to ask if you know of anyone who has been able to work with their DH?

[var123]

and how do they/ you manage not to kill someone?

DH and I have a business together already. It was a miserable, soul destroying, marriage destroying, frustrating, annoying (and lots of other adjectives) experience as we set it up. Eventually, we took separate, non-overlapping responsibilities and then it was just about tolerable.

That business us more or less defunct now (the world has changed) and we need a new source of income. Plan B was to go try to go back to our old careers but we're too old now - late 40s - to be able to get back in (we tried).

Plan C is to set up another business together. TBH I've had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it. Its not something I have any interest in but even if I was interested in the business, I still would not want to work with DH.

I love him as a husband, and as a couple we function quite well. It used to be really good until we put our marriage under strain by setting up the first business). However, as business partners, our relationship is dire.

He's leading the project, whilst I do as he says. Except even simple stuff -like choosing a font colour, or writing an email - takes hours and causes huge arguments. Literally, every time I do something, he is in the background either in a huff because its not what he wanted me to do (and my priorities are all wrong), or I am doing it wrong, or don't I understand that he's done this already?? Very occasionally, I actually get it right and then he's all smiles and "see you can do it. now why can't you be like that all the time?"

Its driving me mad. So, I do my very best to avoid actually doing any work, but that's a problem as well (obviously).

This morning, he asked me to write a list of outstanding work for a project. I realised that someone hadn't replied to my email about it last week, so I started to draft a simple two line follow up email to enquire about the latest status. I wrote 5 words and DH started to complain that I had mis-expressed the situation. So i deleted it and wrote it again. After two sentences, he was still watching, so i asked if this was ok with him and he said no, it wasn't and I shouldn't be doing this email at all. At that point, i seriously considered smashing my skull into the desk!

I stormed off, calmed down and came back and told him that I just can't work with him. Now he's gone upstairs in a huff.

I can't work with him, but I can't get a job either that will pay anything like what we need to survive.

I think it's your husband that's the problem.
My advice, if you absolutely have to work together - is to arrange separate responsibilities between the two of you, agree an overall approach to things that you both adopt, and leave one another to it.

He can't be looking over your shoulder as you write emails - that's just not going to work. You both have to have something you're responsible for and not have the other interfere.

Ex-colleagues love him! He's so nice, so friendly, so easy-going, so unselfish apparently. He has many old work friends. They think he is great. he's just like that at home, but aaagh when I work with him!!!

All i see is huffing and sulky behaviour and an inability to clearly communicate information.

I worked with my husband for a while. The dynamic between work relationships and home relationships is so different - he will treat those former colleagues differently to how he treats you because there are repercussions for him if he treats them like that!

I just think you need to have different jobs that you do and no interfere in them because someone will get narked off!

Are you able financially to set up your own separate companies - using your last business as experience?

I know a couple that have worked together for over 30 years. They do have pretty defined role though and he'd never tell her how to do her job.

DH and I run two entirely separate businesses but have happily shared a studio space for the last 4 years. We're keen to wind my business down for my maternity leave then I will return to work with him.

We think and problem-solve so wildly differently though (which is why the marriage works) that I am feeling trepidation! Will be watching this thread with interest...

Different responsibilites are what worked before. The problem is that this business is DH's vision. I think its dry and boring.

It would be the equivalent to writing a book about golf scores when you have zero interest in golf.

Maybe later we can each have other own area of responsibility but its more difficult to do that in this setup period. Everything I do simply does not conform to his vision, probably because I just don't share his vision. I don't get what makes it a good idea.

I work with dh and dfather. I love working with dh. We have different skills and different interests and work together well. Sometimes we have different opinions on how to do things but it gets worked out and I learn from his opinions (and hope he does from mine!).

Issue here is your dh is being patronizing and your 'boss'. It can't work with him as your boss.

We work together, it can be bloody awful. It's ok at the moment because we are leaving each other alone apart from a weekly meeting to discuss financial projections and targets and sales leads. I will no longer enter into any design projects with him as he behaves much like your DH does.

We can't work in the same room as DH is dreadfully picky about emails and needs total silence to write them. We don't email each other's clients, both of our heads would explode. If he doesn't feel he can trust you to contact clients (!) then that needs to formally be his responsibility.

Then if he wants you to do a task like your list today you just bounce if back to him with what you need to get it completed.

Is he a reasonable person but stressed or is he an arse? Jury is still out on my DH but he has been ok since I pointed out that I could take back my area of the business chuck him out and get tax credits and be better off!

If you aren't interested in it why are you doing it? Is it financially unviable for him to her someone else and you do a different job?

Is there anything you like about business in general? I like spreadsheets, I could analyse fishing or football but I could never do any work that actually involves me doing either of those things.

Unfortunately, there simply isn't the money to set up and promote 2 businesses.

