No matter what happens, I've decided if he won't quit we are through.
The reason I am so firm about this is a talk I had with him yesterday.
Before, I think I was still of the mind that I was willing whatever I
felt it took to keep us together and only ask him to leave as a last
resort. I really believe you when you say the deadline will not be
enough. So I'm upping the stakes.
I just wanted to see what he would do if I objected to even one thing
that the company preaches as gospel. I waited until he inevitably
brought up the company. Since there is not a day or hour that goes by
that this does not happen so I didn't have to wait long. I brought up
the subject of the convention and he waxed on about how wonderful the
convention was.
"You know what," I told him, "There's one thing I didn't like about
something you told me. You know that phrase about 'Your family and
friends would rather see you working a job than being successful in
your own business?' Does that mean me? Because I don't feel that's true."
He quickly got angry. Mind you I was just asking him a simple question
but he got defensive so quickly it was like I was talking to someone
else just that fast. He assured me that they aren't talking about his
immediate family. The company isn't out to come between husbands and
wives. They're about building families, not breaking them up.
Even so, he is absolutely certain that there are people, even some of
his OTHER family and friends, who don't want him to succeed. What
about people who ask him things like, "Still in that Primerica thing?"
or "Made a million yet?" People think those kinds of jokes are funny,
he went on, but then they complain to him about how they're in $10,000
worth of credit card debt. He could help them (uh, yeah right) if they
would just listen to them and join the business to help with their
"shortfall".
He talked about being rich. I asked him why he was so set on being
rich. I wasn't argumentative, I just asked and he took it like I meant
it. I talked about the beginning of our relationship, when we had
first got together. I took him back to when we first talked about life
goals and that I had told him, "It doesn't take much to make me
happy." We laughed about that, the first laugh we've had together in a
long time. He said that it's always been true. No matter how much or
little we've had, I've always made do.
We talked about things that happened before we met and rehashed old
family history. He told me somethings he's said before but somehow I
never put it together with this MLM obsession. When he was a child his
dad left his mom for a while. His mother did ok until she got laid off
her job. And when she asked his dad to help out, his dad refused and
hung up on her. He saw his mom crying and knew he would have to wear
the same Buster Brown shoes that kept getting him picked on at school.
It was a year before he got new shoes. He and his mom ate brown rice
and gravy for months just to stay alive.
It left him with a distinct distaste for poverty.
I was feeling all sentimental and sorry for him when he dropped the
real bombshell.
"I've always wanted to have my own business. Even back when I was
doing Amway..."
"Amway?" I struggled to keep the panic out of my voice and to sit
there calmly. "You did Amway? You never told me that."
And he went on to explain how Amway was his first MLM several years
before he met me. It hadn't worked out the way he planned but when he
heard about Primerica he knew it was a better opportunity. The one
he'd been looking for.
For a moment, I was frozen in blind panic. I don't think I know this
man. I can't have. Despite the fact that I've known him for 11 years
and lived with him for 9, he never mentioned Amway to me at all until
yesterday.
So now I know. And I can't ignore what I know. I can't ignore it and
it's not going away.
If he decides to quit we will have to get counseling. If he won't
agree to quitting and counseling - not either/or but both - then he
will have to leave.
Now that I've made that decision, I'm just trying to find the best way
to let him know.
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