To expect DH’s help and support?

[TigerBrite]

I used to work in hospitality but have been unemployed for several months due to Covid. There’s no sign of jobs like mine returning any time soon, and when they do the competition will be huge. I could be unemployed for years.

DH works in web design at a big computing firm. They often hire freelance contractors to do bits and bobs, and they have small “one man band” companies who hire their equipment and collaborate with them. DH often complains that these self employed guys are just knocking out websites with very little skill and are probably earning as much as he does. So I thought if they can do it then so can I? Not necessarily working with DH, just using his expert knowledge and skills to guide and inform my freelance business.

I planned to learn the basics with DH’s support and build up slowly, studying while DC is at school and working from home. I asked DH to help me write a business plan because he knows everything about the industry.

He has refused. He said I don’t have the skills, there are lots of complicated factors I haven’t considered like needing equipment and insurance, and where would I find clients? In fact he criticised me until he made me cry. I said yes, that’s why I asked you to direct me on what to learn, advise me and help me write a business plan? So then he got angry and said if you want to do it then just do it, why do I have to be involved? You just want me to do it for you because you’re not capable of doing anything by yourself! It’s not my business and if you can’t do it yourself then you shouldn’t be doing it at all!

So now I feel really demotivated because I didn’t think it was unreasonable to ask him to support me with his expert knowledge, because I’m his wife but also because he would benefit from having a wife who’s employed and earning money. I chose this path because I had an expert to advise me and I have no idea where to start on my own.

every 19 year old with an iMac can build websites in their bedrooms these days
I should have no problem then!

🙄 you get that comment has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to build websites, and everything to do with over supply of basic skills, right?

He criticised you until he made you cry

He. Made. You. Cry.

He's a bully OP.

And what's more, I'll bet his buttons were pushed because if you do retrain - with your drive and ambition, you'll be able to look behind the curtain and see that he's not the big I am after all. And the reason he's not going it alone is that he's not god's gift to computing.

You took him at his word when he complained about the cowboys with no skills and him with all his skills, and that scared him angry.

I don’t have any issue with you working any advantage that you have... if daddy can pay your start up cost, and husband can find you a client, well... lucky you 🤷🏻‍♀️
Of course you should work any advantage.

But expecting your husband to plan it all for you moves “working your advantage” into “taking the piss”, and I’d have been angry too.

He might be a total arsehole, from your follow up posts, or he might be frustrated with your griping about not liking your job, but not actually doing anything yourself about it.

Even this thread... you started it to complain he made you cry, not to ask for advice in selecting a course to start you on the way to showing him he’s wrong. (possibly from the other side of a degree absolute!)

Have you looked into apprenticeship roles as a developer or other tech jobs? They can be surprisingly well paid for entry-level, and the physics degree would be a huge advantage.

Web design itself is massively, massively oversubscribed and you'll be competing with everyone and his dog - look into other areas of tech like database administration or data science (you'll be well in there with a physics degree). Not as sexy as web design, but much less competiton.

@TigerBrite

sick/maternity pay, pensions not being matched by an employer just to start I didn’t get that in the shitty job I had before so I guess I’ll be no worse off.

What was your degree in?
Physics. Useless for getting a job with. Hence how I ended up working in hospitality admin, which was just a random crappy job that paid the rent.

Physics isn't useless! There are lots of jobs. You could go into anything numerate or teaching.

There are more shades than everything being amazing or useless.

Contractors/freelancers , when they take on a job are expected by the client to hit the ground running, be expert in their chosen field and require minimum supervision. If you are lucky you will be given a few days to get familiar with the project to hand before you are expected to start 'performing'. I should know as I have been freelancing for 20 years. Its hard work, reputation is hard earned and can be lost over one bad project.

there is nothing wrong with teaching, btw
My mum was a teacher and it’s a living hell. Long hours, low pay, physical violence, verbal abuse, no appreciation or respect, and now Covid. If you don’t know what’s wrong with it then you don’t know any teachers.

But there’s the gender pay gap right there for you... you didn’t want to relocate to develop a career
My Dad had a severe stroke and I wasn’t willing to leave my Mum to cope with him on her own, especially when she was still working to pay off their mortgage. There weren’t any entry level Physics related jobs within commuting distance and zero graduate schemes. I applied for different jobs such as accountancy and computing that were available locally, but it was clear I hadn’t chosen that path at university and I had no prior knowledge so nobody would hire me. I took whatever job I could get and I worked very hard, to no avail. I also volunteered for charity and worked very hard for free, but that didn’t lead to anything either. Then I had DC, then Covid happened, and now I’m pretty much screwed. It’s clear to me that hard work is worth nothing unless you know the right people in a particular industry, so it makes sense to me to choose an industry where I have contacts.

