per week at the startup. My husband holds on. He doesn’t know what else he would want to do. For the past 20 years, he has been working for himself in various businesses that were started and managed by him. He says he is applying for jobs that he doesn’t really want and is not writing cover letters for any of them.

I am at my wit’s end. I have supported him in all his business ventures. They have been both successful and unsuccessful. He is an entrepreneur. He is that to me. I am able to keep the job that offers benefits for our family. His previous successes have saved us money, but we will soon run out of money. I don’t want him to take a job that he doesn’t want. But, I’m beginning to worry about him holding on to a sinking ship. He is always stressed and unsure. I wish he would give up on this project and decide what to do next. Maybe he will spend more time with his children or help around the house. Do I need to be a pusher to get him to quit working on this project and just move on? It’s a really touchy subject.

—Cut the Cord Already

Dear Cut the Cord

You’re not wrong. I’m an occasional entrepreneur, who has had a business fail before, and I sympathize with your husband. It’s a painful experience that feels as much like a personal failure as a professional one because it becomes a big part of how you see yourself. However, your husband is responsible for you and your loved ones. He can’t wish the startup into success, and I’m sure that deep down he knows that. What’s probably making him feel stuck is that he doesn’t know what he wants to do next. Nearly all serial entrepreneurs I know find it difficult to move forward until there is a new idea or opportunity.

I think what you have to emphasize to him here is that he doesn’t have to make a long-term choice about his next move right now, but he needs to make sure he does his part to keep the family financially stable. He might be able to take on contract work, or even work for another company for a year while he plans his next venture. He can’t look for income while he is still running a failing business.

If he’s had some business successes, he could also probably pick up some part-time consulting work in his area of expertise while he figures out his next step and how to wind down his current venture. It’s important to stress to him that if the startup isn’t working, letting go of it does not mean letting go of entrepreneurship forever. There are organizations for people who are business owners, and it may also help him to talk to other people who’ve been in the same situation.

In the meantime, I don’t think it’s out of line for you to remind him that he has a deadline, and it’s tied to when the business runs out of money. Tell him that you do not want to dip into savings if that’s avoidable. Even if he thinks he can salvage the business, he owes it to you and your family to come up with a plan for what he’s going to do if it doesn’t work. He should always have a plan B as an entrepreneur. He also needs one.

Dear Pay Dirt

I’ve been married to my husband for nearly seven years. We are now in our 40s. I knew that he had built up a large amount of credit card debt over his 20s from irresponsible spending. Because he was afraid of sharing financial information with me, it was a significant source of stress for us when we moved into our home together. I was placed under an unfair burden to cover our expenses. After much negotiation, we agreed to share an account for expenses. We also used an online budgeting program to create a household budget. I’ve asked him over and over to participate in a shared budgeting and goal-setting process, and wish this was a shared responsibility.

It was almost like he had given up on all agency when he let me have access to his finances. He prefers that I tell him how much money he has each month, and he refuses to talk about it. Not only does it make me uncomfortable to give a grown man who earns half our income an “allowance,” it also doesn’t work—he rarely sticks to the amount we can afford, and will transfer money between accounts if he runs out. He doesn’t seem to be capable of understanding that if he spends all the money in our accounts today, we will have no money for things we’d like to do in the near future, even when we discuss it. Inevitably the time will come when he wants to buy a plane ticket and I will say “We don’t have the money for that” and he will pressure me until I put it on my credit card (he will not open a credit card because of his previous experience with debt), or sulk when I refuse to pay for something we can’t afford. It’s incredibly unfair on me and has resulted in me carrying modest debt on my credit card that I can’t quite shift. I’ve also had to revert to saving money for big things in accounts he doesn’t have easy access to, which makes me feel terrible, even though I am transparent with him about what’s in those accounts and he is in agreement.

His refusal to have a credit card extends to any kind of credit—he balks at putting a utility bill account in his name, wouldn’t cosign our car loan, or even open up a pre-paid credit card, which was a solution I offered to the overspending issue. We don’t own a home, and if we choose to buy a house it would have to be in my name alone. Because of this, he literally has no credit history in the country we currently live in… When you run a credit report on him he looks like a ghost. We have had many, many discussions about how it is a form of financial abuse to insist one partner assumes all the financial risk and burden, and that it also hurts his future prospects as well as mine, but he is so fearful about the risks of credit that he won’t change. He loves me and shares many other burdens, such as housework, family, income generation, etc., competently and equally. But when it comes to finances, I feel like a parent/caregiver. It would be shocking to anyone who has ever worked with him. What can we do to turn the corner?

—All the Credit, All the Risk

Dear All Credit, All Risk

Your husband may have trauma from his past debts and reacts negatively to financial problems. If he finds it overwhelming, it’s going to be difficult to just talk him into being more responsible for his own finances. This is the kind of thing therapists can help address because it’s not just about the money; it’s about the way he perceives risk around money. If he’s terrified to take on any financial risk at all, that’s not just about wanting to avoid the burden of it, that’s about an irrational fear that’s rooted in something deeper.

That doesn’t mean, however, that you should be the person who has to deal with it. He will likely need some therapy and handholding to get to a place where he’ll take responsibility in the way you want him to, but you can outsource the handholding. For bills that he routinely needs to pay for, you can set up automatic payments, and do the same for transfers to savings accounts—perhaps keeping a separate account for costs associated with things like travel. A financial planner can assist you in budgeting and can also help you to build credit. Don’t try to do all of these things at once, but incrementally, they can help give him a sense of control over subjects that he would otherwise find overwhelming.

