Need Advice on Comm Better Re: Finances, Education and Careers W/my Husband

It sounds like you are doing a lot for him, and you should stop, unless he asks you to. He may feel like you are pushing him, and be upset because he isn't able to provide for his family. You may try to ask him about his feelings related to this. As far as the friend, he may just need another sounding board. Let him know that you have no problem with him getting outside advice. Hopefully you have the type of communication where he will come home and tell you about the discussion? Before making any decisions? If not, let him know that this is what you are hoping will happen, or ask him about it when he comes home.

I fully agree with the other mothers that your husband needs to feel supported and capable of creating his own solutions, not as if he is broken and needs to be fixed.

I understand that his choices effect you and your entire household and I would suggest that the solution for you would be to focus on what choices you have with what actually is rather than what it 'should' be. Define 'what is' and then look at what you can do that doesn't include "fixing" your husband.

You could look at what fears come up for you that drive your need to fix the situation. What are all the scary messages that are running around in your head about your husbands current situation? Your need to solve this for him is actually coming out of your need to feel better. Somewhere you are feeling freaked out. It may serve you better to focus on your own fears and beliefs and look for ways to resource yourself rather than focusing on your husband.

For example, if you have a deep seated (unconcious) fear of a lack of money, you will make decisions and try and control and manipulate the world around you to make sure that this isn't true. Unfortunately, it is a paradox. The more you try to prove the belief wrong the more you strengthen the belief. Instead, you can become fully aware of the belief, where it started, how it has shown up in your life, and then resource yourself within the fear. Instead of saying "I shouldn't have a lack of money", you say "I feel fearful that there may be a lack of money therefore I am going to take this one small step" That one small step needs to be about you and not anyone or anything around you. That step could be to draw up a clear and concise budget so you know what the situation really looks like, it could be talking to a financial expert, it could be writing out all of your fears and getting them out of your head and body, it could be expressing your fear by sitting down and having a good cry.

Shifting the focus to yourself and away from your husband creates space for both of you to find new ways of dealing with the issues. As they say, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Clearly the way you have been trying to fix this has not worked. Maybe it is time to choose to look at this from a different perspective. From the idea that you are being driven by fears that are created out of unconcious negative beliefs. And that you and your husband are each fully capable of coming up with creative solutions individually.

There is a big difference between supporting someone and trying to fix them. Support is: listening, owning your own feelings, communicating clearly and directly about your own experience, allowing each person to be responsible for their own creations, and only giving an opinion or idea when it is asked for. Fixing is: coming up with solutions for the other person, having expectations of how the other person should be behaving, communicating in a blaming and shaming manner (which we are not always aware of and is often disguised as caring), and robbing others of their responsibilities.

I know that it is a struggle every day to raise a family and to keep a marraige going strong. However, I also know that we have not always been give the tools to shift from struggle to ease. I hope you can look at all the tools that these amazing moms are suggesting and find the ones that will support you and your husband in shifting into new ways of doing things rather than relying on old patterns that are clearly just making you unhappy.

i'm a wife of an entrepreneur as well, and it is tough always for one reason or another. He's probably dealing with a lot of different issues from actually working for someone else instead of himself, worrying that he might not measure up for someone else, ... and there's something that happens to men in their 30s when the man says, "i figured by this time in my life I'd be a LOT further ahead with my dreams, and the future right now looks very different from what I imagined it would be -- UGHHH or BORING!!!!"

You're in some difficult years right now. He'll work it out, and him doing something that makes him relatively happy is important for everyone's lives, so keep encouraging the good and not saying anything about the bad! Good luck!

I am a recruiter and I feel like I should have advice for you since I have been in this same situation, but honestly I do not. Part of me wants to say to stay out of it with your husband because it can backfire easily... another part of me wants to say maybe he's not doing his own part, maybe he is a little lost. Another part of me wants to say that sometimes when you go to school the purpose is to allow you to figure out what you want to do, and having a maskters degree can improve the jobs he is qualified to apply for. But another part of me says you are right, he needs to be focused and know what he wants without wandering around aimlessly.
I don't know. Are you making enough money to support the two of you? Is that helping to enable him? Not that it matters either. This is a tough situation and I wish you good luck in dealing with it. The one thing I can say for sure is that it's usually not beneficial to take control of the situation. Let him control it - but give him avenues to do that. Here's an example: "Sure honey, you can do whatever you want, I support you going to school. I don't however, support taking out loans to go to school, so maybe you can find an employer with a tuition plan who will pay for it." Or, maybe you can find work that pays you enough to offset the extra cost of school....
Good luck, I know I wasn't that helpful!! (BUt I empathize with you)

I suggest that you explore Non-violent Communication. You can learn about it on the Internet and they have at least one book. I wish the name was different. It is not really about violence. It's about how to say things so that the other person can be more open to hearing what you've said. Using the skills that they show you, helps to prevents negative responses.

I understand how you might feel. At the same time, try not to take the situation personally. A man's job/career is a large part of who he is and I understand how some men would not want to have their wife as involved in finding them a career as you seem to be. Yes, this is your area of expertise but I suggest that a neutral person would work better. A typical wife would give him suggestions yes, but not be so involved, ultimately.

And let's face it, you can't have an objective opinion. How you think is colored by who you are and your expectations as his wife as well as being an expert. I suggest that getting objective ideas about various jobs and opinions from others is a good step to take. Ultimately, if you don't push him at this point and allow him to be "master of his destiny" he will discuss his ideas with you. I think that his inviting his friends to your house shows that he does want to involve you. He's just having difficulty keeping who he is separate from who you are.

