Hi everyone! :)
Is it too difficult to work with your spouse as business partners on top of being life partners?
Here's the issue:
My stepdad and mom lent us funds to set up a business. My husband and I run a little grocery store. My husband attends to the business full time meaning he is present at the store during the day while I check in with him for updates and sales every night. My husband runs the day t- day operations while I am in charge of allocating funds and reports.
The business has been a long time dream of ours. We both wanted it so when my stepdad learned about and offered to lend us the funds, we went ahead and grabbed the opportunity.
We have been running the business for over a year now. It was not an easy year. We had to endure some trials and errors, tried out different strategies to find out which one suits us best, we learned lessons about money management and we learned them the hard way. We had lots of fights about the business too.
What were our fights about? Well, I really get upset and irritated about the way he works with me. The problem is - he does not seem to want to work with me as his business partner. He is not transparent about things that occurred in the business, or he doesn't ask my opinion before making certain business decisions. My husband seems to have a problem managing the finances, and as his partner, I feel that it is my responsibility to try and lead him to the right direction so we can both benefit if and when the business grows.
Arguments continued to occur, poor money management still went on which led us to close our little grocery store for about 2 months. We closed temporarily because we didn't have the funds to re-stock our inventory. We didn't have the funds because the money wasn't managed allocated properly.
I was so devastated and I can tell that he was too.
I have to mention - I juggle 2 jobs. I work 12-16 hours per day, 5-6 days per week. This is the reason why I can't be running the operations with him during the day. I need to work because the business is still starting and we are not seeing much profit from it as of yet. My income is spent on bills, utilities, food, school fees, etc. During those months when we had to close our store, we were determined to reopen it, which means we had to keep paying the rent even if we were not operating. I asked help from my mom about our financial problems. My mom helped me come up with funds to buy stocks. I covered the rent for the commercial space (with my salary).
Thankfully, we were able to reopen. Before our re-opening day, I talked to my husband about the lessons we learned, the mistakes we committed. For me, one of his shortcomings was lack of transparency. I had my shortcomings too - I have to admit. During our first few months in business, I have been adamant about making sure funds were allocated properly and reports had been made. My husband didn't want any of that. After a few arguments, he didn't budge. I let the issue go and kind of stepped away from it. I felt that he didn't to involve me in his decisions about the business, the strategies he wants to implement. My mistake was that I stopped pursuing and making him understand why we need all these things.
After we had the talk, and a few weeks after re-opening day, I thought things were going well. I continued working for my 2 jobs, while he managed the day to day operations as usual. There were even some changes on his part - he endorses the sales to me and I keep it in a safe. I allocate the funds appropriately to make sure inventory is covered. I do all these things with him around to make him see that I am being transparent to him.
However, I found out that he has made a business decision without informing me or asking my opinion about it. I figured it out on my own, and now I'm wondering if he had planned on letting me know about it at all. Due to this, I realized that he hasn't totally changed in regards to being transparent with me about the business.
I feel offended by this due to a number of reasons:
- I feel like he can't respect my wishes as a business partner - and that is for him to be transparent with me about business decisions - every move. Of course, he can expect the same thing from me - I have no problems with being transparent to him especially about the business.
- I feel like he doesn't see me as a partner, and that we're not working as a team. He is not the type who likes to brainstorm with me about ideas on how to grow the business.
- I see that if I ask him to do something, he does it. But I can sense that sometimes, he does these things to prevent arguments - which I don't like. It would be nice to know that he gets my point and does things because he agrees those were the right things to do.
- I feel sad about the fact that we have so many differences that we can't even run the business well.
Do you think he feels emasculated? Is transparency too much to ask? Why doesn't he like to include me in the decision making? I understand that there are situations when his discretion is called for, but at the end of the day, it would be nice to be informed about any problems that occurred in the business and how he resolved them.
I talked to him about this, but he said that he has implemented everything in the store and asked why I still had issues with him. He doesn't get me. I worry that if he doesn't manage the business finances well, that we will have to close again, or that we will fail. I don't want to struggle financially anymore so I am being very careful with the decisions we make and the steps we take. I am a very goal-oriented person. I am driven and I would like to be very successful in business. I'm sure he wants to be successful too, but he doesn't seem to have enough drive and is not being too careful about the steps he makes towards success. He is 7 years older than me. I am 31 and he'll be turning 38 this year. but he doesn't seem to be bothered about the fact that he is not yet a self-made man. He doesn't seem to care about the time he is wasting.
Sometimes I worry that his lack of drive and gusto will prevent me from being successful myself. I fear that he may drag me to mediocrity.
I'd like for him to be transparent and treat me as a part of the team, but I'm not sure how I can make that happen.
