My BF partner won't let her have her own business

[LadyMil]

My BF has been doing a lot of online courses related to animal welfare etc. She currently works as a teaching assistant but absolutely hates it.
She has been expressing her desire for a long time about having her business. We discussed it and she wants to do something dog related (she has a long history of having dogs and other pets), so I suggested she tries dog walking and dog sitting.
During our chat we discussed the many ways she can do it from popping into peoples homes to walk, play, feed etc their pets, walking dogs and possibly having them in her house.

This was months ago and nothing has happened so far.

I asked her if she was enjoying her Easter break and she said yes that she doesn't want to go back to work. So I asked her how her business plans were coming along.

She said that she can't have a business, needs more land, her partner doesn't want that.

I told her that's not fair, while it should be a joint decision, ultimately he should support her choices.

He has his own business, which she helps out massively (unpaid). A lot of the time she finishes work and goes to help him do his work, she does his bookkeeping, all the housework, walks the dog, does all the cooking, shopping and washing.
She finishes work at 3.15pm, goes home to walk the dog, picks up any needed shopping then goes to help him, gets home about 7pm, makes tea, washes up, tidies around, walks the dog again.

She doesn't get to bed until 11/midnight and never has a sleep in (he does).

His children (they are all over 18) treat her like rubbish, they steal from her, talk to her like she is rubbish, trash the house, then ask her for favours like dropping them off at work/college/cinema etc and they have taken drug in the house, smoked weed when she has specifically asked them not to.

AIBU when I told her that is not fair? I told her that she has every right to her choices and a business if she wants one. She does far to much and takes far to much crap from his children. I told her he is not at all supportive.

I'm absolutely furious right now.

YABU to bring up the topic of dogs on a thread about a friend who is being treated as an unpaid skivvy in her own home by her abusive partner and his odious grown children.

There are very few people on MN who can see anything but the word d-o-g here even when it is obvious that the business could be anything but the basic cause of her unhappiness is the way she is being treated.

Your friend might be interested in doing the Freedom Programme run by Women's Aid.

Does she have any qualifications?
She clearly has a strong work ethic and is able to do the bookkeeping for a business. Could she work in bookkeeping for a vet office?

Very frustrating. Why doesn't she want to LTB? Maybe you could suggest she does some other dog related business that could be run out of van - walking and/or grooming maybe? Any dog-related voice will be in high demand now that so many people are going back to work!

Sorry that should have said dog-related business. (wasn't the new site meant to allow post editing?)

If she starts a Business from their home it will make it even harder for her to leave him

Personally, if I were her, I would DUMP the coercive so and so and start out on my own, small at first i.e. house visits, walking a legal amount of dogs at one time, maybe having dogs to stay at hers on a one to one basis. Why should her partner control what she wants to do with her life? If he can't deal with it, kick him to the kerb.

It does sound like you are more enthusiastic than she is, and maybe her blaming the partner is to get you off her back saying "but it's a good idea, you must do it, have you packed in your job yet?"

I told her that's not fair, while it should be a joint decision, ultimately he should support her choices.
That doesn't work. A joint decision but he has to support it whatever? That's not a joint decision. If dh said that to me I'd be seriously unimpressed.
If I said to dh I was quitting my job (or the other way round) to start a business, then we'd discuss the business plan and look at it seriously. If after doing that it looked viable, then we probably would support the other one.
In fact I've just gone through to dh (wfh) and announced I'm quitting my job and going to start a childminder's business at home. He's raised one eyebrow and said "really, how will that work?"

I know a couple of people who do what you suggest, dog sitting at other people's houses, and that's because they love dogs, but for various reasons can't have them currently, and it most definitely isn't financially bringing in a lot of money.

Dog sitting overnight is around £50-60. Let's say she is brilliant and people are willing to pay £60.
Realistically if she's in other people's houses she can only do one dog at a time, and she's not going to be fully booked. let's say 100 nights a year sounds quite optimistic. Her new income there will be £6000.
Then she dog walks. Obviously this has to be compatible with the dog sitting, which it may not be. Dog walking in our area varied from £6-£10 for a walk. The market is fairly saturated with professional dog walkers, and a fair number of teens do it cheaper. So let's say she manages to get £100 a week from that.
That's another £5000.

So £11 000 overall, which is probably slightly less than she gets as a TA.

BUT I'm pretty certain she'll need some sort of insurance, she'll need to advertise, and I'm also sure there will be expenses I haven't even thought of. It'll take a lot of hard work to start up and some initial expense too, things like if she's doing a few dogs she'll need a van with cages to transport them etc. She'll probably make a loss for at least the first year.

If she's not enthusiastic, it's not going to happen.

The issue on how he treats her is totally separate. Is this what she says or your views? And if she is telling you, is she having a rant rather than actually wanting any change. I have a friend I moan about dh about. I do it partially because she's a very good friend who knows that sometimes we need a rant without doing anything about it. She does it back to me. It doesn't actually mean that overall we're unhappy, just sometimes a good moan to a sympathetic ear means we feel better. No, we don't want a solution (anyway a serious solution, we've come up with some funny ones before now!) to it.

And if she does need to leave him, then support her. But don't pressurise her. It her her choice not what you think.

He doesn't have a gun to her head (presumably)

If she's not happy with doing all the cooking shopping etc well she needs to do something about it, more fool her

Why are you furious? She doesn't seem to be and it's her life 🤷‍♀️

Indeed. Something which takes over the whole house needs to be total agreement from both parties.
The fact that she goes to bed late and doesn't get on with his adult children is irrelevant really.