DH has become totally unsupportive of my career / business

[SparklyGreenKoala]

I have been a SAHM for a while and with my youngest a few years into primary school, I decided to start my a business with a friend.
It’s a business where the bulk of the work will need to be done during the weekends, so I am out most of Saturday and Sunday but this also means I am completely present the other 5 days.

At first, my husband was very supportive but he has become increasingly dismissive and patronising, because the business hasn’t yet turned a profit. It’s only been going for 3.5 years and it will take time to become established and profitable; He thinks it’s a waste of time and that I should do something else, but I love what I do. I get so much satisfaction from my work, I couldn’t imagine doing something else.

However, his main gripe is he doesn’t have the weekends free to himself and he is carrying more of the burden than me. I have tried to ignore this but he just becomes very shouty, accusing me of having a jolly whilst he has to deal a job he hates.

I accept, it’s not going to be easy, and I have arranged a cleaner to come on Friday afternoons, so there is no house work for him to do on Saturday mornings. However, the complaining hasn’t stopped and he has started to involve the wider family.

Am inbeing reasonable in asking him to support me.

Pretty much the same. I'm not a black and white thinker and truth is usually somewhere in the middle of these scenarios.

Her apparent worth, according to some on here, is purely about how she can adequately "repay" him for doing her the favour of marrying and impregnating her?

I just think that if she's going to go back to paid work (either employment or otherwise) then it needs to benefit both of them, not just her. At the moment, her overall workload is massively decreasing whereas his seems to be ramping up with absolutely no end in sight.

You misrepresented this a bit - you are taking a salary, albeit a very low one.

I mean, I’m all about supporting people. I have a business. Last year I did a project that was much of a passion project that a needed one; but it did give us some financial stability that we needed - and it took up 28 weekends of the year, sometimes consecutively. DH had our toddler and ran the house, because I was working.

But, I can also see why your husband has burnt through his support. It’s not like he’s never been supportive, he’s just gone left. It must be quite frustrating for him that the majority of what you’ve decided to do as a career needs to be done at the weekend, and not while your children are at school. If you used to be in HR, presumably he didn’t sign up for this type of lifestyle; and you say you’d “only” earn £28k if you went back, but that’s more than double what you’re bringing home now and would give you more family time.

You need to talk to him.

No envy here, I don't work FT either. But the difference is that I don't expect my DH to work full-time and solo-parent on top of a full time job 26 weekends a year to accommodate my choices.

This isn't really about profit or salary at all, is it? It's about your DH working all week and then looking after the dc all weekend. He's a bit pissed off with it.

I married my husband because I was in love with him and because I enjoy life with him. I guess that's why I find it hard to understand someone who is actively opting out of that and family time together at the weekends for six months a year. I don't really care what the OP does during her week at all but I just find it a bit strange especially when it's not like there's going to be a huge financial reward at the end that might make the sacrifice worth it.

He's been supporting her for 3.5 years. But now he would like to have the occasional bit of the weekend to himself. Or as family time.

A women supporting her husband's venture for 3.5 years, if she'd not had time to herself for six months every year (working full time at a Big Job she hates, and solo parenting at the weekend) would be equally frustrated. Especially if sitting the same six month period her husband had every weekday to himself.

HR assistant seems like something you could find term time/school hours contracts in? Would take longer, and some applying and asking for flexibility at interview, or one year of working full time hours then renegotiating (what I did in a different office based field)

or look for businesses like supermarkets, cafes etc that might offer school hours work (because teenagers are cheaper to employ, but are unavailable during the school day).

all likely to bring in more than 12k and offer you more stability and independence than a small business that isn’t making a profit and means your husband could tell a family court that what the children expect is to spend all of every weekend with him when he gives up on a marriage where he doesn’t see you and does most of the work.

I don’t work full time either, I earn a good chunk more than OP and I don’t work weekends. Why would I be envious? I still think she’s a cheeky fucker

I don't think it's envy, just sympathy for the husband... Just like how when we criticise men who loaf around on weekdays, we don't envy them. Many people take pride in our ability to provide for ourselves.

I make much more hourly than OP (freelancer, and I pump a lot of research & capital into marketing funnel and branding). I could genuinely comfortably reduce my hours to 2 days a week.

Yet, I am not a billionaire with multiple mansions, just a self-employed person. OP mentions making millions, and I 100% get the millionaire fantasy but you have to make things work as they are now, not when you've reached your imaginary millions in 96 years' time based on current projected earnings. In fact, iterative growth (make things work now) is the fastest way to get to millions IMO.

So I, and I think many other commentors, are genuinely commenting from a freelancer/self-employed/business pov. If it's a passion project rather than something viable (in the business sense and in terms of family life), she just has to be honest about it and figure out how to pivot rather than cause someone else to burn out based on unpaid labour.

