To resent DH's 'ambition'?

[DreamMachine]

Since I have known DH, the longest he has held down a job is 6 months. By job I mean working for someone as an employee. He has always wanted to be his own boss. His dreams have ranged from buying a yacht in the Dominican and setting up a chartering business, to becoming a private pilot. Each dream he has thought of he has spent a considerable amount of time seriously looking into it, almost obsessing over it to the point were I think 'Oh he really wants this, I best offer some support', and I always have. He wants, in his words - 'A business that can run itself, that we can deep the rewards of'

Last year as his first real go at being the boss he bought a fairly successful but not reaching it's potential company, but the old owner stayed on the scene doing business with us with his other companies and complications arose and DH sold back to him a few months ago for a fraction of the buying price just so he could get out. Since then, DH has started a new business venture which has seen him so far spend close to £5k on and has yet to earn a penny. Literally, not a penny.

It's not working so now after 3 months he is looking into other opportunities. He has paid upfront for an office for this failing venture for the year, mopes around the house all morning messing about with various things, and goes into the office at around midday until around 6-7pm. He comes home, I ask what he has been doing, he says 'networking', which basically means pissing about on twitter.

I am so so tired of telling him he can do anything, that I trust him to do the right thing for our family and if he thinks something will work then to go for it. I am so tired of explaining his latest venture to my family whilst they sit and listen with raised eyebrows and sceptical looks on their faces. I just want him to be normal, to use his degree and go and get a good job with stable hours, a stable income, and none of the stress and uncertainty that has been our life for the past 5 years.

He flat out refuses to work for somebody, claiming it would depress him to see the company earning money and it not being his money. At least he would be earning money then is my argument. He wants to plan for the long term, when I think we need to look at short term for now because planning for the long term isn't paying the bills. I just don't know whether to admire his determination or resent his stupidity and naivety any more.

AIBU? To just want him to grow up and accept that a life of luxury will not be handed to him on a plate for him to enjoy when he doesn't actually want to do any real work? I'm so worn down by it all. I told him not to rush home from work tonight, and he isn't home yet. :(

Sorry for whittling on

Dear god OP I couldn't tolerate that - no bloody wonder you don't want the lazy sod in your bed.

What does he think is going to happen when the money you have runs out?

OP, like you said, he isn't doing anything except using your family money on his ridiculous fantasies

he's like a Walter Mitty character, isn't he ?

amusing for other people to take the piss out of, but not so funny to live with

[shrug]

People can have other good qualities, and I do believe in sticking with relationships, nobody is all good or all bad. but take financial responsibility for yourself and your child.

Whose name is the house in?

Do you/he have wills?

Cut your losses and kick him out now. You will get more tax credits etc as a single parent. People like this man don't improve. He thinks he's too special to work yet the world owes him a living. Because he won't work, none of his schemes are going to generate any income, because by the sound of it he has no special skills or talents that might suddenly bring him a decent amount of money if they were discovered.

What do you mean, Joan, that you believe in sticking with relationships? What is there to believe in? Stick with any relationship, no matter what? At what point do you decide to stick with it - after the first date? After a year? After he's spent all your money?

That's not ambition OP...that's delusions of grandeur.

He can still work for someone and set up his own business on the side but it sounds as though he's more interested in playing at being the boss than actually taking responsibility.

My BIL has his own computer business with roughly a 4 or 5 million pound turn over per year. He started it from a tiny space in his loft while he was working as a coach driver.

He went bankrupt during the early 90's, so took a job packing fruit in a factory whilst he started his business again from scratch...it was even more sucessful the 2nd time around.

Even now he has his finger in loads of different pies but first and foremost, he's always been a worker and put his family's needs first.

he sees himself as being a "self-made man" does he ?

he's be well advised to actually do some making, then

'cos money don't fall out of the sky, contrary to the people who make it look easy

Do you think that the business he has started could possibly work if he had some proper business advice/mentoring, OP? Could it be that he's such a novice at this kind of thing that he's struggling to get it off the ground?

I can't remember the name of the charities that are set up to advise new businesses, is Business Link one of them?

Grrrr, pressed return too soon!

I would give him a timescale in which you expect him to start generating some income. If he is deadly serious then I think you should let him have a crack at this business a little longer. I know the other one failed essentially but many many successful business people have failed businesses behind them. It's good that he's giving things another go.

However he does need to realise that you cannot survive on fresh air and he needs to be realistic. If that means him working in a paid job alongside running the business then so be it. No one is going to throw money into his lap/

I'm not hugely sympathetic to the idea that it's the man's job to make financial provision for his family. Yes it is but it is also the woman's.

You both sound as though you could do with getting jobs, but atm it sounds as though you can both afford your lifestyle, there are no burning platforms and bailiffs knocking.

I'm sorry Dream, but your husband sounds like he has absolutely zero business skills. And this is coming from someone who did a postgraduate degree in business while working at a full time job.

I was going to ask whether he had researched the industries he wants to start a business in throughly, does he have a business plan, what's he personally like at implementation/execution of a business. However I think it is irrelevant having read over your post again.

Since he has never worked in an occupation for any longer than 6 months, he is never going to succeed in any business venture he starts - I can guarantee you this. That is what jobs do - they teach us the how to slog at something day after day, week after week, year after year, to achieve the goals of the company.