Tell  him that this affects you and your relationship, too. It’s not just a household administrative issue, and you don’t want to resent him for it, so you need him to make the effort to try these things. He must also do it himself. It will be a disaster if something happens to him and he doesn’t have any credit or a way to manage his finances. This could also affect other members of the family. He doesn’t have to figure all of this out  at once, but he needs to make progress toward getting a handle on it, for your sake, and his.

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Dear Pay Dirt

My 96-year old grandmother died recently, leaving behind her husband of nearly 70 years. My brother visited him recently, and was amazed to find that he is now living in a senior residence. He plans to sell the house and give the proceeds of the sale to my grandmother’s two sons, and to me and his stepdaughter. My mother, who tragically died 15 years ago when he married my mother, was eighteen at the time. She always considered him her father as she did not have any relationship with her biological father. It seems that he also handed all my grandmother’s jewelry off to his oldest son to give to his daughters. My brother inquired why the oldest granddaughter (me) didn’t receive jewelry. However, my grandfather simply looked down and mumbled. I am very hurt. It is safe to assume we won’t receive any inheritance from him. I won’t pretend that this is NOT a money issue. I am certainly disappointed that my brother and I probably won’t receive anything. I am financially stable but an inheritance could have made a positive difference in my family’s life. I’m also just…hurt. Hurt for my brother and me, and for my mother. Hurt that we aren’t considered close enough to our families. How do I deal with these feelings?

—Left Out

Dear Left Out,

You have every right not to be hurt. Unfortunately, this is not a common story. There are some people like your grandmother’s husband who simply don’t recognize non-biological family as family even when they are, legally. (I’m an adoptee and have seen adoptees get cut out of wills because someone decides they’re not real family. This is something I find morally unacceptable, but it is a common occurrence.

If you think it would make you feel better, it may be worth writing a letter to your grandmother’s husband explaining how all of this makes you feel, especially since your mother considered him a father. Don’t expect, however, that it will change his mind. It might not. It could not.

In the meantime, know that your pain (and probably anger) are reasonable reactions, and remember that just because your grandmother’s widow doesn’t consider you family enough, doesn’t mean everyone feels that way. He’s not the only family you have, and the other people who matter feel differently. If he doesn’t consider you real family, it’s his loss, not yours.

Dear Pay Dirt

I’m a man in a family of mostly women: my wife, two daughters, one daughter-in-law, my mother, my two sisters, and three nieces. My brother-in-laws are easy to buy gifts for, and my wife always sorts gifts to her father. But I find it difficult to buy gifts for everyone else. All of them want gifts that include beauty products, jewelry or books I don’t know about. I work an incredibly stressful job and have limited time for shopping trips, least of all to places I don’t feel at all at home in like these stores.

My eldest daughter, “Halle” (28), loves celebrations and is an organizational master. She keeps spreadsheets listing her birthdays, preferences and the gifts she has bought. People have commented since her teens on how great she is at finding the perfect gift for them. Halle is able to handle the bulk of our family’s present-buying. Halle pays me the money. It is a great way to relieve stress and she enjoys Christmas shopping. Last year, however, Halle complained every time I asked her about what gifts she bought, acting like it was a huge burden rather than something she’d be doing anyway. Then, at our Christmas get-together where gifts were exchanged, she made a point of telling people stories about where she found the gifts they opened from me, making it obvious that she had done the shopping and making at least a couple of relatives annoyed with me and feeling I didn’t care about them (not at all true). It wasn’t Halle that had purchased them, but I! It was embarrassing. We have had some awkward birthdays since then when our sisters thanked Halle to buy gifts. Get in touch with me.

Halle will be starting Christmas shopping, I’m sure. She has called me before to inquire about money transfers and who she should pick up gifts from. But this year, there has been no call from her. I have a bad feeling she will do what she did last year if I don’t say something, or simply refuse to help out at all. I absolutely don’t have time to go to the kind of effort she does—Christmas and the holidays are an overtime period for me—but I don’t want to end up forgetting anyone or leaving my wife or younger daughter with gift cards as presents. How can I talk to Halle? It seems like she’s being unreasonable and uncharacteristically passive-aggressive, and I don’t know how to approach this conversation.

—Christmas Problems Already

Dear Christmas Problems Already

It’s nice that Halle enjoys gift shopping and that she has been helping you all these years, but keep in mind that she’s doing you a favor. (Presumably, you’re not paying Her This is what you should do. And it sounds like you haven’t been very grateful for the work she puts into it, and seem to think that this is her job by default now. So, perhaps her emphasizing to everyone last year that she did the thoughtful shopping was a way of letting you know that if you’re not giving her credit for all of this extra effort, she will claim it herself.

Even without Halle, Christmas shopping isn’t difficult. It doesn’t take much effort from you. Ask your beloved family members to send you two or three gifts they might want and then you don’t have to guess. It shouldn’t be a huge time suck… Online shopping exists! Or, you can go the old-fashioned, person-who-hates-buying-gifts route and just give people cash. While it might not be as romantic as you would like, I can assure you that no one above 8 years old hates cash as a gift. Nobody. There is none. There is no reason Halle should be obliged to do this all for you. It doesn’t have to be a tedious task for you.

—Elizabeth

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My mother-in-law and I don’t have a warm and fuzzy relationship, though I promise you that I am very accommodating and pleasant with her. My husband and my wife have been together almost five years. Despite her four bedrooms, having been recently divorced, and only having one of her children at home, my mother in law does not have a guest bed. We have shared our home with her during our marriage. We have slept in her basement on a terrible pullout sofa, one on the couch, one on the couch, and me on a twin mattress. My husband slept next to me on an air bed. There was a hole in it. When he mentioned the hole in the morning, she laughed it off as so unfortunate but didn’t offer to replace it for the next night!