As I said earlier I actually commonly hear OP's dilemma from men who have sat up and listened to their wives, and are trying to change their life setup/business model, so their wife isn't burning out on weekends too. (Again, no, I don't envy those men!)

The business is absolutely scalable. There are others who have made millions, employ people full time.

Yeah and some artists make millions per artwork, it doesn't mean everyone who makes and even manages to sell some art will make any profit ever. You've already said that 12k is your limit and the rest will be put back in the business (and paying back its loans etc). That 12k just about covers your Mon/Fri cleaner and coffees. Everything else is on your DH.

You have given up several years of career and pension building etc to be a sahm, helping your husband be able to go to work whilst you do childcare.

Can we please drop this ridiculous "The SAHM enables the husband to go to work" bollocks? It's so, so silly and anyone with half a brain knows that's not how it works.

Who wants to spend their life "going to work", let alone be patronised with "he's being given an opportunity to do it" when actually 99% of the time the truth is he's probably working all the hours god gives in the first place purely to enable her to stay at home with the kids, which he wouldn't have to do it he wasn't with her.

This is never, ever said of a SAHD. Ever. It is never said that a SAHD "enables the woman to go to work".

As a woman this really pisses me off. I feel for men sometimes, I really do.

Sorry OP. Go back to work and earn a proper wage. I think your DH has been patient enough- especially if he is in a job he hates.

Nothing offends me, they’re just a lot of work for not much money. So a better prospect than what she has now they are not.

Solo parent. 😂 52 days out of 365. Poor lamb.

So you married a high earner, gave up a poorly paid job to have children, lived off him for at least ten years (since you say you started your hobby business "a few years into primary school" and that was 3.5 years ago) contributed absolutely nothing to the family finances while he supported you financially by doing a job he hates for years, and now you're shocked that he's not supporting you in the hobby business that means he has to also do all the childcare for the entire weekend?

You're something else, you really are.

You're "earning" 12k a year. What are you going to do to support yourself when he inevitably leaves you for taking the piss? Or will you just take him to the cleaners in another way?

It's not just 52 days a year is it, though? It's 52 days of solo parenting on top of a full time job while OP just works for 52 days a year and covers the school holidays.

I’m sure OP is cool with her husband going off to do his hobby both weekend days the other half of the year though, right OP? 😉

If the tables were turned and zny husband of mine had pursued a hobby career that made no money and left me to work full yime and spend my whole weekend looking after the kids I'd be reconsidering our marriage for sure. Honestly, three years of this nonsense.

You have a hobby that takes you away from the family all weekend so he has to work full time and do the childcare at the weekend. You are essentially a housewife during the week with most of the day to yourself but still have to hire a cleaner (is he paying for her?) to ensure the house is clean at the weekend. Yes. YABU. How would you feel if he were away all weekend , every weekend 8 months of the year furthering his ‘golf career’?

This

If anything, it's the OP that dismisses and dehumanises her DH. She totally doesn't care that he hates his job, yet she talks about how she loves her work and could never give it up. She almost deliberately tries to paint him in a bad light by resorting to MN tropes (shouty, unsupportive, etc) in her first post imo.

The issue I think is that, while her husband has fully supported her for 3 years until recently, OP sounds pretty unsympathetic towards her husband's actual feelings of being exploited and used.

She also sounds entitled to being supported overall, perhaps just because she's a woman. If her husband quit a job (that was low-paying and which he didn't love anyway) and stayed as an SAHD well into his kid's school age, then expected her to work FT on weekdays and do it all on weekends, would she find that OK? Yes love is not calculative, but sacrifice and contribution still should be somewhat mutual...

Well OP hasn't solo parented for a single day for the last 3.5 years. Nor has she worked full time.

Let's put it more clearly. For six months of the year, her husband works at a highly paid job (so presumably stressful) full time. He then spends the whole of every weekend solo parenting.

For those same six months, OP has most of every weekday to herself. Then she works at something she enjoys each weekend day

Who would you rather be?

I have adjusted the cleaner to come Monday and Fridays, instead Monday and Wednesday, which means the husband doesn’t have to clean up or tidy up at all.

So before this, your husband had to clean and tidy too?

On the practical side of things, what do you do on weekdays, especially if the kids are at school most of the day and you have paid house help?

What's your evening set up like? Does your husband also help with bedtime etc? If he helps out on weekday evenings, on top of FT work and weekend solo parenting, he's a saint!

I suspect that you are a wedding planner? Honestly, I've known a few and all of their business are profitable - if yours isn't, then you need to rethink your strategy. They don't earn millions (I don't think you will ever earn more than you would as an HR assistant), but they're doing ok. It's seen as a part time job for rich bored housewives who wanted to do "something creative", and not supposed to interfere with the husband's career. And so, if one puts it like that, it's understandable that your husband is not being supportive. He's supported it for over three years with nothing to show for it, I would be fed up as well.