If he's not including you in the dinner, perhaps you could arrange for babysitting and be included? Then, just be a listener during dinner. Only offer information or suggestions if you're asked for them. Perhaps this is why you and your husband aren't on the same "wave length." I'm a fixer by nature and found that when I am more of a listener and less of an advisor that I have more influence in the long run. As a listener, you can ask leading questions that helps the other come to conclusions on their own. They feel like they thought of it, mostly.

That has become my goal in my relationship with my daughter. When I gave unsolicited advice we didn't have much actual communication. Eventually she might decide to do what I'd suggested but it took longer than letting her think of the idea for herself. And......she resented my advice. A daughter wants to be independent. So does a husband, wife, nearly everybody. Dependent but also intimate. It's a difficult boundary to navigate.

I suggest, based on your statement about "it's not going to be a waste of money or time" might indicate that he feels that you have to give your approval and he wants to make this his decision with input from you but not with you having the final say.

I'm familiar with Myers Briggs but it does sound a bit like overkill in his case since he's done other research. Does he believe he knows in what areas his interests lay? Sounds like he needs more positive feedback and approval and less referrals and steps to take.

As hard as it is to hear that he can't talk with you about "these things," it's a good sign that he can tell you that. Being able to say how one feels is the basis of a good relationship. Yes, it hurts. It is also helping you by letting you know that both of you need to make a change. Try to accept what he said more as a statement that will help both of you instead of a personal criticism of you. The statement is about both of you. It's not your fault that he can't talk with you. The cause is a combination of both you and the way that both of you are interacting. Now that he's made that statement, both of you are able to do this differently.

Couples counseling might help both of you learn how to express your feelings with each other and talk in a manner that feels supportive for both you.

I've learned not to give my husband too much advice, otherwise he takes it the wrong way. And then the times that he does listen, he never really hears what I'm saying anyway. You truely sound like a selfless supporter and if I were married to you, I would appreciate and take your advice. I wish my spouse were as supportive as you are. But, I suppose that's the difference b/w men and women. The women appreciate all the banter and support, the men, well, they just don't. That said, my husband did something similar a while back, and we invested over $10K (all at once) for a particular career program. I was against it b/c I could see that it was not a very well thought out thing to do. But he was adamant so I figured I ought to be supportive. Well...it ended up not working out, and we now have this school debt for something he didn't even finish. It's a fine line. Good luck.

Even though you are in the recruiting field I would advise against helping him get the job. Hook him up with an outside party to help him advise and pursue his career. I don't mean a friend, be sure it is someone that is seasoned and amazing in assisting people with their career choices and direction.

Good luck to you, it is really hard to get a self-employed person to take the plunge and get a full time position.

I'd like to echo what other people pointed out -- the "Mars/Venus" communication issue. Men tend to misinterpret a woman's attempt to be helpful as a vote of "no confidence" - meaning that by you trying to help him, you're telling him that he can't do this on his own. Unless he flat out asks you for help, trust that he can do this. And if he does ask for help, refer him to another professional, rather than try to help him yourself. A counselor ethically shouldn't treat their own family, as they cannot remain objective.

Easy. Stop trying to fix this for him and instead, back off except to let him know that you believe in and will support him in whatever career path he figures out. In his man-brain, you are nagging him, mothering him, telling him that you think he is too stupid and incompetent to figure this out for himself. Every time you suggest options and ideas for him, the crazy man-brain sees what you are saying/doing like this.
I know because my husband has a crazy man-brain and I couldn't figure out for the life of me for years why he was always so annoyed and stand-offish with me, or would blow up at me. Women like to talk things out and suggest things to each other and blah blah blah. Men don't like or need that. They actually need you to act like you believe that they are so awesome and so smart and so capable that of course they can do everything without you. It's annoying but it is true.

I went through this with my husband when he was laid off. I did his resumes, set up social networking sites, contacted people for him under his name... but he was just depressed and tired and no matter how much I pushed, he had to get the nerve to do it himself, which he did.

He went to the lds employment center and took some sessions there that really helped him out a lot with interviewing, power statements, dosiers, taking the personality test I believe as well as one on one counseling and it was all free and open to people who are not members of the church as well.

Perhaps your husband feels like he is in your shadow and that depresses him, or he just feels lost. or that you are pressuring him. Whatever it may be, perhaps school would be a good choice for him, and if it gets him to start showing initiative, even if he doesn't end up going, but getting excited to get into a career again, then that's great.

Google Non-Violent Communication (also sometimes called Compassionate Communication) for descriptions and examples of the basic steps, sources of books and classes. This is a wonderful tool that both my husband and I have studied, and use in various challenging situations and relationships. We also apply it in our own disagreements because it works so well. It would even help if only one of us used the techniques.

Good luck to you – sounds like you're in a pretty uncomfortable spot.

Maybe he's having dinner with a friend to discuss these things because you just push him towards being sucessful instead of offering a listening ear and validation of how he is feeling.
We all need someone who can just listen to us and say "I can see why you are feeling that way. It's hard when you feel X, It's tough when you feel Y...." And it's sometimes hard to do that when your own future is tied up in how your DH is feeling.
You said it yourself - whatever he chooses will affect our finances, marriage, and household. So he can't freely express or explore options with you -- because you'll have a ready plan available for whatever option he (or you) decide on. I know this is hard, but you need to give him room to express his desires and then let him come up with a plan himself. You've been pushing him to do X, Y, and Z for so long that he may feel like sharing any new desires wil just result in more pushing from you. Sometimes we don't want to be pushed, we want to jump in under our own power.
Good luck to you!