Aibu to want dh to give up and move on

[butterflyflutterbies]

My dh has had a business for 7 years. In the past i have worked there with him but the last few years we have started to home educate our 6 children as some of the have autism and learning difficulties which we really creating issues at school.

So now I stay at home with them full time.
My dhs business has limped along for all those years. It supports 4 staff and basic costs but it leaves us with a small amount of money for ourselves at the end of the month - we would be earning pretty much the same each month if he worked a minimum wage job somewhere else.

We have never been able to take our kids on holiday, we buy everything in charity shops and I’m totally sick of dh being stressed and miserable. He leaves the house at 6am and gets back at 7pm on a good day or 10-11 on a bad.

If he was doing his job for someone else we would be more than comfortable it’s a relatively well paid occupation but my dh “hates working for other people”.

He often ends up working weekends as well so there is no time of day where I can get any kind of part time Work .

I do have a small online business which I make a little money from this goes towards extra expenses for example all Christmas costs will come from this.

But realistically I have 6 children to look after, and educate plus trying to run this little side business to meet my costs.

Dh has now said he wants to give up the business so I started getting my hopes up things would improve. But he starting a NEW business .

I feel like crying. Aibu to want him to just give it all up?

I hate all the 'can't work for other people' crap.

So the DP has the skills to earn way more if he worked normal hours for someone else. That would be more money, less stress, more time for the family.

He would ring the same amount of cash in if he did a min wage job. No additional income, but more time to help with the family and less stress.

It is a no-brainer. He should wind up the company and get a job doing the web stuff for an employer.

You’re not BU he’s got 6 kids to
Provide for he needs to do what he can to bring in enough money to give them a decent quality of life.

The op is not bu. She can't even get a weekend job to help because her dh works weekends to still pull in a minimum wage job. If he actually had a minimum wage job instead of earning a minimum wage from his business she would have so many more choices. As it is she doesn't have any and life is stressful. It doesn't sound fair.

Can he just change his employees' job descriptions without consulting them, though? They are not farm animals or pieces of machinery.

Why did he employ 4 people in the first place? He should have started out by himself particularly in a web dev business. Is there enough work for 5 people?

A few things stood out
6 kids was always going to be hard to feel well off/afford holidays eyc
Then taking one parent away from work to home school = a choice that leads to a lot less potential income
Several children are on the spectrum? As another poster said, is your partner also undiagnosed but asd? If so, self employment is perhaps a lot easier for him than working for someone

Also agree that these men who run their own failing businesses and are too special and wonderful to work for other people are indulging their own egos at their families' expense. If you have had a business for seven years and are still earning less than the minimum wage then your business probably sucks (or is just a very average one in a very overcrowded market).

He's financially supporting 12 people. What's improper about his job?

Are you claiming any child tax credit (and working tax credit) you might be entitked to? My husband refused to give me the information to claim it for a few years until he finally accepted that most of our friends were claiming (I had to get them to talk to him) and I got the accountant to talk to him. It changed our lives as we had ploughed through all our savings whilst getting the business running.

Yoy may hate this "can't work for other people crap" silverspot but for some people with asd it is unfortunately true - asd being an actual real disability and not a fad. Now we have no idea whether OP's dh has asd but with several children in the spectrum it is at least a question worth asking. And if he is on the spectrum and really can't work for a third party then a better solution might be that he takes care of the house and kids and the OP goes put to work.

If you want more money put your children into school and earn it yourself.....

I think he needs to put his family's needs before his reluctance to make 4 people redundant. It's lovely to be so caring as a boss but he needs to live in the real world. If the new business has potential then by all means give it a try but he should do so on his own. If like you say he could easily run it alone then he absolutely should. Would mean all profit is his and therefore your family could be more comfortable and so have less stress and worries. He has to just accept sometimes you have to be a little self focused. His family must become his number one priority. Plus he has 6 children who woukd benefit from spending time with dad as well as mum!

The PP was right - he's supporting 12 people! Maybe OP you could be a bit more supportive of him? Or, as someone else said, put the kids in school and get a job yourself.

Have your ASD kids been given a diagnosis?

I have chronic mental health issues and would rather not have to work full time but you know what? I drag my butt into work even on days when I'm in the verge of tears because being poor would be even worse for my health. You have to do the hard things in life sometimes.

If you want more money put your children into school and earn it yourself

This seems to be the obvious solution to me as well.

Put some trust in your local schools to be able to educate your six children - including the ones with special ed needs - they do know what they're doing.

