To think it's really fucking hard being married/in a relationship to someone who's self employed or owns a business?

My dad was like this. He sold the business about 10 years ago to retire and then was annoyed that none of his adult children wanted to spend quality time with him. Funny that.

I lie awake at night sometimes wishing we could just stop it, I have a love hate relationship with the business - but dh loves his work, no way could he be happy retiring and I don't want to do that to him. We go away on holidays and he probably works about 4 hours a day(gets up early so it's not too disruptive. He rarely lets me down - if I ask for his time I'll get it as will the kids, dh will half-kill himself to please everyone - I worry about the impact on his health but we do get and make room for quality time together. I run the back end of the business so we end up talking shop sometimes, I get more stressed than dh who tends to handle stress well until he doesn't - maybe happens a couple of times a year when maybe a member of staff is ill and he ends up having to do their work as well as his own or some other challenge hits us.

It was like this while DH was establishing the business to begin with - it just happened to be at a time when our children were small and I was far too busy keep things going to feel lonely.

It's fine now - years down the line - and he runs the pace of the business, rather than it running him. So we have a sweet spot that works really well alongside our family life now but it wasn't easily achieved and probably would not be possible at all if he were a chronic workaholic.

My lovely DH has run his own (successful) business for two years now, at the start it was quite a hard slog, but now it’s doing well he’s been much more present. He’s built up a great team of staff, which has allowed him lots of flexibility around our young DC. I also work FT in a very demanding role and having him around more has been invaluable. Hopefully your DH can get to the same stage and delegate more responsibilities to his team, thus giving you more time as a family.

I'm fairly sure my DH doesn't think that about me and my business.

Me. I'm lonely, I do everything.

DH is an owner of a company, it's very big and although he has a PA (it used to be me) and a team to delegate to it's hard work and often long hours. We always at least get weekends together, but he used to get phone calls in the evening.

However, when we decided to have our third child I told him he needed to do something about it. He now has a lighter workload, flexible hours, nothing after 6pm and can WFH. It's so much easier now and makes us both work better. He still gets stressed though and often is in his head even out of work hours.

It's the reality of being self-employed or an entrepreneur. DH started his business 30 years ago, and until it reached a certain size and employed enough staff, it was 24x7 when the work had to be done. I lost count of the weekends and holidays that we cancelled at the last minute. And now it's time to retire, it's taking an equivalent amount of time and thought to ensure the business continues without him. Sadly almost 70% of small businesses fold when the owner retires or dies.

I think this is true. My husband is like this and he's employed. He does it because he likes it. It gives him a sense of status and meaning that he doesn't get from family life.

What annoys me is that he shouldn't have had a family if he just wanted to work all the time. People like that should stay single or marry other workaholics.

Yes! My husband and I own a business and are self employed..
It's very hard harder then people think
It comes down to the fact that if we don't work we don't earn money
My husband works 7 days a week with the odd day off
In the last few months we've expanded massively so we've been struggling with the work home life balance
He's definitely a workaholic and is obsessed with his job and I'm glad he loves it and I'm proud of how hard he works for our family
However I do miss him and find it hard because I feel guilty to complain or ask him to take time off
This is only recent since we expanded so I'm hoping it's only temporary
But he's always worked a lot
The difference is I'm afraid, he took as much time as he needed when he had our children to care for me and the kids
And he always plans family holidays 2/3 a year and a few short breaks
And those are our family times
But he still tired to make it home in time to bath the kids and put them to bed
And he often cooks dinners for us as family time

I definitely feel your pain and I can understand not doing family holidays because it's hard leaving your baby (the business) in the care of other people
But not taking time off when you had babies is something that would of left resentment from me
Try having a talk with him and plan a break away with lots of time in advance so he can make arrangements
Honestly our family holidays are a god send

I think you said you work part time in the business OP. I hope you are properly paid and have pension, holidays and NI contributions up to date.
Could you think about working elsewhere? These days there's a lot of flexible roles and it could give you some independence and a break from everything being about his business. Plus if you did end up leaving him then continuing to work in his business would be messy.

My DH is self employed and I can see how this can happen but the difference is my DH doesn’t want to miss out on life due to work. We have made the decision to employ two more members of staff in January with the aim that DH can have a better work/life balance, however this will come at a financial cost (in the short term at least) but this is a sacrifice he wants to take as his current working lifestyle is not sustainable. You need to have a serious chat with him about how to manage this situation going forward. If it’s affecting you to the point where you want to leave your marriage your DH needs to be made aware just how serious it is.

OH is self employed.
It can be pretty crappy at times, and there were definitely times when he was a lazy prick at home, but that was down to him so we talked about it, I might've had a meltdown or two and things got better.

We spend weekends together, he will take time off for a holiday, he will take time off if DD is sick or come home early if needed. He's been working away lately, which make it harder for him to be present , but for example a few weeks ago I was really poorly (after he already left) so he drove all the way back after work,came home,made me dinner,brought meds,tidied up the house and the kitchen. He's taking tomorrow off as it's my birthday .

We go away for weekends ,but even if he's tired he does his best to soldier on and have fun as a family. He used to take DD out swimmers (soft play when she was younger) on a Sunday and then shopping/lunch so I'd get a break and they had some 1 2 1 time and talk about her week . He's trying and it's doable but it obviously requires interest and effort on his part. Considering the fact that I put a lot of effort in to facilitate this (while also working) it's only fair.

