And now he thinks I’m an a-hole for questioning his decision. He has a YouTube page with about 600 subscribers (more on Insta), it’s a niche topic that he could honestly probably broaden and monetize if he wanted to and had the time. There’s a lot of friendly exchange of swag and small products in the genre and quick reels and reviews that follow. But recently a company asked him to do a review of their approximately $300 product and they would send it to him free and he could keep it. Okay cool, he’s small time and wants more subs so why not. Turns out they sent him a contract to sign that specified it be a 10 minute video, specifies how it needs to be shot, what needs to be included, he can’t discuss it with other ppl, etc. They’re not paying him anything, he didn’t ask for the product, and he’s agreeing to be contractually obligated to whatever terms are in this contract for a product he didn’t even ask for. Mind you he is a professional videographer and editor by trade, a 10 minute video from his skill set, experience, and location should cost $1000s. I’m not begrudging him for doing it for free, it’s the signing of a contract this really throwing me off. Now he thinks I’m calling him stupid (I didn’t) and is insanely pissed at me for not agreeing with his decision and for wanting him to advocate for himself. I’m in real estate and deal with contracts all day long and he took my aversion to him signing something under these circumstances as an insult on his intelligence. I lost certainly didn’t mean that.
Big side note here is that we’ve recently discussed the possibility of him quitting his day job, which he’s come to hate, and focusing on trying to full time content create. But I’m genuinely worried about his ability to advocate for himself and value his worth and abilities and monetize that in any way. We would still have had this disagreement without that side note, but I’m sure it’s important to note regardless.
Anywho, where do I go from here?
It’s his hobby, stop trying to police his fun. It’s one thing if you feel that he is too stupid to understand the contract, in which case you should intervene to protect him, but your husband is a grown man and fully understands what he’s agreeing to. Just let him make his video.
Your point about him considering quitting his day job is an entirely different matter and should be discussed separately.
You’re absolutely right, I should stop having an opinion on it when it’s his hobby. And apart from this I 98% have kept my opinion to myself. This particular instance kind of bled into the conversations about him quitting and doing this full time and it gave me a lot of concern and pause on how effective he would be at making good business decisions. And from my perspective I take that on as a lot of pressure on myself to be responsible for both of us financially. I can, at least as things are now, but my business is commission based so nothing is guaranteed long term. So it scares me
To be clear, I don’t think he’s dumb in the slightest, I think he’s very smart. I think he is very detail averse and his ADHD can make him miss critical details and also keep him from having important discussions. And I also think he’s so afraid of upsetting other people that he’ll just agree to anything