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.

OP, using things that you’ve said yourself, it’s blatantly clear what the problem is, and it’s not that your husband isn’t supportive of your “career” or business.

“He is carrying more of the burden than me. I have tried to ignore this”
Why are you ignoring this? It’s clearly a big part of the problem.

“He thinks it’s a waste of time and that I should do something else”
So he’s supportive of you doing SOMETHING but he thinks that it should be something viable and worthwhile.

So why doesn’t he think this is viable and worthwhile? Well:

Its highly part-time:

• “It’s a business where the bulk of the work will need to be done during the weekends”
• ”The times aren’t set: there will be some weekends where it’s only one day where I will have to work and occasionally I might have a free weekend.”
• ”I have to put in some hours during the week, although these are fleeting: 30 minutes for a call, an hour meeting etc”

It’s highly seasonal:

• “it’s seasonable work so from Oct till March it’s dead”

It doesn’t seem to have improving financial prospects in the next few years:

• “The business hasn’t made a profit but I get a salary of around £12k. This wage won’t increase”

And yet despite all this you seem to think it’s a golden ticket if only you just wait long enough:

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

Sorry OP, but if in 3.5 years you’ve come up with nothing to counteract the part-time, seasonal nature of the business, despite having all that time to think about it and work on ideas (because it’s not like you’ve been working a full-time job at the same time) - I’m afraid it’s not going to be YOU scaling and making millions. I don’t think you’ve got the commerciality or business acumen based on what you’ve said.

Is it possible your husband might be seeing this business objectively for what it is, and not being swayed by the emotional attachment that you clearly have for it? Might it be worth talking to him about the pros and cons of it and how you might be able to make the business work better, or find something else more suitable to do?

Now way would I support DH’s business after 3.5yrs of no profit. This is way too long a time and I don’t think your business is viable sorry. It’s not that he is being unsupportive of you but you can’t keep giving such a lot of time to something that is not bringing any reward to your team.

Miaow, Mumsnet!

OP’s business pays out 36K wages for working weekends from April to September. She’s also a mum of primary age kids who I presume aren’t fending for themselves. Her husband is a high earner.

His problem is not money. What he wants is weekends to himself. It’s there in the OP.

Weekends to himself.

^^

The central problem that I can see is this:

You have 25-30 hours per week of uninterrupted childfree time, as all your DC are at school. Your husband does not.

I'd be pretty annoyed if my partner decided to work on my days off and the only days together when they had plenty of other time to do their work

I can see both sides, you've set up a business that you love and you are making your own money and independence. However, its not a huge amount of money and not benefitting the family ATM. Even when you were a SAHM, it's unlikely your husband had as much childfree time at home that you currently have.

OP currently has 35 hours a week to herself so I'm not sure why her DH wanting two days for him is so controversial 🤷‍♀️

This.

He’s used to his cushy SAHM setup and wants his weekends back to himself.

?? 26 weekends a year = 52 days.

Is it so awful to want some of his own time? You know, to balance all the time that OP gets to herself while the kids are at school and there’s not too much to do because there’s a cleaner twice a week, and we all have to do “life admin” and “housekeeping” and “cooking” and no those things are not a full time job because most working age adults have those too 😂

The problem is that he’s carrying most of the burden - and is asking for more balance. Why shouldn’t it be more balanced?

if he wants a working wife to share the burden then weekends to himself are a thing of the past anyway. If OP was working 5 days a week he would be having to pull his weight all weekend 50:50.

Yeah, the assumption about a woman who wants to go to university is that she will come out of it able to earn more than 12k/yr and that, if she doesn’t have a M-F job and her kids are school age, she’s doing her coursework during the week. I think everyone here would be supportive (and would expect your husband to be) of whatever you wanted to do while the kids are at school OR a job with real earnings that requires a lot of out of business hours time OR a job with modest earnings that required a little weekend time here or there. But your husband is obvs getting shafted here and has put up with it for ~3 years longer than I would have.

I'm sure he would be quite happy with 50:50 at the weekend as its preferable to 100%

I feel sorry for your family, you are neglecting them.

Yes, and that would be sharing the burden and would be fair. The current set-up is not fair. And not just for the husband, it’s not fair on the kids either to have no family time for half the year.

You’ve met him have you?

Clearly you have though 😂

Have you? Because I’m starting to think you’re a sock.

I am sort of in this situation but from the other end. It is totally exhausting to work FT on weekdays and then have to be essentially a single parent on the weekend. This can happen to me for months in a row. This man is putting up with A LOT

I just read the OP in which he says he wants weekends to himself. If so he’s not going to be happy either way.

If OP was working 5 days a week he would be having to pull his weight all weekend 50:50.

Sounds a hell of a lot more fair than the current set up.

Imagine actually being a single parent! 😂

It may sound more fair but if he wants weekends to himself he won’t be happy with either.

"It’s only been going for 3.5 years and it will take time to become established and profitable"

3.5 years is plenty of time to become established and profitable, in what sounds like something to do with weekend events, retail/selling at craft fairs, wedding photography etc

"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 am out most of Saturday and Sunday but this also means I am completely present the other 5 days."
"I have to put in some hours during the week, although these are fleeting: 30 minutes for a call, an hour meeting etc."

But your dh has to cover the majority of weekends by himself, after having worked full time Mon-Fri and is now paying for a cleaner twice a week; during this same 3.5yr period.
As others have said, there is little point in "being present" for the 30 or so hours when you are by yourself while everyone else is out at school or work.

What are you actually doing with all the free time you have while everyone else is out of the house?
You could get a part time job during the week and make more than £12k and have all of your weekends free.

"This wage won’t increase; all other money will be ploughed back into the business."
"The business is absolutely scalable. There are others who have made millions, employ people full time."

Surely, if the business is scalable, you would reach a point whereby all of the profits would not have to be ploughed back into the business and at that point you would be able to take out more than £12k at some point in the future - whether by salary or dividends.
Presumably, you would not be working indefinitely for £12k per year - because if you are, then as everyone else has said, this is a hobby/lifestyle choice rather than a business (regardless of whether other people are making millions from the same sort of business)

Anyway, it would appear that your dh has absolutely been supportive of you for 3.5 years but quite understandably had enough of such an imbalanced situation and I think you are being quite unreasonable to expect him to continue to cover the majority of weekends between Mar-Oct.

Look, this is what’s actually in the OP:

“However, his main gripe is he doesn’t have the weekends free to himself and he is carrying more of the burden than me.”

What if he just doesn’t want to be carrying more of the burden than OP? What if he hasn’t actually said that he wants weekends to himself, he just wants to share the load? I think that’s the more likely scenario, given that he was supportive at first while OP gave this a go (so “giving up” his weekends wasn’t out of the question completely).

But no, you just seize on the selfish man theory because that’s what suits your narrative.

There is a middle way here.
It is not that unusual to have a cleaner if the man is working long hours and can barely help at all, particularly if she is also working part time.
Plenty of women with high earning husbands have hobby businesses. THere are all sorts of cute shops that are clearly not making money.
This does not fit in with the MN ideal of the martyr-wife.

On the other hand, it is not even and sometimes the pretense is hard. If she acknowledged it as a hobby that made a little money, it would cast the husband as supportive. It might make him feel more appreciated.

Only OP truly knows if her husband actually wants to bugger off every weekend to the pub/football/golf/drinking with his friends, leaving the OP all alone with the kids.

There’s a good chance he actually just wants the split to be fairer so he’s not carrying so much of the burden of earning and all the weekend childcare and for them to spend more time together as a family.