As I said in my last post my side of the business is doing the best it has in a long time. However, my husband is still floundering and therefore our finances are not getting better despite my improvements. The improvements are not enough.

I have to stop and tell Robin who commented thank you – it is great to know that even one person is out there rooting for us!

My husband is searching for a job and is eminently qualified. But he just isn’t seeing any results. One interview out of over 200+ applications is not inspiring confidence. As a result our frig is bare, we are working down the cupboards focusing on ensuring the kids get fed.

We are going to seek out some support on that front soon. Pride keeps us from doing that but I think those days are over. We keep looking around at selling things and also despite our efforts, we can’t even get that to work. We tried recently to sell children’s clothes on eBay and ended up spending more on listing then we got in revenue. Not a good equation. So no more of that.

I do have trouble with my mother and her understanding of our situation. I love her to death and we have always been close, but she simply isn’t getting our issues. She babysits 2 days a week and used to babysit 3 days. Now my husband takes the kids 3 days and as a result cannot be nearly as productive in finding work either for his business or his employement pursuits.

I know she is not obligated to help – but we do pay her for the two days she does babysit. We’ve never gotten her services for free. Even when she lived with us for a year (with my Dad of course) building a home she still got paid for babysitting.

Anyway – even begging her to help us just for the short term to take on just one more day – like she used to – she refuses. No reason – just not doing it. I know I can’t force her hand, but I guess I keep thinking if this was my child who is doing all she/he can to help himself and fell on hard times due to nothing in his/her control – I would definitely step up.

I hate being reliant on others in any way. I have always be self-sufficient, practical, I’ve never left a job without having another tee-d up. But this time I’m scared – really scared.

For the first time we rely solely on my generating business. No steady paycheck and in fact no one is stepping up to help us. Friend, family, not one. Not that I want to rely on that – but I know if I were in their shoes, and I have been, I would do all I could. But then again I can’t MAKE people help me. They either will or won’t. And I have accept the generosity when it appears, and move on when I doesn’t – even if it is my own Mother.

I hope this week something positive happens for my husband. He never cries – he cried tonight. I can’t keep his chin up anymore. I can’t keep my own up. If we lose our home and uproot the children I won’t forgive myself.

I left my last job not because I had enough – but because someone I trusted stabbed me so far in the back it came out the front and ripped my untainted career in two. I couldn’t take it – anyone calling into question my personal integrity and forced my husband to accept me quitting and running the business I now run. I wouldn’t forgive myself if this move ends up tearing my family appart. I don’t think I could forgive that person who forced me out of a job that made our lives comfortable. That betrayal is why we are where we are ultimately – it is the root cause – but in the end I had made the decision to run from that situations rather than face it head on. Medically I had too – the stress was literally killing me – but looking back I wonder if it was right.

Since then my husband has realized his business probably never did that well and he relied on this income too much. So we keep learining more and more about ourselves. And I continue to hope we will survive – both financially and emotionally. We both keep questioning our past decisions – did we make the right choices? I guess only time will tell.