Getting Your Wife to Leave Mary Kay

mary-kay-profitWritten by Emanuel

Mary Kay may not technically be a cult, but it has many characteristics of cults. My brother’s wife has been involved with Mary Kay, moving up into the ranks of a car driving sales director. They have four small children, and it is sad how little she sees of them, even as Mary Kay promotes itself as a way to be at home with the children. I provided the following advice to him.

If my wife was involved with Mary Kay, this is the strategy I would use:

PLAN A:

I would tell her “Honey, your involvement with MK is putting financial stress on our family (see note at the end/bottom about MK ‘success’) and I would like you to stop using the family credit card for MK functions. May I suggest that you find a part-time job (as a pharmacy assistant, coach, department store clerk, etc.) in order to pay for the expenses you incur as a result of MK ?”

[This is because there are so many different expenses that erode/eat-into the 50% mark-down/discount they get on the their product purchases; the high price of the products one one would have sell them for; and not to mention the ever increasing product inventory.]

If this plan does not help her to re-prioritize her life (how she allocates time and money), then follow…

PLAN B:

I would tell her “Dear, I am very concerned about your finances around the MK consulting business. I would like to ask you to hire a bookkeeper/accountant to help you keep track of your positive cash-flow and expenses for the following 3/6/9/12 months. And then, at the end of the 3/6/9/12 I would like us two to sit down and look at the financial picture of your MK consulting business.”

[Here you decide on a definitive time span for this professional accounting/accountability, so you have a goal of when the reviewing of the books will happen. You should also have her track ALL of her time spent on MK so that you will be able to figure how much she is making per hour. You may also want to agree that if she is not turning a profit at that time (or isn’t making at least $x per hour), she agrees in advance to leave Mary Kay. ]

If this hard facts analysis does not help her realize that she is working as a slave for MK (earning less then minimum hourly wages and netting annually less then the poverty line), then go for…

PLAN C:

I would sit down with her and say “[Wife], I have been doing some reading about MK business practices and made a list here of some very dubious practices. I would like to ask you up-front if you OR your upline have ever used these tactics/techniques ?”

THIS plan requires some research and time reading online on your part, about all the complaints from current and former MK consultants about how impossible it is to continue in this business (climbing the ladder) without taking shortcuts and compromising oneself morally/ethically.

If the answer is YES, then I would say “This is highly unethical if not immoral, and it is very unbecoming of a Christian. I would like you to repent of this, and stop your involvement in MK now!”

If the answer is NO, then proceed to….

PLAN D (last resort):

I would find a quiet place for the two of us to sit and tell her “Honey, I love you very much and want the best for our kids and family. I have something very important and serious to tell you: Your involvement in MK is causing our kids, myself and our family great emotional/financial/time-management distress. I would like you to make a decision today between your family (4 kids and I) and your MK family (business plans and associates).”

If her answer to this plan (Plan D) is “I choose MK family,” I would recommend that you take the kids and leave the house ASAP and give her space and time to think things through. You can easily afford a short-term rental (motel, hotel, apartments for commuters, etc.). As a Christian, I also recommend that you NEVER consider divorce (or use that word), no matter how painful the emotional or financial loss of her involvement in MK business is to the family.

And in all things Pray for Wisdom from above, to know how to talk to her and approach her.

NOTE:
Financial success in MK IS possible (not probably, but still possible)… but the question is “At what price?”

How many hours dedicated away from family, and how many hours even when one is physically present at home is one’s mind on the MK business or MK affairs (emotionally absent from family)? About the ‘success’ of the MK business here are some numbers found on Pink Truth which seem to be well documented in other places/sources also:

As for the “many many” women who are “incredibly successful” in Mary Kay…. In the United States there are about 300 to 500 women making “executive” income in Mary Kay. There are a couple thousand making middle management income. There are another 5,000 to 8,000 making minimum wage. Almost everyone else is losing money. This is out of 600,000 to 700,000 consultants in the United States. So the “many many” women being “incredibly successful” are about 400 out of 600,000 are 0.06% (that’s six one-hundredths of one percent).

8 COMMENTS

  1. “As a Christian, I also recommend that you NEVER consider divorce (or use that word), no matter how painful the emotional or financial loss of her involvement in MK business is to the family. And in all things Pray for Wisdom from above, to know how to talk to her and approach her.” —

    Tell that to the abused! Geesh. And, Mary Kay consultants already pray – a lot. In fact, many thank God and give her credit for introducing them to Mary Kay. Have you considered that?

