After spending 2.5 hours on the phone with a support tech yesterday (on top of the 45 minutes the day before), and having him remote in to my computer to see what was happening, he was still unable to solve the problem. 

We did figure out that the reason QuickBooks is requiring a password the second time I open the company file is because it reads that I am inputting EIN/SSN numbers.  However it won't accept any admin password, and there is no way to reset the password, and even with the file open, there is no way to create a password (because in order to create a password you must input the admin password that doesn't exist).

With the tech's help I uploaded my file and they have escalated it to a higher team, which is what I asked the first tech the day before to do but she told me it wasn't possible, so now I have to wait.  The work around is to not input any EIN/SSNs, even though that is an integral part of my file so that's very annoying, but at least I can continue to open the file.  This whole experience has me looking for a different, non-QuickBooks solution for my business.  Very frustrating.