I remember the night clearly. The kids were finally in bed, the house had gone quiet, and I sat my husband down in our living room to tell him something I'd been turning over in my head for months.
I had an idea. A real one. And I needed him to be in it with me - not just emotionally, but financially. We aren't flush. We weren't then. This wasn't a small ask.
I told him I reckoned I was onto something by inventing discharge friendly undies. I explained the product, what it solved for women. I was honest - it was going to be expensive to get off the ground (I had no idea how much!). I laid it all out.
He looked at me and said: "Ok then."
I walked away from that conversation feeling uncertain. Deflated. That flat response had poked a hole in something I'd been quietly building inside myself for a long time.
But here's the thing I've thought about a lot since: he wasn't wrong to be measured. Starting a business is a risk. We were talking about our shared money, our shared life. His caution wasn't a betrayal - it was a reality check dressed up as a man shrug.
And I've come to understand something else too. At the time, I was undiagnosed ADHD. I was diagnosed not long after that conversation. Looking back, I can see why someone on the outside - even this man that knows and loves me so much - might not be able to tell which ideas the harebrained ones and which are the ones that actually have legs. I had plenty of both...
There's a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being a woman who wants to build something when the finances are shared. You need buy-in. You need to clear it. And when that buy-in comes back lukewarm, it can feel like a verdict. Like maybe you're not the person you thought you were.
But it isn't a verdict. It's a starting point.
So many women I've spoken to since starting Luckies have been here. They've had the kitchen table conversation, or the living room one, or the "can we afford this" one. They've walked away deflated and then - quietly, stubbornly - kept going anyway.
That's the thing about building something that comes from a real place. The idea doesn't leave you just because someone didn't cheer. Luckies came from genuine frustration with a gap in the market - underwear that actually works with your body, designed for discharge, with a gusset that does the job, made without toxic dyes, with a merino liner that actually feels good. I knew it was needed because I needed it. That conviction doesn't disappear because of one "ok then."
My husband is quietly proud now. He's still not the loudest cheerleader in the room - that's just who he is - but he sees it. And honestly? I didn't need him to believe in it first. I just needed him not to stand in the way.
If you're in a financial partnership and you're trying to get something off the ground, here's what I wish someone had told me: you're not asking for permission to have your idea. You're asking for shared resources to pursue it. Those are different things. Your belief in yourself doesn't have to depend on theirs.
The "ok then" was enough. I made it enough.
And if you're sitting with your own "ok then" right now - from a partner, a parent, a mate who didn't quite get it - you're in good company. Keep going.
— Bek, founder and Head Undie Sniffer of Luckies