Husband effectively made redundant by my brother

[ForgotTheBiscuits]

Am I being unreasonable to upset that my brother has allowed his business to fold and left my husband essentially redundant, but brother hasn’t acknowledged the situation and is not booking any work.

My husband has worked as the sole employee of my brother’s business for over a decade. Work used to be steady and kept both my brother’s and my own family afloat.
Work has dropped off a cliff in the last year, and my brother (the business owner) doesn’t seem to be bothered to do anything to remedy the situation and doesn’t care that my family is sliding deeper in to debt and a significantly reduced standard of living. My brother’s wife has a secure job so he seems happy to live on that and essentially pretend that he still has a business.
So my husband has been made redundant but my brother has not declared this (I think he may be in denial).
I know normally an employee would be entitled to redundancy pay, but my brother won’t acknowledge the business is dead or make any moves to resurrect it. I feel he’s stringing my husband along. If my husband gets a new job, that will be the final nail in the coffin of the business, and it seems horrible to demand redundancy pay from family and to force my brother to acknowledge that we are suffering due to his inertia.
Any advice or opinions would be appreciated!

What kind of fool is self employed and only takes one Client?

That's just unnecessarily nasty. Not helpful at all.

Or get a new job asap with possible training on the side. If he's been to all effects acting as an electrician or a plumber for example without professional qualifications, a local firm may be able to take him on as an apprentice on the basis he qualifies quickly. He'll be far more valuable to them as an experienced apprentice than a 17 yr old who can't be bothered to get out of the bed in the morning.

Good suggestion there.

He's not PAYE, which means that he was only ever a contractor to the business in the first place. Contractors take on other work - that's a normal part of self-employed life.

Your DH seems to have taken on all the disadvantages of self employed work, but none of the advantages. This car crash has been obvious for months, during which time he's been essentially doing voluntary work rather than trying to earn his own money.

This is not all on your brother. Not at all.

Sorry but the OP seems to have tunnel vision about her brothers role in all this, when in fact her husband has spent the past decade allowing his boss to treat him like an employee while securing zero protection or benefits for himself. He has been very foolish and the OP seems completely unwilling to see that.

If I wasn’t able to overlook my husband’s foolishness, I wouldn’t be married!
I accept that this situation is not entirely down to my brother, I love him so much and feel bad to have misdirected everything to his door, but I am frustrated that he’s not been more proactive. Similarly I accept that my husband has been a bit daft allowing it to get to this point and not making contingency plans.
I should have made different decisions with my own career and had the guts to refuse to not pursue my career.

Look: this may be a blessing in disguise. Your brother and family have taken advantage of your dh for a decade—and they have played on your insecurities as well. Your dh and you felt needed, wanted, necessary because “without him my brother couldn’t have run his business “ and at the same time your brother got undeserved credit for helping you be part time instead of full time/career oriented.

Something, perhaps associated with the disparity between your class/education position and that of your dh made this tempting. Perhaps it felt like your family was welcoming and accepting your dh where you feared they would not? Perhaps it saved your dh from the humiliation of you being the breadwinner.

But it also led you to losing confidence in yourself, neglecting your talents, accepting a subordinate role to your dh and brother by living under their grace.

Now you really need to address the GAD and get treatment and return to work. And your DH needs to start putting his talent to work for himself. This is going to be WONDERFUL for you. You will stop being dependent on your family and at their mercy.

Thank you so very much for your insights, encouragement and empathy. Are you a therapist, your reading between the lines is impressive!

This really resonates, I hadn’t realised what a large factor this was in decisions.
’Something, perhaps associated with the disparity between your class/education position and that of your dh made this tempting. Perhaps it felt like your family was welcoming and accepting your dh where you feared they would not? Perhaps it saved your dh from the humiliation of you being the breadwinner.’

I am addressing the GAD, I hate it so much, it’s robbed me blind of the person I used to be.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Family businesses are complicated, and personal dynamics are part of the situation in a way that they aren't settings.

If someone spoke to your brother, would he give a different view of the situation? E.g. "Forgotthebiscuits just got married to a bloke, not much prospects, mum and dad have asked me to employ him to give a roof over their heads. He's alright, feel like I have to carry him a lot though etc.."

In essence I think you need to focus on what you have control over, and that is what you do and to some extent what your husband does. I would be slow for you to encourage your husband to take on the business. He just might not have the skill set to lead and the way in which he didn't jump forward when work dried up, might indicate that. (And that's fine, not everyone is cut out to lead a business). His lack of knowledge of the website issues etc could indicate he is not familiar with the workings of the business either. Just be careful, we all imagine our partners to be wonderful or all capable at work, but obviously not all are, some are also more suited to be a boss or not.

Your brother might be trying to "break up" with your husband in an avoidant way. It's probably best your husband says to him that he needs to increase income and unless business is changed, he will need to seek work elsewhere. In a kind way. See how your brother responds. Take emotion out of it, your family relationship is blocking this business conversation that's needed.

