Husband’s business, baby - do I need to be more resilient?

Feel free to DM me (now or in the future) if you'd like to chat to a survivor!

I get it - it can be very alienating when you are not involved, running a start-up business can be like having a baby, it is all consuming and you can't just decide to put it away 'because it's the weekend'. If you already have a baby at home and he effectively has another one, it can lead to resentment on both sides.

The only thing I can advise is to talk, talk and keep talking. Don't let things build up, have everything out in the open. And if you can't do it, tell him. Don't put up with it until you can't and then blow everything up. Make a plan together to see if it is doable, with defined checkpoints (we call them milestones) at which you reevaluate whether it is worth carrying on.

There is no shame in failing at start-ups, the vast majority of them fail, and most of them for human issues. But it would be a real shame to wreck a family in the process.

You are not working as a team - you need to financially plan together! The business might be his project but family finances are the responsibility of you both.
Dh and I had a worse possible scenario plan worked out - in the event the business didn't take off and we couldn't pay our mortgage. Both of us committed to the plan, having a financial plan really helped me deal with the stress of having no money coming in - dh had confidence that the business would work - I was terrified.
Not long after starting the business Dh then offered someone a job without discussing it with me first - it hadn't occurred to him that employing someone was a massive financial commitment that affected both of us - that he should have discussed with me first - we learned as we went along - people are not perfect, relationships are not perfect but you need to keep working as a team towards resolving the issues that make this hard. You need to keep communicating and you need to agree a way forward.
Our business has been running for nearly 10 years now - we've reaped the financial rewards - but I'd never say it was easy money. It's been remarkably hard - people on the outside looking in don't see that side of things. We're the swans gliding past - with our legs working like fuck underneath.
Good luck I hope it works out - what ever you (both) chose to do.

I so appreciate everyone's responses.. going through them 🙏

@Somewhereinlondon81 thanks very much for this.. I really feel for you with this situation, I'm sorry. It really resonated because I have been realising I 'may need to be pretty resilient long after the financial woes settle...' Like you, I don't agree with these crazy valuations, and I also feel this is somewhat inevitable, he has to do it. I agree that two comfortable professional salaries would be fine. It would be beyond first investment... I'm glad you made it through ok.

To those that have mentioned, yes, I submitted a claim for universal credit, first time in my life. Hopefully I will find work very soon and it will be brief. I also asked my husband to do consultant work alongside, lots of conversations. Feeling tired..

If he has no income coming in and you only have enough money for the next few months assuming you are in the UK why haven't you made a claim for UC. It's not going to solve all your problems but you can't live on fresh air

Also as someone else suggested you need to get some advice about your redundancy - whether your company had the right to make you redundant while you were on maternity leave

This isn't about resilience. It's about being able to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head

Will your husband consider giving it up and getting a salaried job? Entrepreneurship can be an addictive disease. And how much pain would you consider worth it for the chance of a big payoff?

(This post involves some seriously first-world problems and I know I'm in many ways very lucky...)

Depending on your husband's personality and the nature of the company, you may need to be pretty resilient long after the financial woes settle. My husband wanted to start a company just as we contemplated starting a family. I asked him to wait, but he suffered a mental breakdown when I was pregnant and believed that founding a company was the only way out. So his company was birthed with our first child. No major financial woes, because I had a decent salary and he had savings. And things were manageable for a while -periods of intense fundraising stress, but also some flexibility for him to help with childcare. Ironically, it stopped being manageable when businesses like his started getting billion dollar valuations. Billionaire investors started circling and he IPO'd the company to maintain control. The level of stress this entailed was entirely incompatible with mental health or family life, and I was a solo parent with a very unwell husband for several years.

In the end it worked out OK. He sold the company and regained his sanity. He exited with enough cash that we're much wealthier than I ever expected to be (although, thank goodness, the company was never worth a fraction of some of the silly valuations in the space). He's taken time off work and reconnected with our children. I think it was, in some sense, psychologically necessary for him, and hence perhaps unavoidable. But given that the alternative was a quiet existence on two comfortable professional salaries, there is no sense in which it was worth it to me financially. (If his product ever comes to market it could help a lot of people, and hence it might be worth it by that metric.)

So don't assume that your resilience only needs to take you to the point of first investment. Assuming he needs multiple rounds of funding and many years to bring a product to market or exit, you may have to dig deep for a long time...

Hello,

Im hoping for advice, especially from those whose partners have businesses, or have one themselves.

We have a 15 month old. My husband handed in his notice on his full-time job last summer, it was a 3 month notice period. He left in the autumn to start his business. Around the same time, I was made redundant and never went back after maternity leave. It was too late at that point for him to stay in his job.

The money I got from redundancy would have lasted 8 months. As he hasn’t had income yet from the business, I had to pay all bills and the money is almost gone after 4 months. We will basically run out of money at the end of this month. I’m sure we can sort it out.. hopefully.. he is hoping to get a small amount of investment and I am urgently looking for work. I had hoped to return to work max 4 days a week, but due to our financial situation, may need to do 5.. (I know not everyone can do less days.) I need to find a job at the same salary as before, or higher. I was hoping to do something less stressful.

I agreed he could try the business for 1 year, what I am wondering is, do I need to be more resilient? I feel this time should be for enjoying our baby/family and seeing family. But instead we have this pressure on us. I do try to support him; I proofread, discuss, do what I can. But sometimes I feel down/grumpy. He feels we will be better off financially if this works, as don’t have savings now.

I feel I’m meant to hold space for our baby, for him, and take responsibility of getting a higher salary again myself. I don’t have family to talk to or offer consistent support.. I’d just really like to build our life together, not have pressure for something that may happen in the future.

The question and problem:

YABU - yes, you need to be more resilient, people do this all the time. Focus on supporting him. This is the nature of supporting your partner with a business.

YANBU - it’s understandable you are finding this hard. It’s too much to do at once. It should be put on hold for an until your baby is bigger, so you can better enjoy the present

@CatherinedeBourgh I wish I’d known this about both working on the business. I’ve considered it recently. To be honest, I feel my husband should have known. He knows this world, that’s why he’s doing it.. but I feel he’s not getting the deeper impact on me.

The subject is interesting, but not something I ever thought I’d work in.. and I haven’t chosen it. tbh I feel I need to know people (partners, women probably) that have been in this position and how they got through it. I feel like I need to find a way to hold on, to survive as I don’t feel very happy and it’s probably going to go on for 4 or 5 years.

He’s been full-time for 3 months. It’s the kind of business which needs funding, then he develops a product. So the business plan is expecting funding, but not to sell anything for sometime. He does have options for funding and will hopefully get some.

His experience was working alongside the business meant people wouldn’t invest, as he didn’t look serious about it.

Yes, exactly. He says I need to be positive for him to succeed. We had another talk this evening. I said I have to be positive for you, but who supports me?

Because I had been on maternity leave (and he paid all in the last months) he didn’t really have money saved. I thought he would have some savings, but he didn’t. The expectation was I would cover all costs when I returned to work. But unfortunately I was made redundant.

Im doing my best to get work asap.

He is a good person, usually responsible, always worked.

Yes, exactly. He says I need to be positive for him to succeed. We had another talk this evening. I said I have to be positive for you, but who supports me?

I’ve told him if I go back to work 5 days, he’ll need to do childcare 1 day a week. We get 30 hrs free funded childcare during term time like most people.