Is it too difficult to work with your spouse as business partners on top of being life partners?
Here's the issue:
My stepdad and mom lent us funds to set up a business. My husband and I run a little grocery store. My husband attends to the business full time meaning he is present at the store during the day while I check in with him for updates and sales every night. My husband runs the day t- day operations while I am in charge of allocating funds and reports.
The business has been a long time dream of ours. We both wanted it so when my stepdad learned about and offered to lend us the funds, we went ahead and grabbed the opportunity.
We have been running the business for over a year now. It was not an easy year. We had to endure some trials and errors, tried out different strategies to find out which one suits us best, we learned lessons about money management and we learned them the hard way. We had lots of fights about the business too.
What were our fights about? Well, I really get upset and irritated about the way he works with me. The problem is - he does not seem to want to work with me as his business partner. He is not transparent about things that occurred in the business, or he doesn't ask my opinion before making certain business decisions. My husband seems to have a problem managing the finances, and as his partner, I feel that it is my responsibility to try and lead him to the right direction so we can both benefit if and when the business grows.
Arguments continued to occur, poor money management still went on which led us to close our little grocery store for about 2 months. We closed temporarily because we didn't have the funds to re-stock our inventory. We didn't have the funds because the money wasn't managed allocated properly.
I was so devastated and I can tell that he was too.
I have to mention - I juggle 2 jobs. I work 12-16 hours per day, 5-6 days per week. This is the reason why I can't be running the operations with him during the day. I need to work because the business is still starting and we are not seeing much profit from it as of yet. My income is spent on bills, utilities, food, school fees, etc. During those months when we had to close our store, we were determined to reopen it, which means we had to keep paying the rent even if we were not operating. I asked help from my mom about our financial problems. My mom helped me come up with funds to buy stocks. I covered the rent for the commercial space (with my salary).
Thankfully, we were able to reopen. Before our re-opening day, I talked to my husband about the lessons we learned, the mistakes we committed. For me, one of his shortcomings was lack of transparency. I had my shortcomings too - I have to admit. During our first few months in business, I have been adamant about making sure funds were allocated properly and reports had been made. My husband didn't want any of that. After a few arguments, he didn't budge. I let the issue go and kind of stepped away from it. I felt that he didn't to involve me in his decisions about the business, the strategies he wants to implement. My mistake was that I stopped pursuing and making him understand why we need all these things.
After we had the talk, and a few weeks after re-opening day, I thought things were going well. I continued working for my 2 jobs, while he managed the day to day operations as usual. There were even some changes on his part - he endorses the sales to me and I keep it in a safe. I allocate the funds appropriately to make sure inventory is covered. I do all these things with him around to make him see that I am being transparent to him.
However, I found out that he has made a business decision without informing me or asking my opinion about it. I figured it out on my own, and now I'm wondering if he had planned on letting me know about it at all. Due to this, I realized that he hasn't totally changed in regards to being transparent with me about the business.
I feel offended by this due to a number of reasons:
- I feel like he can't respect my wishes as a business partner - and that is for him to be transparent with me about business decisions - every move. Of course, he can expect the same thing from me - I have no problems with being transparent to him especially about the business.
- I feel like he doesn't see me as a partner, and that we're not working as a team. He is not the type who likes to brainstorm with me about ideas on how to grow the business.
- I see that if I ask him to do something, he does it. But I can sense that sometimes, he does these things to prevent arguments - which I don't like. It would be nice to know that he gets my point and does things because he agrees those were the right things to do.
- I feel sad about the fact that we have so many differences that we can't even run the business well.
Do you think he feels emasculated? Is transparency too much to ask? Why doesn't he like to include me in the decision making? I understand that there are situations when his discretion is called for, but at the end of the day, it would be nice to be informed about any problems that occurred in the business and how he resolved them.
I talked to him about this, but he said that he has implemented everything in the store and asked why I still had issues with him. He doesn't get me. I worry that if he doesn't manage the business finances well, that we will have to close again, or that we will fail. I don't want to struggle financially anymore so I am being very careful with the decisions we make and the steps we take. I am a very goal-oriented person. I am driven and I would like to be very successful in business. I'm sure he wants to be successful too, but he doesn't seem to have enough drive and is not being too careful about the steps he makes towards success. He is 7 years older than me. I am 31 and he'll be turning 38 this year. but he doesn't seem to be bothered about the fact that he is not yet a self-made man. He doesn't seem to care about the time he is wasting.
Sometimes I worry that his lack of drive and gusto will prevent me from being successful myself. I fear that he may drag me to mediocrity.
I'd like for him to be transparent and treat me as a part of the team, but I'm not sure how I can make that happen.
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