    “Financial success in MK IS possible (not probably, but still possible)… but the question is “At what price?”” —

    Time and this: “about all the complaints from current and former MK consultants about how impossible it is to continue in this business (climbing the ladder) without taking shortcuts and compromising oneself morally/ethically.”

    That adds more context to the numbers quote: 400 of the best liars make “executive” income off the backs of the other 59,600 women. This is where their income comes from. “Fake it until you make it” and sell that opportunity to sell the opportunity. Use your friends and family, and lie to them to make a profit. (Repeating a lie is still…a lie.)

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    • No Christian should feel at all good about making money by talking others into losing money. Bottom line in any MLM is simple (as Char has pointed out repeatedly): it’s scam or be scammed. If you’re making money in MLM, you’re doing it by scamming others. That’s just the way the “system” works.

  2. As a former Christian, I *do* recommend divorce as a last resort. You’ve tried everything else you can to get your spouse to leave the cult, to stop preying on other vulnerable people, to quit spending you into bankruptcy, to stop ignoring family for the cult, etc ad nauseum… Especially if you have kids, you owe it to them to suck it up and put their needs first; having a basically absentee parent and dealing with the constant stress that kind of mockery of a marriage puts on them is worse than dad (or mom, as the case may be) cutting it off and refocusing on healing and creating healthy relationships going forward. Mary Kay strikes me as very similar to other forms of addiction, just pink fog instead of alcohol or drugs. There comes a (sad) time when you have to leave them to it and move forward without them.

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  3. Um…Let’s not say, “Although Mary Kay is not technically a cult…”

    Yes. It’s a cult. It has EVERY SINGLE CHARACTERISTIC of a cult so no dancing around it. The goal is to isolate, manipulate, brainwash and extract money from the members. There’s nothing it does for women. It’s harmful and needs to be called on the carpet.

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    • ^^^ Very much this. It doesn’t even make sense to say “technically” something isn’t a cult, since there is no hard and fast definition of what a cult is.

      Think about walking into a cult meeting. You see weird behavior, like chanting and repitition of slogans. People are clapping and cheering all the time, and far roo loudly. Huge images of The Founder are on display, gazing benevolently down on a sea of phony smiles.

      Have you just stumbled into a Scientology conference, or Seminar in Dallas?

      I rest my case.

      • “Huge images of The Founder are on display, gazing benevolently down on a sea of phony smiles. Have you just stumbled into a Scientology conference, or Seminar in Dallas?”

        Not Scientology or Seminar, but me….in church. We were packed in, repeating chants, singing, and there was a HUGE cross with an effigy of a dead man hanging on the wall, behind an “altar”, looking down on us. They had a collection plate and envelopes. (Paternal side)

        And lest someone think I’m biased, I was also “dunked” during a huge ceremony with singing and clapping by the maternal side. I remember that organization complained about my sixth grade graduation dance because…..no dancing. Wackos. It was also the first time I heard the word “tithing”. That was the Southern Baptist sect under the cult of Christianity.

        Like MK PTers, it’s as clear as day once you’re on the outside looking in.

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  4. Plan B is pretty great, arguably the most logical and quantifiable.

    Plan C and D are incredibly creepy! It’s very bizarre when someone sees the “cult” of MK and how damaging it is, but then uses another culty tactic to get someone out…

    I mean, I’ll admit my bias as an atheist. Despite my personal lack of belief, having been a believer, I can empathize. I would be incredibly offended if I were active in faith group and someone told me to “repent” of my ways, and tried to tell me I wasn’t acting like a real Christian. How devastating that would feel! To have a spouse say that? Also, humiliating. That’s not a loving, respectful way to approach someone. It’s treating them like they’re an idiot who needs to be “corrected”.

    These women aren’t idiots, they were vulnerable and became victimized in their times of weakness, and pushed on with peer pressure and manipulation.

    And D? An implied ultimatum of divorce while still acting “holier than though” by reminding us that no real Christian would consider divorce? Jeez!

    Many people on this site argue how awful it is that MK often uses spiritual appeals as a manipulation tactic. Are we really going to advocate for “rescuing them” by being even more emotional and spirituality abusive than MK?

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