Husband work financial stress & marriage issues

[Jjandboom]

My husband has had a few businesses - one with a close friend which ended in him being taken for a ride, one with a business partner who again took him for a ride.(he isn’t a good judge of character it seems) Caused us great financial losses overall and a ton of stress and loss of his friendship.My husband is not academic or trained in anything really but he is talented in his engineer background.

I work for myself in a small but busy little job from home. My overheads are small and my profit is good. I work hard and I also look after the house, kids, animals, school runs. all chores food shop the lot.

my issue is he wants to start another business after the huge losses we have had before. One business lost us £30k nearly and it was so stressful. I never want to go back there again. Obviously.
He currently has a job which although he’s being taken advantage of by doing too many hours on an hourly rate (I think he should speak up but this is his problem overall he doesn’t) it’s paying our bills. We are having an extension done which we can afford currently but now he’s said he wants to drop two days a week and go back to doing what he did before. You know when it all went tits up.

ive tried talking to him but he won’t listen and gets angry with me- im just trying to help and make him lost costings and incomings and look at it before another mistake happens again! I know he’s trying to help and make more money but I sincerely fear he is going to get us in a lot of trouble especially when our mortgage is about to increase.

I find myself shutting down emotionally I just feel trapped in his messes, tired from working so much and basically being a single mother , and there is no relationship as he’s working so much currently and also he is emotionless when it comes to me at the moment. I think perhaps depressed about what’s happened in his work life has affected him.

Ive tried to talk to him but he doesn’t listen at all- I’m scared this is all going to go wrong again just when we have sorted it all out.

Sorry have only just seen this. Yes I had a limited company and that’s the structure that I’d always recommend to limit your liability. However, like many small business owners I had financed the business through personal finance (remortgage and loans) which would obviously not be covered. In an ideal world you’d always finance through a business loan or investment but that’s hard to secure so most small businesses end up financing it through credit cards, loans etc.
So for me the massive repayments which were completely manageable when the business was operating became my personal responsibility once it went under.
If your husband is financing the company through a business loan then that would be covered under the limited company. If it’s through personal means, then it’s worth asking how you’d keep managing to pay those debts if the company didn’t succeed and how you’d fund any liquidation costs.
I obviously couldn’t have predicted a pandemic but I could have (and should have) done a stress test to see what the financial impact would on our family if it all went to shit. Ultimately I’d say if you’re going to support your husband then you need to map out every possibility so that if things don’t go according to plan you can at least be comfortable with the idea that you knew what the risks were. To start a business, you have to be ok with an element of risk. Hope that helps.

I'm sorry it worked out that way @PlumGiraffe

I really appreciate you sharing, it's very helpful, thank you🙏