In the previous post, I described how I wanted to work for myself instead of others. The idea of writing and distributing software using a marketing method named shareware, combined with a development tool named Borland Delphi, gave me the hope of doing so.
What I didn't describe was my married life over those first few years. I mention it here because my wife was an influencing force in this quest. If you are married, your spouse will be the same.
The encounter with the shareware idea was 1 or 2 years before marriage. That period was a little dry because the idea was there but I had no effective means or worthwhile products to carry it forward.
Along came Jerilyn, my wife. There's a lot to talk about in this area, but I'm going to focus on what matters in regard to this topic. The thing that matters is that she believed in me and in the dream we came up with for our life together.
The money I made and the work I put my time into have always been a big part of the marriage. I'm not saying that if I didn't make a lot of money, she'd ditch me. I am saying that when we were considering marriage, we spent an evening going over what we considered to be important and unimportant ways to spend money. We spent time talking about her being a full time mother instead of career-oriented. Of course, we talked about my working for myself so that we could do lots of interesting things together, as a family, on our own schedule (naive, yes, but there's a lot to be said for that stage of life where your ideals haven't met reality).
All that to say, when the time came to write my first product, we were in agreement on finances and work. She believed in what I wanted to do and she had a stake in it. That freed me to do it.
If you're married and considering a similar venture, even if it's not in the area of computer software, is your wife going to support you? One of the most difficult things to do is fight a two-front war. There's the war of creating a product and holding on while you fight to make sales. You don't need the additional front of getting your spouse to believe in you.
Financial issues alone make you want to quit. Having a spouse that thinks what you're doing is nonsense, or isn't even real work, is draining. I have a friend who can speak to this topic better than I. Hopefully he'll do that one of these days.
Jerilyn's support was invaluable to me. But there was a cost for her. The computer had my time as much or more than she did. Early in our marriage, there were evenings spent in the basement den, she working on a project while I typed at the computer. Fortunately, she was content for us to be in the same place together, even though our attention was directed to our own projects.
As each of our children came along, she'd be sure that I had time uninterrupted to work. And she went along with having less than she'd like while I spent money on computers and software. We always had a decent home and plenty of food, but she had to make due with limited funds for herself. And probably the most difficult price she's paid has been her setting aside one of her own dreams, so that I could pursue mine.
But I would say we've had it easy compared to some people. There are plenty of relatives and friends in more difficult situations. All I know is that what I've done in the past years would have been more difficult, maybe even impossible to do, if Jerilyn hadn't been Jerilyn.