Does he have days when he's absolute broken , or weekends when he does fuck all? Sure, but they're a lot easier to overlook since I can see he is trying.

Agree with PP, this is about priorities, not self employment.
my DP is CE of his own company- and yes he is often tapping away at the laptop in the evening, but would always put it down to do something with me or one of our (young adult) DCs if they’re home.
he is around every weekend and has six weeks holiday a year, plus the Christmas week, as do all of his colleagues.
I guess the flip side is that he doesn’t make loads of money, cos he reinvests in the company, and takes on more colleagues as work increases.
that’s our priority- less money, time together, healthy work life balance.

Upskilled not unskilled

Hope you don't mind if I come at this from a different angle but it might get you the result you want. Part of my work involves business assessment and a few things stick out to me that are risks to both your husband's business and your family income.

He appears unable to delegate
He has no contingency or business continuity plan or even ssuccession plan.
What happens if he is completely unable to work for 2 weeks, could be as simple as bad covid etc?
Working at this pace also puts high risk of stresses etc.
I hope he has good critical illness cover.

He needs to start looking at what are his biggest time stealers? Things he does that are a waste of his time?
What can delegated or outsourced?
Has he a deputy manager or number 2?
Why not?
Can someone in the business be unskilled?

It sounds like he really needs a business coach or mentor because a business so heavily dependent on one person is very risk risk of failing due to that person's eventual burnout or illness.

I'm hearing you!! Similar story here.
My DH is self employed and I work with him.
He is a workaholic and I strongly suspect has ADHD.
The mental load at home and work is massive.
I started working pt but now our dc are teens I work ft and DH works ft +.
I can count on one hand the number of sports days, open eves and school events he's attended despite often promising the kids he'll be there. He would struggle to tell you what year they were in or who their tutor is. DD was awarded a prize earlier this week. She told him but he had forgotten about it the next day. 3 of 4 of their GPS have died, so I usually feel I'm their only cheerleader.

I agree it's not the job it's the man. A man who prioritises an ever higher income over spending time with his wife and children is just showing where his priorities lie.

My husband has grown his business over 40 years and we've raised 2 children to adulthood. He has always prioritised family. Never answers work calls out of hours or at weekends, prioritises holidays and family time. Sure he could have earned loads more money if he'd worked all hours, but at what cost to the family?

Priorities OP, that's what this is about, not being self employed.

I do some business coaching and while I recognise that it’s usually necessary to work like this in the beginning I don’t classify a Business as a “success” if it takes all your time. A really successful Business allows you to have a work/life balance so either the Business isn’t a real success or the owner doesn’t want to make time for other things.
There is also succession planning, what happens if he wants or needs time off?

He needs to make time for his family. My dad was self employed and successful when I was growing up. He was home most weekdays at 6pm and we always had a two week holiday every year. He'd come to our shows and plays and dance recitals because he could... because he was his own boss so he chose his working hours.

It's not being self employed that's the issue it's that your husband is choosing to dedicate his life to work not family.

YANBU this was me 10 years ago before I divorced him.

I signed up for marriage, an equal relationship and 50/50 childcare with a man who had a good employed job.

I did not sign up to be the house and childcare manager whilst he persued his dream at my expense. It was as if he was waiting to install a home and childrens manager, then leave them to it whilst he did what he really wanted to.

It doesn't get better.

I genuinely don't understand why you're staying with him. This is not a real marriage anymore, he has checked out.

Money isn't everything. My son has grown up with not very much but he's had so much time with us. Your husband would still have to support your child if you split, it doesn't sound like you'd be on the streets. Don't stay in this miserable life for a bit more money.

Yes! It’s very hard.

i like that it’s my DH’s passion and he’s excited always. But it’s been hard for me and the DCs. We got though it better when he decided to use his flex to take time off for me occasionally. And to take some time off himself to breathe every January and August. So I hope you can jointly talk about the issues and decide on some release points. They help a lot

Unfortunately this is what has destroyed my marriage; I do get it from his side but after another Christmas where I have yet again done 97% of everything I’m really quite done with it all. I’d rather have less money than live like this and he knows that but doesn’t change anything

We’ve got 4 businesses (and 4 children) between us and I’m definitely better at creating time to do family stuff. Mines love language is working hard and mine is quality time so I do have to insist on time for us, and the kids but we do talk business a lot but we both love it. I cant imagine being married to someone who was in a job. It’s a definite lifestyle and mindset and is 24/7 because when you’re not working you’re thinking about work. Does he find time to do things for himself like sport / hobbies / friends? Or is he just work work work above everything.

He’s not going to change. You deserve to not feel lonely inside your marriage it must be really hard. You’re doing so well to create a life for yourself and with your children and your friends / family but it comes down to how connected he is when he’s with you. If he’s not then that’s a huge sacrifice because you could go on to have a loving close relationship in the future.

it’s not an easy one. Time to revisit the conversation from 6 months ago. You said it’s slipped back so it’s time to redraw the boundaries or there will be consequences. You won’t be alone assessing things over Christmas. There’s a reason January is peak divorce lawyer enquiries.

big hug