You stole my dream. You took my hard work and trashed it. You walked into my building and business with wide eyes. You saw your narcissistic jackpot. You immediately asked how much equity I had in the building, and how much debt I had in the business. You were in awe. You called me a power player. You began scheming how this could be yours. Then you got to work. Sending your team in, not accepting my no as an answer, I was coerced to trust you. You played on my emotional exhaustion. You wanted to scale my business. You spoke to salespeople, and architects and fooled everyone with your grandiose plans. After all, you had grown your business against all odds, you had experience and buying power. You promised, your help was only going to accelerate my dream. You were the missing key in taking my business to the next level. To ensure you had a tight grip on me, you offered me a salary. I no longer needed to teach. You had control over my schedule. I only needed to be by your side to build a family. Your need for control knew absolutely no limits. You transferred company funds and used employees and resources. Any question from me was met with your response “you need patience”. I chose to trust you. Little by slowly, you picked apart the business and then the building. Once it failed due to a lack of leadership, chaos, and pure neglect, you shifted the blame onto me. You claimed, I had no idea how to run a business. My business would have died anyway and I was a failure because I walked away from my business. You took zero responsibility for neglect. The reality was I couldn't leave the house without you. I had no autonomy or authority over the employees you hired to be in my building. Your team, that you coached, managed the operations. You publicly made statements that you would reopen, simply to save your face. You created a smear campaign and then left town. I will heal because 8 years of entrepreneurship taught me I am resilient.
These 3 pictures are from my store. The bottom is when I met him. My store was fully operational, shelves stocked, and took 7 years to continually grow the business from the ground up. He immediately told me he's always dreamed of having a grocery store. He offered me buying power, he wanted to improve operations and expand the product offering. He needed to rename the store. Hesitant to change because it felt like abandoning my work. I finally decided the name is irrelevant to the mission I wanted to accomplish. We changed food labels, and social media accounts and I trusted him. He had his attorney draw up an operating agreement and then wouldn't sign it.
He sent up his employees. Engaged with outside firms and consultants and interviewed on the local news. Still, he wouldn't sign the operating agreement. My questions were met with "you need to be patient". Not wanting to pry, I trusted and acted in good faith. As time went on, he purchased the 2 buildings on either side of mine. He spoke of building an ice rink in the community. The grandiosity ballooned.
The top 2 pictures are of how he left the store. Ashamed, devastated, and feeling crushed by the disappointment, I had no legal grounds to hold him accountable. I trusted my business with a seemingly successful businessman. In the same industry. We got married. The point at which I lost my patience was when he swooped in to buy the marketing business I connected him to earlier that summer. Within 3 weeks they had a signed operating agreement. He had squeezed me out of the deal. Smeared my name and continued on as if nothing happened. Why would he take care of these strangers and not take care of his wife? After I learned about narcissism, it makes sense. His public image could be saved with this new marketing company, he became the hero to cover up his failure at my store. My situation was for him to control me. An absolute necessity for his narcissistic supply.
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