I am with the others who think that this man-child believes he is entitled to be rolling in cash without putting in the hard yards needed. There are no such businesses. Only you can decide if you can live with this in the long term, other whether you want a better example of a man, human, father, parent, etc in your and your children's lives.

Reminds me of my dad and my uncle. They also did not want to work "for someone else", wanted to be "their own bosses", etc etc. My dad started several failed "businesses" and has been "working" at the last one for about 20 years... I doubt it has made a profit for a single year... he has basically been living off my mum's salary for all these years. Oh, and he refuses to let her know anything about the "business" finances. I think he is just embarrassed.

My uncle rejected a top job that would have set him and his family up in a fantastic place with a great salary... because he did not want to "work for somebody else". He kept looking for the magical business that paid itself... he ended up working for somebody else in a crap job for years "still waiting for the miracle" He and his wife accumulated debt. they divorced. Now he is unemployed and living off his girlfriend.

And if he did, I don't want to feel like he resents me each time his alarm goes off in the morning.

The alarm going off in the morning is just an everyday part of life for the majority of us. Why should your dh be any different? I suspect that even you, OP, have gradually been conditioned into thinking that your DH is entitled to a life of luxury without the need to get off his backside and do some sodding work.

Most of the people I know with successful businesses started small (and often at home and in addition to their day jobs), had done their research and some meaningful business planning and then worked extraordinarily hard to build things up. None of them assumed that tides of money would flow in while their businesses ran themselves.

I think it might be very useful for your DH to have some business advice but also, I think you are doing the right thing by losing patience with him. Perhaps it is time for an uncomfortable ultimatum? For sure, you can't let him fritter your savings away on a series of ridiculous dreams.

What a nightmare, DreamMachine. You say your H has been like this for as long as you've known him - how long is that? It must be at least five years, I'm guessing. That's an awfully long time to piss around. I can't honestly see this improving any time soon. What do his family think? Do they have a track record of behaving like this?

Does he not know that when running a successful business, the alarm goes off twice as early?

When you get to be Bill Gates or Richard Branson you can ignore it, safe in the knowledge that someone else will do the hard work, but most business owners work more hours than their employees, and usually for less per hour!

He is a dreamer, he wont change. All you have to decide is whether you want to sign up for a life of supporting his pipe dreams.

Thanks for the replies everyone, apologies if I don't manage to reply to you.. my head is done in!

Bluestocking, shockingly his family all have a great work ethics. His parents ran corner shops for most of their lives, his dad has now retired and his mum is mid fifties and still does full time heavy manual labour. His sister and her husband also work endless hours. They all laugh at him for thinking he is so much better than than them even though he is from the same background. All think he is a dreamer. It's bad when our own family tell you to get a 'real job' isn't it? We have been together for 7 years by the way, sorry.

To the posters who suggested I get a job, I have one in the bag the minute I pass my driving test this summer fingers crossed. I have worked none stop in jobs I have hated since leaving school at 16 up until DD was 1. This is my dream career move and I am not sacrificing so that DH can continue chasing his next big dream.

I will sit down with him tomorrow and try and flatten this out. It just can't go on like this any more. The resentment I have for him is getting bigger each day when he walks out that door to work to leave me to it, when I know it's for no reason. Why is his pride bigger than his instinct to look after his family? I grew up hearing my dad leave the house at 6am and coming back when I was lying awake in bed at night having worked all day every day doing anything he could lay his hands on to make sure we never went without. At the age of 68 he is still running his own business from his hospital bed. I know it's not just the mans job to provide, but it is to provide something.

I am going to bed now, will check back in tomorrow. Thanks so much to everyone who has replied, good to know I am not being the naive heartless dream slashing bitch I am being made to feel like.

The people I know that have made a go of successful businesses have been people with a passion but also people that worked very, very hard. They worked for years at below minimum wage while doing other jobs, to get theirs off the ground. They didn't swan about, they grafted. Finally, they sold their businesses or got managers but that was years later.

I mean

Sorry, I x-posted. YANBU.

My husband runs his own business. People must think "that's the life" when they see him doing the school run or taking an impromptu afternoon off because it's sunny. They don't see the five am starts, the ten years of no holidays, no luxuries, nothing other than work and sleep work and sleep that got him there. His business does to an extent run itself, now. But it only does so because he has grafted.

He's a passenger OP.

AF beat me to it in saying he is a complete Walter Mitty. He is not even ambitious, he is just playing 'office'.

You need to offload him, families can't carry adult passengers.

You can do what he's doing when you're single with no children - squander what little you've got on pipe dreams and pretend you're going to be a billionaire.

Good luck with your talk.

To fulfil an ambition, you have to work out what you need to get and to DO. After you've had your 'flattening out' session, Dream (I'm nicking that expression!), tell him to work through these books:-
The Success Principles
I Can Make You Rich
Instructions for Happiness & Success

After learning about his own capabilities, it sounds as though he could also do with learning about the industries he gets involved in.

I'm going to predict that your talk will result in him telling you:
He needs someone who will support him and believe in him, and that by asking him to create a business plan you are actually undermining him.
Since you don't understand him at all, why should he pander to your very unreasonable and frankly ridiculous demands?

Then he will say something awful about you and your activities.

Yep, been there, done that, have the t-shirt.

I forgot - YANBU!