So I presented my new pursuit to the wife this weekend and just as I feared, it was a spectacular disaster. Let me preface this by noting that my wife and I usually see eye-to-eye and get along really well...about most things. She just happens to be EXTREMELY conservative about the concepts of money. We both have good, fairly successful work-lives. She's just a hard core traditionalist (school-work-save-die) and I knew going in that presenting to her a new way would in all likelihood fail miserably.
I tried to cite all of the difficulties that people in our lives, people very close to us are currently facing and attempted to pursuade her that financial independence through the slow building of wealth through real estate may be a way for us to avoid a lot of those issues. She would have NONE of it.
When I said that wholesaleing wasn't a late night infomercial gimmic, she said "I know a bunch of people who tried that and failed".
When I said that I would work hard to find good deals to build assets and cash flow, she said "I don't want to risk sinking a bunch of money into any fix-er-uppers and get stuck with them."
When I cited that both our parents had health issues and will continue to have trouble making ends meet and never retire, she said "they're fine because they have Social Security and Medicare."
When I told her that I wanted to do it so that I could go to all of our daughter's sporting events, or recitals, or whatever she'll be into as an adolescent, she said "but I don't want you to risk losing any time with her NOW or THEN."
When I asked her, "what if through REI we could finally be financially free with a little hard work now and it will get easier in the future?", she asked me "Why can't you just be satisfied? Financial independence is just a pipe dream. Why can't you just be like everyone else?"
I am heartbroken. I still want to pursue real estate, but it feels like it's just going to be so much harder to be successful without her on my team. And with that much fervent resistance, is it worth risking my family even though I know in my heart and mind it's the right thing to do to secure my family's financial future?...