Husband obsessed with being social media influenced

[Samantha23765]

What do I do?

I am the main breadwinner. I have a 8 week old baby and worked my arse of last year so that I could take 9 months off with baby and not rush back (like I did with our first child). Plan was hubby would be able to pick up much more work whilst I looked after both children so that I can have this extended time off work.

However, he has not made any effort to find more work (he is a personal trainer and has about 5 hours work A WEEK!) Instead he is obsessed with becoming a social influencer. This involves looking at videos and pictures and buying video equipment and talking about it all the time. He has barely posted anything yet.

I am soooo disappointed, hurt, frustrated. I don't know what to do or say. I'm just fed up with him being in the house all the time looking at Tiktok and YouTube. I just want him to go to work and provide for us. He is upset with me for not sharing his enthusiasm and supporting him. I don't know what to do. I haven't said much to him because I want him to be happy, and I don't want to rock the boat (our relationship isn't great at the moment).

Any advise would be greatly received.

Tell him the best indeed only way to for him to become an influencer is to have some actual clients and with their permission, document their progress.

Otherwise he's just a sad bloke with some gym kit. And about as likely to influence someone as my sofa.

So you have a joint account, you earn 90% of the money and he is happy to spend it. While taking advantage of the fact that you don't really look at the account so have been unaware of just how little of the money that he is actually contributing to the account?

He is a scrounger. He is happy to live off you while he plays around on social media like a teenager. Get rid. You are practically supporting you and your kids single handedly anyway so I'm sure you would manage on your own. Good luck.

I don't think you should necessarily put him off, but talk to him about how this needs to be a hobby and come secondary to ensuring that enough money is coming in from a stable job. If it takes off in the future, then that's great, but right now, it can't be the priority in the current circumstances. He will probably be more willing to listen if you are not dismissing his ideas.

He may be feeling he is 'losing himself' (as women often do) after having children. He may also see this as something that will make him feel good. Nothing wrong with that. But he needs to look at this as a long-term, gradual plan.

It takes years to build up a YouTube site that brings in decent money anyway - years to build a following and convince advertisers you are worth supporting.

The problem is if he wanted to influence someone then you get out and meet people, write to companies, actually do something.

Watching YouTube and TicToc all day isn’t influencing anyone.

This reminds me of a couple we once knew who decided to open a business.

They rented the office space, they kitted it out with desks and computers, they bought themselves a brand new car each then sat behind their desks waiting for the phone to ring.

If his efforts aren’t working he needs to get a job
It’s that simple for me

Sounds like a PT I know. Fancies himself as a local celebrity so films absolutely everything he and his family do but the camera is usually pointing at his gurning 'I'm mad, me!' face. Photos of his dinner, walks round the shops, sitting down for a coffee. His poor wife hates it and the times she's caught on film or camera, it's ducking out of shot with her hand over her face.

People have come to realise that the vast majority of influencers don't recommend products because they're good but because someone has paid them to do so

Come to realise?? Clearly I don't pay the attention I should, but surely no-one over 17 ever thought otherwise??

Though I guess sometimes it's not that they're "paid" as such, more given things for free - like the spotty teenager (lord knows who he was) I once saw burbling about the joys of the suites on an Emirates aircraft

If he’s watching, he’s procrastinating. It’s so easy to start thinking that social media is the job but it isn’t. If he had clients he could do behind the scenes stuff - to get more clients not influence. Some of these areas are now saturated. There’s just no way to break in unless you have a really unique USP and the money behind you to start it.

Add on the fact he should be batch creating the content and then scheduling etc, time on social should be limited to about 30 minutes a day. Right now, he’s on stand by (rather than on or off), distracting himself from the reality of the situation.

And I say all this as the wife of a DH who is a micro influencer but it’s done as a nice perk of his hobby rather than a goal to have it as the day job.

All social media channels are never owned by you and could be taken away at any moment. He needs his own website, he needs to be taking himself to local gyms to see if they need PTs. Maybe hire a hall and start weekly sessions of something like circuit training. Anything. But Instagram is not the answer - it’s a tool to use alongside the actual work.

He needs to get a job. Really any job. Show he can be dedicated to supporting his children.

Pp have said it all re your dh.

You need to sit down and have a very
frank conversation with him, he gets a job end of, stop trying to placate him, Rick the boat if you have to! Tesco or McDonald's are hiring, this will fit in and around him to continuing to take your eldest dc to school etc. Plus I'd be getting the wages and savings put into a personal account and you take over looking after them and understanding your bills. I strongly suspect he's been using the vast majority of the family money on his hairbrained schemes

Tell him to read these comments.
You can do the following -
Transfer all money into your own account.
Tell him to train as plumber or electrician asap.
Ask him to move out.

