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

What an absolute twerp. What the fuck was he thinking? Nothing like waiting until you’ve more responsibility than ever to jack in your job and expect your wife to carry you while you prat about starting your own business. Why the fuck didn’t he get up and running alongside paid employment? Selfish, stupid and irresponsible. Setting up your own business isn’t for the faint hearted, or the under motivated, he needs to get a job.
ETA that’s not to say he should give up the business necessarily but he needs to have an income alongside.

OP I work with people starting businesses. 1 year is not long at all to try and get something off the ground and the vast majority of new businesses aren’t sustainable at this point. It usually takes a few years until you’re looking at a steady sustainable income. You can have loads of plans to have funding by x and y and z dates and it can seem very reasonable to a hopeful mind but statistically speaking, the majority of new businesses fail or at least aren’t reliable in the first years. With that in mind, people who have significant responsibilities (family; mortgage etc) often have to develop something as a side project before committing to it, and it can take several years to do so. Quitting your job to start a business is a very risky strategy and unless there is a significant buffer to last you a couple of years, usually fails. It’s very unfair to put all the financial responsibility on you while your DH tries to launch something - yes you absolutely need resilience to get anything off the ground but you need to be realistic too. Funding was meant to arrive in December, it’s February. You can’t be carrying the family alone. Your DH can try again in the future when the timing is better and he is better prepared not to rely on you.

my husband started his business after i got pregnant. it was nerve wrecking at first, as it took him months to get any income from the business and i was also in the firing line at work..i was eventually fired one year later. the difference is we had a good amount of savings to see us through..

it never gets easy, even after income started flowing, i had to take on most household stuff and also got help (nanny, cleaner) despite me not working full time as the business is eating up all his evenings and sometimes weekends. actually, the more successful the business becomes, the less time there is. what helps is he wfh so he is around for lunch, 5 min break here and there..would be a diff story if he worked in the office.

i knew the risks we exposed ourselves when he started and was happy to take them on. i also accepted my career would take backseat for some time. so whether you need to be more resilient is smth you need to decide for yourself.

I'm hugely risk averse but I backed my husband in his business too. I didn't have a baby at the time but it did involve lots of sacrifices. We even cleared out our home and moved in with family for 3 months so we could do airbnb for extra income.
I believed in him and it also worked out. He went from 60k a year to 600k a year within 4 years.

My husband ran his own business so I understand how you feel. I agreed to it though and he always drew a salary from it, albeit not a huge amount. It was hard and stressful ( we have 4 children) and I knew I had to keep working as the possibility of the business folding was always there.

It worked out for us as my husband sold his business for a healthy amount and is now working for the purchaser on a 6 figure salary. I reduced my hours to part time, although I don't have to work, and we have a very high standard of living.

It's not for the faint hearted but I have no regrets supporting him. He's an entrepreneur through and through, but any rumblings of new business is quickly shot down by me as I wouldn't go through it again.

It's terrible timing but you're in it now so I'd just try to battle through. You're in the trenches at the moment but try to keep your eye on the prize. You clearly believe it could work so between the two of you, give it your all. You'll hopefully look back in years to come on how hard it all was but be glad you bit the bullet, sucked up the hardship and got where you wanted to go.
My parents went through something like this. They're millionaires now but they talk about the electricity getting cut off, the house about to be taken from them, 3 small children etc. They held each other close, cried together at points, prayed a lot and just focused on shielding us from the stress. And then it all came good, quite suddenly, after about 2 years.

No, you don't need to be more resilient. Your husband needs to behave sensibly and responsibly and provide income for his family.

I say this as a business owner. If he wants to start a business, great. But keep your job as you do it on the side. It isn't a great idea to quit your job and sacrifice reliable steady income when you have a family to support, unless you have new business already secured and know money will be coming in.

As he's been working on his business - whatever it is - for months now and STILL has no income from it (hat is 'funding'? what about actual paying customers?), he needs to look at getting a job immediately as you have pressing financial needs to take care of.

A business not making a profit is not a business - it’s an expensive hobby. He should return to paid employment and put his business plans on hold until he has investment secured or the market is more favourable.

I say the word ‘resilient’ as I wondered if it was my fault I wasn’t handling it well.

How else are you supposed to handle it? The money runs out this month. There is no nice way to handle that and his 'hopes' for investment are not going to feed your DC or keep the lights on. He should be urgently looking for work as well as you. There is no reason he can't work at weekends or evenings at least.

you aren’t unresilient. But maybe your appetite for risk isn’t matched to your DH’s.

I think your partner needs to find at least part time work to fund household income and alleviate pressure.

You need to find a job and change your expectations on salary. It seems you need a job asap so would compromise until you’re in a position to do so in the future.

its not a question of resilience but practicality and financial stability for the foreseeable for you and your children.

what if you can’t find a job in time? What is partner currently doing- looking for funding? I think there needs to be a degree of realism from him as there doesn’t seem to be any likely cash flow from his business for sometime?

Agree he needs to be doing paid work now and managing his business on the side, this is too much pressure on you when you've just had a baby.

Not everyone is cut out for running a business. The ones that do well, are the ones who think ahead, plan ahead, make strategic decisions, and are willing to do an awful lot of work that they don’t enjoy to get off the ground. They may wax lyrical later about following their dreams, and taking risks but most of them didn’t actually step off a cliff wearing a blindfold and trusting that they can fly if only everyone will believe in them.

I think it's perfectly normal to be anxious in scenarios like this. If you weren't you wouldn't be considering the responsibilities you both have or taking them seriously.

As long as you're actively trying to solve the problems you're seeing and not just passively flapping around panicking, it's ok to be stressed here.

I was speaking with a someone the other day who is 18 months into "running their own business' and is still not drawing any money. It's not working. But they had a lot to say to me about being "a thought leader', guesting on podcasts etc and a lot of other buzzwords, which ultimately are a not paying the bills.

They are older and in a position where they money isn't crucial, it's basically a hobby that is burning them out. You're not in the position where your DH has the luxury of the same. I would be taking action immediately to safeguard yourself and your son.

Is he from family money OP? What's the back up, he can't be on his last month of cash and not panicking if he's got any financial accumen whatsoever, surely?

Starting a new business when he has a family to support is madness. Is be very resentful. You definitely are completely reasonable to expect him to earn money.

Exactly how quickly will he be drawing a wage from his business? Hopefully if he is getting investors, their investment will cover his salary otherwise he is working for free.

HMM.. Does the word ‘resilient’ come from conversations with him? If so that plus you having to handle his emotions about success rather than having space to have your own about family security are a bit red flaggy rather than this just being bad timing or planning.

Completely agree with this. It was always going to be difficult doing this with no savings, even taking the redundancy out of it.

You need money.
This happened to me about the same time of life. Husband made redundant while I was on mat leave. Then teied his hand at setting his own thing up.
I decided I couldnt rely on him and focussed on my career. He had to take a step back so we could pay the bills and eat. Hes now been the lower earner for the last ten years. Deapite his efforts, I carry the financial weight.
When you have kids to feed, the priority is feeding your children, giving them a roof and clothes food and what they need.
Unless tour dh bas a clear plan on his take home income for his busines for the next few years then I would plan for your own income to cover what you need.