Last thread about my husband's 'business?

[JennieLee]

Four years ago my husband set up a business based in our home. He had - initially - a lot of enthusiasm and also some relevant knowledge (eg good acounts skills). But he lacked knowlege of IT and marketing

I had initially been willing to help but hadn't realised how time-consuming it would be. My assumption had also been that he would work to improve his IT and marketing skills - and gradually become more focused.

Instead I think he became less focused. He became interested in one very niche area and started putting in all his energy (plus a lot of money) on that - even though it didn't translate into any sales. I told him I was no longer willing to spend as much time baling him out - and hoped that this would result in him taking a more all-round approach.

The most recent thing - which really feels like the last straw - has related to data-protection regulations. Obviously we've built up a lot of contacts over the last few years, so to lose the right to be able to get in touch with them would just be one more instance of shooting in ourselves with the foot.

I'm quite ill at the moment - just a virus - but nagged him into doing the necessary work. He hadn't actually bothered to update or collect the various contacts so that took him some time. He said it wasn't possible to do a list. I assured him that it was and that he could look up how to do this. He then came in while I was in bed to announce he'd 'lost' the list he'd spent two hours compiling. He'd also drafted a very off-putting sounding formal email to all our contacts which sounded highly discouraging. I rewrote the email and found his 'lost' list.

Unfortunately he'd not bothered to create the right sort of list. He'd created a Microsoft group rather than the relevant email contacts list. So his list couldn't simply be used without a lot of time-consuming cutting and pasting. This is something I did. (Another example of all the IT baling out I've done over the last few years.)

I just feel exhausted and it has really highlighted for me that four years of asking him to take more responsibility and learn new skills so that he can actually run a viable business has fallen on deaf ears.

It has had a very bad effect on our marriage. I've told him this but I suppose I feel that we're at an impasse. I'm quite old and though I've started earning more money than I did when my daughter was at home, it's not really enough to start a new life on my own.

I just don't know what to do about the big gap between us. I'll feel a bit better when I get back to work later this week, and am sufficiently recovered to get on with my own life and projects.

I am sure that I have made many mistakes along the way and also that I'm not the easiest person to live with. But I'd like to feel less hopeless and sad and angry.

So what do you want to do?

I want him to simplify his business and wind down part of the operation as he does not have the skills to run it adequately. That will reduce the negative impact on my life.

I want to continue building up my own separate, independent life - both in terms of what I earn and my friendships.

Well, you can do the second, and it sounds like you should, but it doesn't sound like he'll do the first thing. You'll just have to stop baling him out when he fucks up, and look at moving out.

Running your own business doesn't mean you have to have the skills to do everything. You can farm out data and emails and I suggest that you do. Or he employs you properly to do it.

The idea was that the business would keep my husband busy and amused in his retirement - and not lose money/make a modest profit. Paying somebody to do admin, even at minimum wage level, would require my husband to work in a different, more commercially focused way. So my assumption had been, particularly as he'd seen the business as a way to stay mentally agile - that he would welcome the chance to improve his IT skills. He'd been very efficient in his old job. (However, looking back this was because he had secretarial, IT and marketing support. Also his department's work would be externally audited on a regular basis.)

I think people are right about now baling him out. Because I gave him a lot of help in the beginning and my name is on the website as a partner, I do feel implicated when things go wrong. But I think I'll have to say that unless he agree to wind down/slim down the operation that I want to step right out of the business partnership.

'Not baling him out'... I mean

Paying somebody to do admin, even at minimum wage level, would require my husband to work in a different, more commercially focused way

SO this isn't a business, its a hobby.

You want him to improve his IT skills so that he can better manage the IT housekeeping chores required, not because he's trying to see IT related services, correct? Have you become in effect his IT support?

Yes. At the start I believed it would grow into a 'real' business, but at around the point when it could have started to take off my husband got distracted into another related area - which was much more niche and really more to do with collecting/researching rather than selling. He thinks it was perfectly legit to develop this additional interest - and of course it's not a crime to have done so. But I felt - and still feel - used that I'd had my home and life turned upside down - only for him to essentially have moved on to something different.

How infuriating! I personally would be getting him to take an employed post if he simply can't be bothered to put the effort into maintaining his own company

How was your life turned upside down? Do you have a proper job?

So just walk away from it of you hate it.

Fwiw lots of family businesses involve family helping out for free. This doesn't sound like a business though, just a hobby.