Please please don't make excuses for him OP. He's still not doing any work. As a single mum I did all of the things he does plus a full time job and me and DS were happy.

To be fair he does help in the house a lot. He does most of the washing and takes our daughter to nursery every morning and gets her ready. He also does DIY projects in the house.
That's basic adulting. Nobody should be giving gold stars to men for spending time with their children and putting some mugs away.

I think he has been feeling quite down about himself over the past couple of years. Which is why I try not to challenge him when he comes up with ideas
This is a huge red flag for me and makes me think of a friend and her husband. He always has a reason why he can't do a normal job and always has some new scheme up his sleeve from gaming, social media, a new business, a franchise he's interested in that he knows nothing about, you name it he's probably considered it if he think he can get paid for doing very little. Then it turns out he has to work for it and then he's suddenly down and depressed. 🙄 So my friend does more around the house because "he's so tired", and picks up her hours so they've got money for bills, and her parents and sister have their DC because she works and he's apparently struggling with the business.

He's a work shy dick, but many of us warned her before they got married, and then they had children and there's nothing good coming from pointing out what a waste of space he is. All we can do is hope she sees the light and when she does we're here for her.

Laundry, childcare and DIY are valuable contributions, in fairness.

The vapid social media dreams would bother me a lot more than his merely being a low-earner.

You put a roof over his head and give him free access to your hard earned cash, like a teenager he has no reason to earn.

He gets to swan about boost his ego telling everyone he is a personal trainer. Bet no one knows he earns nothing from this and is a freeloader. Start telling your family and his friends he only works 5 hours at £30/hr each week and you have to return to work sooner than you would have liked because of the lack of support. He needs to feel the consequences, don't hide it for it.

Don't give him access to your money. Actually forget that, I couldn't live with a scrounger, give him an ultimatum, start actively looking for ANY employment now or piss off.

I think he has been feeling quite down about himself over the past couple of years.

The way to stop that is to get a job. Most PT get work through recommendations, if 11 years on he only has 5 clients it isn't and wont ever work out for him, he needs to get a job to pay the bills until he comes up with something else he would like to do that actually makes money.

Laundry, childcare and DIY are valuable contributions, in fairness
They're a basic part of being a parent and a functioning adult. The fact that some people (mainly some men) think it's worthy of a gold star for helping is embarrassing.

This is all pie in the sky. Tell him to get off his lazy arse and get a proper job while he builds up his 'business'. My DH worked for ten years doing two jobs, he worked evenings and weekends on his business and then did a boring full-time job during the day as well. It was tough but getting somewhere always is, you have to work at it.

Are you saying that you used to do all the work but he monitored all your money and moaned if you spent any of it. You need to put a stop to this immediately. If he doesn't work he doesn't have access to your money and he certainly doesn't comment on what you spend it on!

Has the lazy fuck ever had a proper job?

Is your eldest child in paid for nursery whist he is only working 5 hours a week?

He must've been laughing his tits off waving you off to work every morning knowing he would be wasting time on a fucking daydream over supporting his family.

You and your child deserve so much more. He could work and do social media. It is unlikely he will become successful on SM, it's not easy. He doesn't want to work.

The bottom line is that he is a failure - that is hard to accept.
He needs to draw up a business plan - anyone can produce something basic -
Income - 3 clients, once a week When will this increase and how will he do this - write it down in detail.
Outgoings - and how these will be covered whilst he builds clientele.
Etc
By the time he has written this down he should have clicked that he is in fantasy land.
Same with being an influencer -
eg how many clients does he need to attract adverts to his website (2,000/ 10,000/ 20,000) and how is he going to get them and at what rate eg 6 a day....
Writing it down should make him realise he is not going to do this (even if he spends several years in his spare time and even then it's unlikely).
He needs a job and then does the influencing and personal training at weekends or evenings.

Waster

Why doesn't he just get a job at a David Lloyd or equivalent as a PT?

OP, he is using you. Apart from everything, you use the word you says that he helps in the house, when you work a fulltime job and he potters around with hobbies. Everyone has a responsability to clean, cook and mind their children. When you are the one who is doing most of the work outside the house, he should actually be doing most of the work inside the house, not just helping.

Also, when I started my business I did it in my spare time when I wasn't working at my day job and only gave up my day job when my business took off. That is what people who really want to earn money do.

Honestly, you would be a lot better off without him, he sounds infinitely selfish and abusive. Don't go to couple counselling, because that definitely does not work where there is abuse.