When He Won’t Support Your Business

I can still remember how it felt. I would come up with some brilliant idea for a business and bring it home to my husband. I was hoping for support, for enthusiasm, for encouragement.

Instead, I got, “That’s never going to work. Who’s going to want that? We don’t have that kind of money to invest.”

The Communication Divide

It got to the point where I would just hang onto my ideas and work on them in secret, closing off entire portions of my life out of fear of having my dreams dismantled and dashed in front of my eyes.

And every time that I would fail, he would be right there to tell me, “I told you it wasn’t going to work.”

The shame, the humiliation, and the frustration I already felt just had salt added into the wounds.

You would think that I would give up. And, for a while, I did. I stopped trying to build a business. I focused on my corporate job where I knew I could find success. But I was dying on the inside that way.

The Decision

Eventually, I had to make a decision. I had to decide that I wasn’t going to allow his “no” to be the excuse for why I didn’t. I had to decide that I was going to make it with or without his help and support.

Later, I realized that it wasn’t fair to blame him for being unable to see a vision that, as yet, was only in my head. Until I built it and made it physically present for him, there was no way for him to see it.

The Truth

It took time for me to recognize the truth. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t believe in me and he didn’t support my business. It was that I didn’t really believe in me and I was looking to him for validation he couldn’t give me. My insecurity about my abilities was the real obstacle — not him.

Today, I have a business that is growing, sometimes almost faster than I can keep up. My husband is one of my biggest supporters and encouragers. His criticism now isn’t that I can’t do it, it’s that I don’t value the work I do enough. He sees more potential in me, sometimes, than I do.

Building a business is tough work. It isn’t always easy to get our spouses on board and supporting us. You can’t let that stop you. You build the vision and when it’s physically in front of them, then they’ll see what you see.

Until then, get your support from people who are working on building a business just like you. Get your support from those who are running the same race. Allow your spouse the room to doubt and to grapple with their fears. Just don’t let those fears cause you to quit on you.