Occassionally, I've been frustrated by a colleague's stance on something but I always got over it/ saw it as the small part of my life it was. I've never felt like smashing my head into the desk before just for the relief of not having to sit there and endure it (I actually visualised doing it).

If I was an employee, I should be fired.
If he was my boss, I'd resign.
If we weren't married and setting up this business together, I'd either go home at night and be glad to get away from him, or if that didn't work, i would dissolve the partnership.

We ran a business together for several years. I now do work for his company (admin and financial stuff) but have my own web business.

The only way that it works, ime, is total compartmentalisation. Things were tricky before we perfected this.

When we go to the office - we are colleagues. When we are at home - we are husband and wife.

home stuff stays out of office interactions and we leave professional disagreements at the front door.

he once hauled me over the coals and warned me that I may be fired, after some spectacular cock up on my part.

We went home and had dinner.

He was my boss in the office and my equal at home.

What caused the tension was not keeping the two mentally separate. As long as we did that, it was fine. It was expecting my boss to treat me as his wife or my husband to give me a free pass at work, or my boss expecting me to love him like his wife or my husband expecting me to follow instructions that had the potential to cause problems

husband and wife behave like husband and wife

director and office manager behave like director and office manager

I'm fairly good with accounts, spreadsheets, writing, organising, prioritising. I can usually work out what the objective is, work out the optimal way to reach the objective and then do it. What I can't do is design or successfully sell.

DH can't design either (though he thinks he can which is another issue) but he is good at selling/ marketing because people like him.

For some reason, on setting up this business, I just can't apply my skills. Everything I try to do has to be fully explained to DH who then starts huffing because he's already partially done it apparently and then he accuses me of being so disinterested that I didn't bother to find out, or alternatively (his current favourite), I am so dismissive of his abilities that I don't trust him. (I don't get this but its what he says).

I admit that I have said things to DH that would make a normal working relationship untenable. In fact I did this morning. I said "you are driving me crazy. Why can't you just say yes, no or don't know? I can't write down a huffing sound"

I've never said anything like that to a colleague, ever. But its just another of the low points when working with DH - except obviously we aren't actually achieving anything so working is a misnomer.

Oh yeah.. and Friday night at 11pm is when I am definitely off-duty. I would not value a call from a colleague to discuss some extremely mundane work detail

In the same way, I do not I react enthusiastically when DH calls me over to look at his laptop so he can show me something unbelievably uninteresting and with at best marginal utility (which he invariably does late at night/ Sunday afternoons etc)

I work with my DH and have done for the past 9 years. I'm Company Director so technically his boss but he has the knowledge. Honestly? It's bloody hard work and I doubt we'd do it again.

Having said that, we do work well together. I manage the office - cashflow, day to day accounting, answering the phone, advertising, dealing with clients and suppliers, etc. He is technical so manages the workshop, technical queries and invoicing.

We discuss clients/suppliers and make decisions together. I respect his opinion and he respects mine. We don't always agree but we'll thrash it out at work until we reach a solution.

I've been known to completely wipe the floor with him at work if he's made a cock up, and he's done the same with me. It NEVER gets taken home.

The furthest a work disagreement ever goes is the car on the way home and a home disagreement may be resolved in the car on the way to work but we have staff, we cannot let our home life become an issue at work.

It's taken time, effort and a life coach(!) to get to where we are today. I enjoy working with him most of the time and I'm working from home a bit more at the moment and I do miss him. He's my best friend and we're thick as thieves in both environments. That's not to say we don't have stressful moments, but we're much better at coping with them now.

He would never tell me how to do my job - but if I ask his opinion, then he'll give it. Same as I never tell him how to do something but he'll often ask me my views.

It's about respect and treating each other like you would any other colleague. I think the issue here is your DH sees himself as your boss. I don't see myself as my DHs boss and vice versa. We're both managers of our staff but not of each other.

I don't think DH so much sees himself as my boss, more he owns the business idea. It IS his idea: I've had no part in the concept or pushing to get the idea accepted. He thought of it and suggested it to me six years ago (I said no immediately).

He then refined it over the next two years (and again I said no, I really do not want to do this ).

He then spent the following two years keeping it like a pet project for himself that he kept mocking up marketing brochures and presentations for. I responded by saying nothing, hoping that it would come to nothing.

Then 18 months ago, it became obvious that we needed to start a new business. I know what i wanted to do,, but it would take a year of re-training starting in September. DH said if I would help him get the business started for a year, he would support me with the re-training for september 2014.

So, I've been trying to work on this new business for the last year, but I'm a lot less effective than my worst fears - not working now for example - and the business still has a mountain of work to be done on it, to get it to where DH wants it.

The course I wanted to go on has started again, so it will be at least another year before I can start, and I'll be a lot closer to 50 than I would have been. Moreover, DH seems to have quietly forgotten that he promised I'd only have to be involved for a year.

The problem is we need this business to succeed but I am seriously considering refusing to even try to work with DH any longer, because its not won't but genuinely can't.

