> hiring my girlfriend > hiring my brother this almost never goes well. many relationships were ended by adding a working relationship element to the picture.

> hiring my girlfriend > hiring my brother this almost never goes well. many relationships were ended by adding a working relationship element to the picture. this goes for friendships as well as pairings. extremely hard to make work, with long term damage resulting from it failing. you either have to compartmentalize the work relationship from the other relationship or... nope, that's pretty much what you have to do. I think what happens is that it's too easy to lean on forgiveness and slack due to the self-sustaining part of the relationship. not sure if related but it also seems like adding sex to a normal friendship can also sink both. maybe it has to do with adding ulterior motives like "profit" and "orgasm", not sure. maybe compartmentalization would help there too, not sure.... you'd have the "friend" part of the relationship (intrinsically-motivated) and the compartmentalized "tit for tat" part of the relationship (extrinsically-motivated; sex, money, etc.). This might at least leave the "friend" part somewhat intact (eventually) if the other part fails. For some reason, pure friendships are the most enduring relationships (and yes, even those can end if people grow apart, but still). One thing you're possibly not factoring in is your possible "gifts" at doing this well, and whatever opportunities (educational, parents being supportive financially or otherwise, etc.) you might have benefited from on the ramp-up to your life.