If he hates working for other people could you maybe get a job anc him stay at home to home educate? Do all 6 children need home education? If not would it be possible for you both to share the home educating, you work pt and him work round these hours to try and set up his new business??

Does his current business have any retail value?
If he is running a business that can pay 4 employees then he has clients and work.
What would he do if he was retiring? Just fold the business? That makes no financial sense.

Normally business owners have an exit strategy like raising people in the company to partners with a view of them taking the business after owner retirement by either buying the business or the retired owner still takes dividends/salary.

Can any of his employees buy his business & client base?
Could his new business run alongside and compliment his current business or is it a complete change?

I don't think you are BU. When you're single without kids you can make choices about work and hours to suit yourself, when you have a partner and kids you need to take into account the impact your choices have on the whole family. If you could get the same money for much fewer hours and thus have the option to play a more equal role at home, free up your partner's time to work, or give everyone more free time, then why would you unilaterally decide not to?

I think there seems still to be some social acceptance that decisions about work (especially men's careers) are not subject to the same compromises that affect the rest of family life. When that involves long unsocial hours for low wage, then the other partner pays the opportunity costs of that choice in constraints on their time, limited money, and an inability to earn their own income. There has to be a tipping point at which those costs outweigh the value of the choice made by the working partner for the family as a whole.

Joey that blanket statement about schools knowing what they’re doing when it comes to children on the autistic spectrum is quite frankly laughable.

Some schools know what they’re doing. They’re few and far between. If these children have been removed from state schooling I’d hazard a guess that their previous school/s weren’t quite up to scratch.

He is financially supporting 8 of you. Give him some slack.

If you are struggling then send the kids to school and go to work yourself. Why should you get to do what you want on a day to day basis but he should work somewhere he doesn't want to?

Yanbu. Why are his needs to not work for someone else more important than his kids' needs to be educated in the way that you have jointly decided to be best for them?

Some of you appal me.

we have started to home educate our 6 children as some of the have autism and learning difficulties which we really creating issues at school.

Have those of you pithily telling OP to send her children to school and get paid work herself, had much experience of being the parent of school aged children with additional needs and a paid job? Do you know how well it goes down with employers when you are constantly being called away to collect your child/ attend an urgent meeting/ take them to an appointment? Have you any idea of the amount of time and effort it takes to advocate for, fight for support for, children with additional needs in mainstream (or even specialised) education? Where do you expect OP to find (and how to fund) childcare for six children, some with additional needs, to cover before and after school, INSET days, half terms and school holidays?

How much support do you think OP's DH is able to give her at present, practically and emotionally, with the care and raising and educating of their children? Is the enormous amount of unpaid work she is currently doing not valued by you lot? Given that these are OP's DH's children just as much as hers, does he not have a responsibility to look at what is best for the family? Right now they barely have enough money, they don't have enough time and OP's DH is " stressed and miserable".

If OP's DH did the same work he does now as an employee, they would be financially better off, he would be under less pressure, they would have more family time, OP would have more opportunity to earn the money that apparently is all some of you value. It is unreasonable of him not to even seriously consider it. Why does him not much liking working for other people outweigh the financial, emotional and practical needs of seven other people?

We can’t put at least three of ours children in school. When they were in school I was working full time we were no better off because I was being called away a minimum of 2 sometimes 4 or 5 days a week to deal with issues so I was actually not able to work. One of our children in particular was harming herself because she was so unable to cope with the change in routine that going to school plus childcare brought.

We have been in Hospital 10 times in the last 2 years.

It’s not as simple as me just getting a job and putting them in school if it was the clearly I would have done that .

I think a business that's going 7 years, with 4 employees and supporting a family of 6 dc is doing pretty well. Unless he's going to get something easily and amazing then it seems pretty silly to give it up. You certainly can't think: he gives it up=he gets a job and all is financially good.

Switch it round: he goes and gets a job working for someone else and he's at risk of the owners wife saying "get rid of the business and do something else" and losing his job.

My first thought too was that the OP's DH may be on the autistic
spectrum, in which case he may truly struggle with working for an employer.

His staff may well be eligible for redundancy payments. Can he afford to pay these if he makes them redundant.If he is just scraping by, the payments due could be a big burden. He might need to consider running down the business over a longer period to manage the redundancy issue. He could perhaps also looking at moving over gradually to sub-contracting self-employed people to do the work he needs rather than employing them direct with all the overheads and extra work that entails.

I agree with the suggestion that he should try to get some impartial advice with improving the profitability of the existing business as a first step.