My boyfriend is a talented, ambitious man and he left his job to pursue an opportunity and failed miserably. He is being humiliated, has a lot of guilt. But at the same time, he has friends, family and me as support system. He is unsure about his next step but he is in a very dark space. Please tell me how do I help him?
24 comments
**Please do not delete your submission.**
Your submission has been flagged for moderator review. Please be patient. If you do not see your post published within 48 hours the moderators have decided to not publish it.
If/when your thread is approved and it runs its course, instead of deleting it, **you can simply type “!lock” (without the quotes) as a comment anywhere in your thread to have our Automod lock the thread**. That way you won’t be bothered by anymore replies on it, but people can still read it.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskMenOver30) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Reiterate that you’re there for him no matter what and you still believe in him to accomplish what he sets out to accomplish.
Failures happen, most people who try great things have setbacks, he is no different.
He needs his father to inspire him to continue the struggle
If he gonna fall apart anytime there is adversity in life, he gonna have a rough go of it.
One thing that clicked for me is when my wife said something along the lines of “I don’t love and support the version of you that succeeds, I support *you*” and making me understand that her believing that I can do the thing I set out to do doesn’t mean she’d feel or think less of me if I failed at it, it took ages or I decided to refocus.
Honestly though I don’t think it’s about logic and specific words, just the feeling that my value for her was not tied to arbitrary success or failure.
Also tell him some internet stranger thinks he got giant balls for taking the risk and betting on himself!
Well first you have to try and understand why he feels shame and guilt. Men are generally valued for what they produce, or at least, that’s how a lot of us have been brought up to feel. With this endeavour falling through, his mind is thinking about how much of a failure he is, how he failed his family, how he failed you. If you think about it, you’ll realise what his biggest fear is right now: that you, anyone who he feels depended on him, and anyone who valued him, will leave him, because he no longer is producing “value”. He doesn’t feel like he has time or space to get back on his feet, because he believes taking any amount of time is unacceptable and is akin to him sitting on his ass and doing nothing. But at the same time, this anxiety leads to paralysis, further exacerbating the problem.
People will say “support him”, but I say REASSURE him. Let him know he did not fail, despite you already using that word in your post, because he didn’t. He tried something and it didn’t work out. Any number of factors could’ve led to this. Heck, I’d venture a lot of what led to this was outside of his control. Reassure him that you are proud of him for even trying (assuming you are). Reassure him that you do not see him as lesser because of this. Reassure him that you still admire him as a person (assuming you do).
Watch Shakira’s “Try everything with him”.
Then remind him that he took a risk. That inherently means that there is a chance to succeed and a chance to fail. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been called a risk and there would have been no upside potential.
Then remind him that 28 is exactly the time when you take risks. No kids yet and a lot of time to bounce back. Heck, most people don’t even start their career before 30.
Lastly ask him who he wants to be. The person who is brave enough to take risks and eventually succeed or the person who rejects all opportunities for fear of failure.
P.S. after he recovers it is a good idea to maybe go to therapy to unwrap why he has such strict expectations for himself.
He can farm that experience for every “where I started, failed, and started again” story for the rest of his life. It’s like a battle scar
A career is what you spend your working life doing. He’s 28, he hasn’t failed in his career. It sounds like he pursued some kind of business opportunity that failed. Almost literally everyone who has launched successful businesses has also failed. Failing is part of the process of learning.
Validate his feelings of…. frustration? Anger? Grief? I don’t know the particulars, but you are the person who he should be most able to share those kinda vulnerable feelings with. And you can ask him what he thinks is next, maybe even guide him towards thinking about it in that context – ah man, that’s a bummer that your partner didn’t come through, maybe to separate ways for the next thing. Or whatever it is, I don’t know the nature of the failure.
But everyone fails – they either fail when trying to accomplish something or they fail to ever try to accomplish something.
Wake up hand jobs to clear his mind
Sometimes you risk big to win big and it doesn’t work out. It’s totally fine and not a big deal. Ppl restart their careers all the time, I wouldn’t put too much stock in opinions and criticism unless I felt it had merit and something I should address. Otherwise everyone will have an opinion one way or another and all that.
Change the focus from his professional path to his personal life. Help him get professional help first, to find a therapist who’s good for him, and leave work issues for a later stage.
He is following in the same steps as many successful men/people in this world.
Love him for his ambition in finding/trying different ways to support his family.
Confirm that you are both part of the same team, and look towards the horizon for your next adventure.
Just keep being a good partner. He’ll figure it out. It’s just a grieving period.
“I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Is an Edison quote.