This could be a blessing in disguise, better now than when you are both older and less able to retrain. Think about pensions etc. People who work in family businesses tend to not plan so well for retirement.

It sounds like your brother isn’t being open or upfront with your husband and this must be massively frustrating for both of you. It’s only natural to have a vent about this, but as it’s been going on for 6 months, or more, then it’s time to think of next steps for you both.

I’d sit down as a couple, put your heads together and list out the options, for example -

If your husband wants to stay in this line of work then he could look for an apprenticeship with a similar business.

You go back to full time work and husband starts a part time business around school hours.

You both start a business together - either in the area he’s been working in, or something else. If he feels confident that he could pass the £5k qualifications then it might be worth financing with a loan.

Husband looks for an employed role etc etc.

List out the positives and negatives, come up with a plan. Treat it as if you’re starting out from scratch. This could be an amazing new start for you ☺️

Talk to your brother frankly.
He needs to accept your DH takes over the website and instigates more work. Your husband could employ a worker to assist him when needed.
If your children are at school, now is the time for you to expand your career.

I would be slow for you to encourage your husband to take on the business. He just might not have the skill set to lead and the way in which he didn't jump forward when work dried up, might indicate that.

I agree with this. Someone capable of building and running a profitable business would have got on the case at an early stage. Your DH has drifted along while not getting any work - that's not a good trait for a self-employed person.

He doesn’t have the skill set, he has pretty debilitating ADHD so cannot manage the running of a business.

I am a therapist, as it happens but I think a lot of the other posters are seeing what I am.

Family businesses are awful and really hard to manage at the later stages. Its not because of you or your dh. But it is the current problem.

I wonder whether the right thing to do: or a feasible thing, is for you with your educational capital (reading, writing, computers, executive function) could take over the business as manager and employ your dh and another worker. You wouldn’t have to leave home or interact with customers face to face. You could troubleshoot via phone or email.

Right then, what your DH needs is a normal PAYE job so there's no Running a Business and his income tax and NIC are deducted at source.

What could he do? Does he have any educational qualifications? Is he more likely to be up for physical work than office type?

It would help to know what kind of work he did for DB business, then we know what to suggest.

It’s a very physical trade and he’s got a lot of skills related, such as plastering. He used to be an incredible salesman before we met, but I think he’d struggle with the ethics of sales these days. That’s his reason given anyway. Surely not all sales jobs are unethical?

Plasterers earn a fortune in my area, much more than most other trades. You could help him with pricing and profit margins. Get his ads up now and stop waiting for your brother to organise work!

It should be easy enough to get a plastering job or even work as a sole trader. You can’t get a plasterer for love nor money, I can personally confirm, and it’s well paid work.

Well blimey Plastering is a sought after skill so he shouldn't have ANY trouble getting work, BUT that trade is usually self employed as a sub contractor in the construction industry, or private jobs in households.

You could help him massively by being his record keeper. I worked for years with HMRC as an investigator and I cannot stress enough the importance of accurate and up-to-date records.
He would probably have to engage an accountant to prepare his accounts and Tax Return, but if he can give excellent records to the accountant regularly he will get greatly reduced accountancy bills.

Your husband probably did not want to ''confront'' your DB regarding the declining business for good reasons - such as he was family and DH was a genuine person, a hard worker so may not have understood business was being deliberately run down, if it was.
So now it seems DH needs to get another job that can also lead to some qualifications in his skills too possibly.
Can he get medication for ADHD?
Also you say his work is very physical but as he gets older will probably not want to or even be able do it.
So he should perhaps also look a sales jobs again - they are not all unethical by any means (which you mentioned). Does he like vehicles or mechanics- maybe he could sell farm machinery ? I understand commissions are their sales are high.

If he can plaster then he will easily be able to find work - why couldn't he just get some adverts out locally? Why do you think it would cost him £5k to get set up?

Your DH needed to read the runes and go get himself another job. By the sounds of it he should have done so some time ago before you started getting into debt. I get that it's awkward being involved in a family business but we all need to be adults and take responsibility for our own careers and finances. He should urgently start looking for work and move on. Redundancy is a distraction.

Your husband has been massively coasting and you have been making excuses for the both of you. Time to take responsibility for yourselves and your finances.

“If dh was unavailable for work, the business would not be able to continue.
I also worry what the heck db will do if he loses his assistant.”

This makes no sense at all. You’ve said that your has let the business slide - so he’s chosen both of those things himself already, it’s not your problem.

And I’m another who sees requests for plasterers everywhere.

I don’t think he should be doing work with your arse of a brother anyway, but given that self employed trades work can be booked to your husband’s convenience, he could do both. Your husband is very passive in all this.

Could he set up as a self employed plasterer between your brothers jobs for now? Get some money coming in?