DH runs his own business and I sometimes help out (I also have a separate job). It only works when we are each clear about our roles and who is in charge in a particular situation. If we are doing the practical side of the business then DH is in charge and I follow instructions because he is the expert; if its the more office based elements then I am in charge because that is my area of expertise.

I was tempted to brain DH once when he started to tell me how to write formal emails / letters etc. Firstly, I do exactly that as part of my usual job and secondly, DH's first language isn't even English so he's not that hot on formal language, punctuation conventions etc.

Everyone says separate roles are the key. I will try to think again how we might achieve that in practice.

No one has told me that finding the business area boring is an excuse for not contributing - but it isn't and I know that. So, why am I not just getting over it?

No one has scolded me for the way I routinely speak to DH at work, or questioned the way I over reacted this morning (it was an over reaction but I did genuinely contemplate a form of instant suicide just to escape the moment. It would have left my children motherless and DH wracked with guilt. What was I thinking??)

var123
May be the truth is that you really don't want to be doing anything with the business at all? You are helping out because you can't see any other option but perhaps you resent the fact that it is taking you away from your own plans more than your realise?

This may just be cod pyschology so feel free to raise an eyebrow and ignore.

I feel so sorry for you and can completely understand your lack of motivation. I also worked in 2 businesses with my 'entrepreneur' exH. The first one did reasonably well to provide a living, but it was very 'hands on' and you would never get rich at it. The second one had more potential to make more money, and you could hire other people to do the work, so wasn't as labour intensive.

Luckily there were creative aspects that I found in both businesses that I enjoyed and we had very different roles in each, but even so, he tried to micro manage me in many areas, and he was a workaholic and expected me to be one too. Work discussions took place at all hours of day, night and weekend.

I had no maternity leave, and had to pluck my newborn baby off my breast and give her to my mother to go and deal with important calls during busy periods as he refused to get anyone in to help. When she was 6 weeks old, there was a massive event in our town which our business had a big part of, and I've never felt so horribly torn before. Luckily she was a very easy baby, but the guilt at seeing her cry whenever her feeding was interrupted still stays with me.

The worst was that he expected all the comforts of a stay at home wife (as I predominantly worked from home workshops and offices) while expecting all the output of a regular employee. The number of arguments or cold silences I had to endure because I didn't have dinner on the table at 7pm or the house wasn't tidy were legion.

Anyway, needless to say, it didn't last. I would advise that you get a job, any job and let him carry on with his business. You're not enjoying what you're doing. If the business is viable, he doesn't need someone who isn't interested in it at all. Maybe he could hire someone for a few hours a week to do the things he can't do and that you currently do.

You will be bringing in some money, and he still gets to have his business. Is something like that possible?

I just tried speaking with him again. I asked please could we try to sort out individual roles. He replies that this will make it difficult for him to give me things to do.
I say, well yes, you won't give things to do. I'll take responsibility for my area, and you for yours. If you have an idea, then you have to do it and it will be the same for me. If your idea is for my area, then keep it to yourself.

Then he got really annoyed with me, calling me names, telling me how I feel, what i am like, what sort of person i am, what my mood is.

I got annoyed back.

It goes into an argument. he tells me everything I posted earlier today as though its news to me and I haven't heard it before.

Finally, he tells me that I am obviously not interested in the business and I should therefore have nothing to do with it. He'll do it by himself and if it succeeds, then he might let me have a small share in the profits. Unfortunately, I am fairly certain that he does not really mean to allow me to leave the business because he shouted it at me, which usually means that he'd only saying it for effect.

We do it.
When DH worked for someone else they also employed me part time to help him. I have my own business and when DH left to start his own company I left too and I contract to his company now for 1 day a week ( I also have other clients). We have never fallen out, I think it's because our skill sets are so different ( him techhy and me sales and marketing) that I wouldn't dream of telling him how to write software and he wouldn't tell me how to draft a marketing document.
I wouldn't work for anyone who shouted at me, whether I was married to them or not.

This business sounds like its his baby, he wants to control it all. I think if you both carry on like this you will argue yourselves out of a marraige.

I would get a job or work on your own business.

I couldn't work with my husband. I love him dearly and all of that, but I know it could never work if we had to work together. We do run a small business letting out four additional properties that we own, but it looks after itself a lot of the time and it is just the account rent is paid into which needs regular checking out.

I think it sounds as if your husband's enthusiasm for this new business idea (which you admit that you don't share) has worn you down. That and his fussiness (my H would be the same). It would drive me up the wall. He clearly wants to have a finger in all the pies at the moment, so you can't have clearly defined and separate roles. That is possibly why it isn't working.

Are you keeping your ear to the ground for other jobs outside of this, part time or otherwise? I would be, to try and get a break from the situation. I am 48. I was an SAHM for 15 years but did manage to get suitable part time work about 4 months ago, after a prolonged search. The job market is picking up a bit now in most sectors, so keep an open mind.