My Partner is Abusing me - Please help, Mastermind plan is needed

**MCPC** · 04-23-2011 12:21 AM

i'm 29 years old,single, so sorry if my english will be poor and long.

3 years ago i was a college student - first year- Software Engineering BSC Degree. I was looking for work and accidentally meet inside the college a student that just graduated and we strated to talk and he told me about his plans to open a business and after lots of talks and plans we decides to open a business together - a software startup business...he was the programmer and i took care of marketing new projects and sales - I was visiting business,learning their management systems and coming with something better after lots of thinking reaserch and characterizations. I was running all day long from one client to another trying to make deals and designing all the logics and systems, giving my partner exact plans of the needed solutions, and he would sit at home and write the codes\programming sometimes weeks and months for 12 hours a day.

I was investing all my time in that business and after 10 months I was expelled from college due to low grades.
after one year we still earned less than the minimum wage so i had to move back to my parents.
My partner had a girlfriend and asked me if it's fine with me that he will work 2 days a week in other places, and i agreed.

Second year was still bad cause we still made less money than expacted - we made exactly the minimum wage.

last year-third year, we started to work on some huge software project with a huge potential we even hired 2 more programists for 4 months, i have execute a really good marketing and advertisment work and few months afterwards we started to get phones from big clients all over,we even got an article in the local paper, and my partner stoped working in other places and invested all his time in our business...I can now say that we are on the verge of success.

so for sum up:
My partner wrote and has all the source codes of all the systems he wrote for the customers i brought, the business was not profitable for 2 years,during the business my partner worked in other places while i investes 100% of my time and droped from college and has no degree or some kind of education,during the 3 years my partner gained a huge knowledge in programming and in each of the projects i brought,I have a huge knowledge in ERP and managment systems, the business is on the verge of success.

All The problems started few months ago when my partner told me that he wants to marry his girlfriend and while he was with me in our business his friends which graduated with him make a lot of money and already have their own houses, while he is stucked with me and could not afford to buy a car. he told me that if we won't start making money fast he will leave this partnership - and that all when we just started to get all the big orders from those big clients.

...since than he is abusing me -he knows that he has nothing to lose cause he can find a good work place any where - he has a degree and the experience while i have nothing but that business and all our customers that knows me and trust me, so since than every dilemma every decision is made by him, i mean i try to resist all the time and give my opinion and stand on my decisions but each time we get to the same point - he threaten to leave and to close our business and tells me that he has nothing to lose only to gain...

all this time while i was out there at the clients, my partner worked from his home, i mean 10 hours each day he was programming. BUT last month things escalated BAD at first he told me that he has no life that he works all the day and needs to be more hours with his girlfriend and than he started working 5-6 hours a day and not making the clients deadlines...started to blame me for giving the customes false promises wich originally was backed up by him and even humiliated me in front of a client one time...

I don't know what to do! i am boiling inside of me and hiding all the hate and anger inside, sometimes even criminal thoughts comes around. I invested 3 years of my life and i build a real business with more that 200 clients who pay every month, and a business with a great potential.
My only one idea for rescuing myself and winning this situation was to find a business partner who will buy some share of our business may be even 50%, and than my partner will not be able to call all the shots and will not be able to humiliate me as he is doing now.

Is that a good plan? what else should i need to do? how can i win?
Please save me with your ideas...i really need some kind of master plan.

Thanks,
Vic

**DagnyGalt** · 04-23-2011 08:18 AM

Ok, Something I am not clear about, will he leave the Business and keep working with the group of clients, or is he just leaving everything behind and looking for a job elsewhere?
Do you think he is saying he wants to leave because he really wants to do something else, or just to control you?

To me it doesn't make sense why he would want to leave if he understand that all the work that was invested will start to pay off. Does he share your picture about that, are you guys on the same page? It is a tough job to go out everyday and deal with clients, but it very consuming to be programming all day. You get the clients but he is the only one who delivers, you even said it, he worked really hard to. And him feeling like he wants to spend more time with his gf, have more time for himself is understandable.

So you think, he calls the shot and you need someone else in this triumvirate, to help balance the powers, i think this is such coward talk. You need to communicate, Man or Woman up, (are you a woman?) you do not depend on him and you can't make someone do what they don't want to do. You don't have to put with that, but the only way if you to stop being scared. And there are solutions, why don't YOU hire a programmer, someone who can help with the work and someone who can as well start getting familiar with the work he has been doing for the clients, someone you can also keep close to you for if your partner decides that he wants to leave.

And i would suggest you think seriously about those criminal thoughts you have and saying those things on the forum, have you not watched CSI or Law and Order. God forbids if something happen to him you will be a prime suspect. Remember, you don't own him.

**MCPC** · 04-23-2011 11:07 AM

The partner do not understand that all the work that was invested will start to pay off because we will see the money from those big clients only in 3 months, and he is really consumed as you said...there for he talking about leaving everything behind and looking for a job elsewhere.

you wrote: "So you think, he calls the shot" is that not obvious? why is that a coward talk i have tryed to speak and balance him but now when he is ready to leave he demands that everything will be on his own way. I'm not scared, at the moments i thinking over each step i do, meanwhile how can i not put with that without loosing the business?
about the another programmer, at the moment we are working on this big deals and do not have enough money to hire someone.