But you don’t have contacts because your husband doesn’t want to share his. And neither would I in his position, I’d expect my partner to do their own legwork as I had to do.

I’d expect my partner to do their own legwork as I had to do
That seems silly to me. If you’re in a position to help out a relative, why would you not? Especially if their earnings will go into your family pot!

@TigerBrite

I’d expect my partner to do their own legwork as I had to do That seems silly to me. If you’re in a position to help out a relative, why would you not? Especially if their earnings will go into your family pot!

No. Because you’ll not take well to being taught by your husband and you’re coming across entitled and quite lazy.

@TigerBrite

I’d expect my partner to do their own legwork as I had to do That seems silly to me. If you’re in a position to help out a relative, why would you not? Especially if their earnings will go into your family pot!

But you don't have any knowledge or skill in the field, so him 'helping you out' won't get you anywhere!?

@Cocomarine

It’s such a depressing read. You have a physics degree, for goodness’ sake! So you’re obviously intelligent.

But there’s the gender pay gap right there for you... you didn’t want to relocate to develop a career, and you’ve ended you’ve ended up having a child without an established career AND surprise surprise you’re in the carer/housewife role. I could weep.

We don't know that she's intelligent just because she studied Physics. For all we know, she could have got a third.

LOL at physics being a useless degree!

@Love51 I’ll stand corrected, but I don’t think you can even get into a Physics degree with a Physics A level, and even if you then bomb the degree, the A level isn’t one you can wing at the last minute 🙂

Having contacts might enable you to get your foot in the door and your CV looked at in IT, but you won't get the job without a shedload of experience. If you want to work in web design or web development (these are 2 different things) then I'd want you to demonstrate that you had a solid portfolio of previous work and a lot of previous experience. IT contactors are expensive. I swear some make a career out of just doing the job at a minimum acceptable level and just moving from company to company (these are probably the ones your DH is moaning about) but to do that you need to have masses of self confidence, huge amounts of resilience and to accept that you will constantly be looking for your next job. From what I've seen on this thread, that's not the sort of person you are. The other type of contractors are the ones that are good at their job, and companies tend to hang on to them because they know they deliver good value and they get subsequent jobs via word of mouth and being able to prove that they've delivered in the past. Someone starting from scratch is going to take a long while to build up to this sort of level of expertise.

With a Physics degree you are clearly numerate and most likely have good analytical and problem solving skills. Obviously the job market is tough right now, but I'd expect a Physics degree plus some evidence of interest e.g. doing coding in your own time, to be sufficient to land you an entry level job as a developer. Or an apprenticeship as a PP suggested. The crucial thing there is to be able to display your interest and aptitude. But you do need loads of experience to be getting mega bucks in IT. Or to move into management.

I can't believe how hard it is to get through to you. Your replies suggests you are on the defensive and not really thinking about the validity of people's points but surely you've come here for another perspective. I can see how you could end up in tears and he completely exasperated.

@TigerBrite

Perhaps your DH would be more willing to listen to your plans if you got a job you could do right now, alongside training for a new career whatever that might be I can’t realistically do both because I’m the primary carer and housewife. I do all of the housework and laundry and look after DC, which leaves me with a few hours on a weekday, term time only. I can either use those hours to work in a dead end job (as I did previously) or use them to study and set up a small business that’s flexible around the hours I’m available.

Rethink this. Why can’t you work and study? You have one child. Come on, housework and laundry is not a big job.

You say you’ve always worked hard. So if you’re working full time, why can’t you study too? Loads of people do. Sign up to an online course in whatever area of web design you’re interested. Do the study in the evening. Expect your husband to put child to bed on your study evenings. Have an entire day at the weekend, 09:00-17:00 studying. That’s loads!

Now if you want to post that your husband isn’t stepping up with housework and childcare for you to do that - you have all my sympathy. And sadly it’s not something you can force to happen.

