So my husband and I were chatting via Bluetooth on the way home and he started talking about this idea of his with 3D printing. I’ve heard it before, make random comments in return. Then he starts talking about setting it up as a business. Alarm bells start ringing in my head. I start playing devil’s advocate, talking about all the down sides of starting your own business, holes in his idea, anything to persuade him that’s not a good idea. He persists, talking through it, how it would work, etc. I ask him why, I don’t want you to, you’d have to spend your whole life working on it, I don’t understand why you’d want that. He’s still talking, but he doesn’t understand why I’m panicking about an idle idea he’s wondering about. And neither do I, until one of us mentions my Dad.

My Dad left a job at a well established, successful company to start his own business during my freshman year of high school. I spent my high school years constantly anxious about money and grades. I focused on getting good grades and worried over bad ones worse because I was going to have to get scholarships and pay my own way through college now, especially with two other kids in the family. We saw less of Dad than before.

I hadn’t realized how much I blamed my constant anxious high school years on Dad’s new business and just the thought of my husband starting one was enough to put me in panic mode. I’m hiding under my weighted blanket crying. He asked how he could help me through it, but I just want to become a turtle. I told him if he went and started a new business I’d divorce him, because I’m not going through that again. He said he wouldn’t go start a business behind my back, but what if he could convince me it was a good idea? Divorce. I’d never see his busy entrepreneur ass anyway, so I’d rather get it over with and move on.