And yes, I'm the IT support. The theory is because I'm 10 years younger I 'know how these things work'. I may be younger but I'm not of the generation that got taught this stuff. I did some Word Processing qualifications a couple of decades back. Since then I've worked it out as I went along - and did an ECDL recently (to improve my own employability, rather than as anything to do with his business.)

Then you aren't the best person to do it either!!

The house was turned upside down because of needing to store all the items that are for sale, as well as packaging and other materials needed in order to make the items saleable. The front room - where I used to work - doubled as a client show room. When clients do visit the visible areas of downstairs as well as the front of the house need to look presentable. (Rather as they'd do as if the house itself was on the market.)

While my daughter was at school and my husband worked very long hours in his old, well-paid job I used to mainly do freelance work from home. I have gradually started doing more and more agency work outside the home.

*The house was turned upside down because of needing to store all the items that are for sale, as well as packaging and other materials needed in order to make the items saleable.

This sounds really familiar. Did you post about him before?

If so I think the general mood music was he was a bit of an arse last time!

No, I'm certainly not the best person to do IT/marketing. But I'm not sure that anybody would be because there's no strategy or policy. It's not a sense of 'These are our current clients and this is how we plan keep in touch with them, and these are the sorts of people who we aim to reach and our plan to do this involves doing a) b) and c). That sort of thinking just isn't there - despite my earlier promptings. I think my husband genuinely believed that if he stuck a few interesting items on a website, they'd sell themselves. And when it didn't happen rather than trying harder, he lost interest a bit and wandered down a kind of side alley....

Yes, I posted before. Sorry to be back - but I think I am very slowly working my way forward if you see what I mean. (With your help!)

DH and I 'run' our own business. We used to employ an admin but when she left and I'd taken early retirement it seemed sensible fir me to take over her role. We are both quite old. DH is perfectly capable but I I have to show him IT stuff time and again as he refuses to retain it in his head. Drives me nuts.

Given his apparent unwillingness/ inability to comply with data protection laws, I think you need to start to protect yourself in case his business is fined or sued.

It would be worth speaking to a solicitor about whether it would be sensible to disassociate yourself and any jointly owned property from this business.

That's ridiculously over the top inertia

Basically you've enabled your husbands hobby (collecting things and selling them on ebay?) and now you see its not going to be successful you are fed up with it.

Totally understandable but the odd thing is that you don't seem to be able to talk to him frankly about it.

OK, so the business is actually a hobby which is expected to be a cost neutral exercise, rather than anything that turns a profit?

You need to re-draw the boundaries with your husband about how much impact it has on your life/lives. For example:

If he has to make the house look presentable because clients are coming round, then that is HIS responsibility to clean and tidy up.

You are no longer his IT support.

He must protect you from any negative consequences if the business folds - your name is not on the official docs, no debts secured on your home, separate business insurance in case he is sued, etc.

You continue to grow your skills and develop your social life. I have a feeling this is the tip of the iceberg, OP. Best of luck.

There have been a number of conversations. I suppose the difficulty has partly been that emotion can get in the way. It's good on one level to communicate that you're angry and upset - but sometimes partners can react negatively to feelings and see them as 'over the top'.

I think sometimes earlier conversations have resulted in small positive changes- I've detached a little, he's gone through phases of 'tidying up' the business or working a bit harder on some neglected aspect of it.

And perhaps, there's that question of if a life partner is enjoying something then should one just allow them to do it. (It's a bit ritzier than ebaying in that each item sells for £100 or so. There's also some money to be made from associated services.)

I think for me the clinching thing is that my partner is getting a bit more physically tired. He'll have a significant birthday next year - and it does seem right on every level for his business/hobby business to be a bit more manageable by that date. And for me to put an end date to my feeling of implicated by saying at that point he could carry on with a slimmed-down version, but my name wouldn't be on the website/cards etc.

I can see why you'd be tearing your hair out over it :( FWIW twenty years ago I got involved in a business with someone else, who considered themselves 'the marketing arm'. It was a frigging nightmare. She spent thousands on going to trade shows, I kept telling her we couldn't manufacture what she was promoting and taking huge orders for, she'd blithely say "Businesses are always marketing-led" and similar jargon-y rubbish. The relief when I finally pulled the plug on it!

In your shoes I'd sell off anything you could cut-price, get your house back, and ask him to take up golf. Then develop your own career.

My FIL still works with me and he's 85! Still has a lot to offer as well. You make your dh sound ancient, winding down, needing to keep his faculties going etc etc