What he needs to know right now is that his support structure has him. Often times men take it on themselves to be the success for their unit but that obviously leaves to feelings of total worthlessness when that goal isn’t achieved. Allow him a soft landing as best you can, take him out and treat him once to show him that you’re not with him for what he failed at, and just let him know that even if one way didn’t work that he is still valued and he still can succeed.
Most wealth owners don’t knock it out of the park with their first company or foray into the business world. Help to motivate him to whatever the next North Star he will follow is. If he is in the logical mood, level with him about his options in the most realistic but encouraging way. It’s not about his failure at this point, that attempt is dead, but the next one isn’t. Don’t let him wallow in it, nothing good ever came out of stewing on failure for too long.
That sucks and thank you for caring for your partner.
Look at my username. I’ve done a lot.
I’ve succeeded, failed, and succeeded again (and then failed again) by age 30.
You learn and grow from your mistakes and failures.
Count your blessings. Therapy too. Seriously that helped me in my darkest places.
Life’s challenges are the reason to live.
A man who never made a mistake never made anything. He tried something, it hasn’t panned out – it happens. One possible move is to try to get his old job back – this means swallowing pride but may offer some stability, at a time when he feels deflated.
Just let him know you are there for him and ask him if there is anything specific you can do to help. Personally, when I have had failures in one area of my life, I have always found that success in another area really helps. If you can help him feel that he is winning in his relationship with you, it will help him feel more positive.
Another thing that has helped me was remembering a guy I saw when on holiday in Kenya. We were in a minibus and passed a guy carrying a bundle of sticks. He was wearing only a loincloth – no shirt, no shoes. The temperature was >40 degrees centigrade/104 Fahrenheit and he was presumably walking to the town 20 miles back, to sell the bundle of sticks. On my worst day, I would always have better opportunities than that guy. So, whenever I feel sorry for myself, I remember that guy in Kenya.
At 28 you feel so grown up. You’re not. You’re in the adolescence of your adulthood. This is the age to fail in your career.
Failing doesn’t make a person a failure. Realizing that you are failing, that you have failed, is a moment of success, learning, and growth.
In fact, the most successful people I know learned early how to fail gracefully and pull wisdom from the experience. They become adept at recognizing when things fall apart, how to identify it sooner, and, eventually, how to preempt failure all together. What sets them apart from their less successful peers is that they keep willingly putting themselves into a position where they might fail. One of those most important learnings is that life goes on, the struggle continues, and there’s always a next time.
If your reach never exceeds your grasp you become a passenger to your own life.
I’ve failed FAR more in my life than I’ve succeeded and I’m more successful because of it. Some of my hardest swinging misses set the stage for my biggest hits. By taking a risk and failing miserably, your boyfriend has succeeded where so many readily and willingly fail. He now knows his limits. It’s up to him to understand that the self is impermanent.
Shame can be a healthy emotion that motivates self-correction. Feeling no shame makes a person a psychopath. Refusing to act on shame makes a person a narcissist. Responding to shame with self compassion and awareness is metal as fuck.
I am in a similar boat myself. I abandoned my management career in retail to go to operations in ABA Therapy centers on a whim. The center then shut down 9 months in and I havent had a job in 3 months because ive been ghosted after great interviews or the rejections are insane. Not like it was a couple of years ago. BUT…
My wife has helped keep me sane. She helps me see whats the truth from what is just made up negativity in my head. She helped me do up my resume a little better, even sent me links to jobs. She is understanding and she helps me when im down, whether thats a meal or encouragement. You have to remind him to take care of himself too, if he isnt. Separating time from finding a job to finding time to leave it alone and go to activities.
How did he fail?
I had my first failed business a few years back.
My friends high-fived me — one step closer to success.
My current business is going great.
The measure of a man is what he does when he’s been knocked down. Does he stay down in failure or stand back up and fight? Tell him the failure doesn’t matter. Everyone successful failed along the way. But, they never let that failure bother them. They just kept fighting. Tell him to fight.
Get away from people who cannot sustain a job. Stop thinking of trying to fix him.
I crashed and burned in my late 20’s starting my own (now failed) business — wife was there to lift me up, dust me off, support me where I needed it (financially and encouraging m pep talks), and I continued my path of my career. Each time I’ve fallen – she’s been there.
That’s what you need to be. Don’t talk down to it, talk to him, and listen and be understanding. Shit is still hard for men.
What did he do? I’m sure there are plenty of positives to what he’s done in his career so far. Small companies fail all the time, that’s the reality.
I think you can definitely spin it positively. Or atleast we can try to help.