Background: I'm a graduate student, just wrapping up my PhD, living in LA. My fiancée and I have been dating for two years, and engaged for three months. She works in corporate strategy at a big company. Neither of us make a lot of money, we live in a tiny 1 BR/BA.
Recently, one of our friends [27F] started selling jewelry and other little handmade trinkets via an online store (Etsy). It's going well, she's selling about one thing a day and making a bit of money on the side.
I'm pretty sure my fiancée got envious. She's artsy at heart, and often looked for a side-gig. After our friend started selling crafts, my fiancée tried her hand at a number of things -- jewelry, pottery, etc. until she settled on paper flowers.
My fiancée has made thousands of paper flowers over the past two months.
She's been trying to sell them online, and has gotten some success -- selling a few dollars' worth every day. That wasn't enough though, so she's also been selling them at markets, fairs, and plainly on the streets after work.
However, the paper flowers don't make much money. Though we're not "well off" by any means, she still makes more money at her day job.
But I've caught her skipping her day job to sell flowers! In the last two weeks, she's actually been taking sick days and "working from home" in the mornings, telling her boss she's on calls or stuck in traffic when she's actually spending the first three hours of the day going door-to-door hawking paper flowers.
And don't get me wrong. They're nice flowers. She's doing a great job at making them, and her drive is impressive. But I feel as if it's an obsession that's taking over her life, when she should be prioritizing her real work, and frankly, our relationship. We've been less intimate and have had less time for dates and other fun things because she's always working on the paper flowers. The closest we get these days is when I help her bring flower packages to the post office, or when I'm helping her take photos of the flowers. Stuff like that. I feel like I've become an accessory to her side business (which, I repeat, doesn't actually make much money at all).
It's had impacts in other ways as well. Hanging out with our friends is a struggle now, because my fiancée doesn't want to talk about anything but the flowers. She's always carrying some in her purse, showing them off, and if a friend shows only a little bit of interest, my fiancée will try to sell them some. It's awkward.
I have no idea what to do. I'm considering taking a break and moving back in with my parents (also in LA) for a few weeks while hoping for her to stabilize. But that seems extreme. What should I do?
TL;DR; : Fiancée is obsessed with her arts-and-crafts side business, which doesn't make a lot of money, but it's totally taking over her life, hurting her other priorities and our relationship. What should I do?
Submitted February 24, 2019 at 01:07PM by martin_shillkri https://ift.tt/2IzWagv
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