But if you have drive and ambition to retrain, then you’ll do it after your child is in bed, if that’s the only time you have. You can get 2 hours each day on a Sat and Sun just by sticking them in from of Disney+! Fuck housework - reduce it. Dinner doesn’t take long if you plan the simplest prep meals... and if your husband doesn’t like that, he can cook for himself.

@TigerBrite

I’d expect my partner to do their own legwork as I had to do That seems silly to me. If you’re in a position to help out a relative, why would you not? Especially if their earnings will go into your family pot!

Because I’m not about to give anyone something on a plate that I actually did work hard for. The expectation that I would or should, just makes me more inclined to say no.

Because even if I did give you contacts and show you how to do the basics, you’d be unlikely to get a job without any experience, and nobody would take you seriously if you applied for jobs saying “my husband works for XYZ company”

Because as PP have pointed out, contractors don’t start out that way - they will have had perm roles first and can demand a high day rate because of their experience, of which you have none, so nobody would hire you

Because it’s not my desire to start a new business venture and I don’t want to devote time and energy to something I don’t want to do

Because I don’t think I’d even want my partner to work in my industry (unless they already did before I met them) as I like having the separation between work and home life

Because if I went around telling my contacts and colleagues that my partner was now doing my job and they should hire them, despite having no experience, I’d be laughed at

Need I go on?

One of my friends lost her job in Covid, was in hospitality too.

She decided to launch her own business. I was quite sceptical as she has no experience at all l, is not business minded and as she says herself, is not good with numbers.

Well she's doing amazingly. She spent hours after hours trading everything she could about the business, did much research, wrote an impressive business and it's going so far much better than anticipated at this stage.

One of our friends is an accountant and works with businesses advising them when they are failing. She did ask her if she could come to her with a few questions of ever, but that was it.

You say you are hard working but seem to expect a lot from your OH when he doesn't believe there really is a realistic market there.

Maybe he made you cry because no matter what he said, you wouldn't listen to what he had to say about it.

If you so strongly believe in it, do it all on your own and i.pressed your OH with what you managed to accomplish on your own.

I don't think YABU OP.

Presumably if your DH knows the business, he could even consider going in to business together with you? He could be the expert, and you could do the marketing, booking, accounts, admin etc initially while you also learn and train to do the more expert side of things.

LOL at physics being a useless degree!
Depends where you live I suppose. It’s useless in a semi rural area of the north with no big science labs or research companies. I tried applying for accountancy but was told repeatedly that I should have studied accountancy at university, as I was less preferable than accountancy graduates who already had knowledge of basic principles. Ditto when I applied for entry level computing jobs - my competitors had computing degrees. Currently there are two entry level jobs for physics graduates within 30 miles, so not a huge chance of relevant employment if i was a new graduate now.

@Katela18

I don't think YABU OP.

Presumably if your DH knows the business, he could even consider going in to business together with you? He could be the expert, and you could do the marketing, booking, accounts, admin etc initially while you also learn and train to do the more expert side of things.

@Katela18 why would her husband do a whole second job, whilst she pisses about sending out the invoice at the end of it? He’s got a job.

What “marketing” is she going to do?

@TigerBrite

I’d expect my partner to do their own legwork as I had to do That seems silly to me. If you’re in a position to help out a relative, why would you not? Especially if their earnings will go into your family pot!

Because they would not jave the educarion or skills and that would end up making me look bad. This is why I do not provide references

You just come across as more delusional with each post. When you left university you applied for accountancy and IT jobs but nobody hired you because your degree was in physics and you had no skill set for the jobs you were applying for... You want to set up an IT business because your husband has "contacts"! Despite having no IT skill set.

Who you know can get you in the door but that's only worth anything if you have something to offer.

You have no sense or understanding of how things work and you're not willing to listen.

Your poor husband, he must feel like he's talking to the wall trying to get any sense into you. It must be stressful for him to have you insist he let you join him so you can ruin his reputation in his field with your delusions.

@TigerBrite

LOL at physics being a useless degree! Depends where you live I suppose. It’s useless in a semi rural area of the north with no big science labs or research companies. I tried applying for accountancy but was told repeatedly that I should have studied accountancy at university, as I was less preferable than accountancy graduates who already had knowledge of basic principles. Ditto when I applied for entry level computing jobs - my competitors had computing degrees. Currently there are two entry level jobs for physics graduates within 30 miles, so not a huge chance of relevant employment if i was a new graduate now.

Well, why did you do physics then?