Dh was going nowhere until I met him

[ballbaby]

Just saw the article "Gordon Brown says we need a fathers' revolution" and wonder why so many men need Gordon Brown but more often wives/mothers to give them a kick up the arse.

My dh was going nowhere at 19 when I met him - in a dead end job with no ambition whatsoever. First I got him interested in reading, then he went back to college and re-did some of his GCSEs, now (many years later) he's a paramedic and hugely ambitious to become a property tycoon!

Have you a similar story?

I think 19 is very young to have that much ambition tbh ... I know that at 19 I was only interested in pubs, clubs and blokes
I met my DH when he was 22. He was working in a pub but had tried lots of different things (had worked in a 5 star restaurant and had managed a photographic shop). He had no idea what he wanted to do, all that mattered was that he could finance his cricket club membership and social life
His mother reckons that I 'turned him around' but I refuse to take credit for that. He was young and not mature enough to have any ambition. He fell into a sales support job at 24 that led to him becoming a rep not long after we got married. He then found his niche and found he was good at what he did. After moving to NZ and becoming a Business manager in the same industry he is now the Regional Manager for his company in Victoria and South Australia (based in Melbourne) and it is only now (at 35) that he as a 'Big Picture' in his mind and knows where he wants to be in 5 years and 10 years time .....
I haven't pushed him. Perhaps the responsibility of having a family to support has spurred him on, I don't know ... what I do know is that his confidence in himself and his ability has come with maturity and support from his EXCELLENT bosses ... with encouragement and trust from me ....

I am very proud of him - can you tell?

DH wasnt even working when we met. He was living at his dads (he was 24btw!) and didnt have 2 pennies to rub together.

I got him off his arse and working, then back into engineering and now he has got his dream job doing website maintainance/developement!

I agree tho, men really do need a good woman to give them a kick up the backside!

I'm not sure that wives/girlfriends make as much difference as they think they do, except in the sense that they remove the men from influences that hold them back (namely other men ). My dh wasn't particularly hard working or ambitious when we started going out and he's a workaholic now which is definitely not my doing as I don't like it much. My brother was also fairly aimless until his mid twenties and is now very successful and hasn't had a serious girlfriend in that time.

Some of them like dh are very late developers but when they get going there's no stopping them.

I think in some way meeting me helped DP to begin hs career. I can remember very early on in our relationship (weeks) we were discussing what he wanted to do and that we would probably need to move to London to do it. Within 18 months he had done it. He was 22(just!) when we met and began his current career when he was 23. I feel not that I encouraged him but that perhaps he wasnt quite brave enough to go it alone.

I actually think that the whole 'good woman' thing is a bit patronising. My partner works hard and has a good job earning reasonable money. Whilst I have supported him in all decisions etc I have never given him a 'kick in the arse'. For me a bloke that needs that much work isn't worth the bother.