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.

I run a business and at this point if I was your DH I'd want to see your plans for scaling and hiring and a timeline of how you'll get this done. You need to commit to when you expect to pull back on the weekend working (and swapping this for in the week if need be doing tasks that can be done at a computer such as finance or marketing).

Not what you want to hear OP but I can see his point. If he has fantastic earnings as you say, he’s working all week and on a weekend does all the kids stuff and doesn’t see his wife - all for the princely sum of 12k. It’s not worth it.

Well I’m not one and neither is anyone in OP’s story, which is the point.

I imagine he'd love to pull his weight 50:50, because at the moment he's pulling it 100% at the weekends. Of course he wants a bit of time to himself. I don't see him demanding the whole weekend. But some down time would be nice after 3.5 years of doing this. And a wife asking for that would be seen as totally reasonable.

OP has paraphrased a long discussion. Personally I think it's more likely that DH wants some time at weekends to himself rather than every second of every weekend to himself but OP has not clarified. Meantime we do know that OP has around 30 hours a week to herself or more than 2 weekend days. If course she's perfectly happy with the arrangement.

Hell would freeze over before I did solo parenting all weekend for half of the year to support my husbands hobby. I’d divorce him and see if he could spare some hobby time to parent his children then.

Just a small point, but working all week and having the kids at the weekend is what countless single parents do every week of the year…

Well yes but that’s completely irrelevant as neither OP or her husband are single parents 🙄

Yeah, but it's not what we'd have willingly or ideally signed up for!

And in this scenario if the other parent is about they are generally described as a waste of space or other less polite things.

I think alternative lifestyles (which is sort of what you're leading) need the agreement of both parties. It sounds like DH has been supportive but is now getting a bit frustrated that your business venture isn't delivering results. What is the projected development of the business in the next, say, 1.5 years? Can you scale it up to turn more of an income? Is it something you can run during the week and free up at least one weekend day? At some point you need to evaluate if your business is viable in terms of what it provides for the family. The impact on family time is a serious consideration too. When do you do fun outings together as a family? It doesn't sound like there's a lot of overlap when you're all available for a day.

As you have cleaners and kids in school, can you take a part-time job a couple of days a week in addition to the business?

So? Neither OP or her DH are single parents.

I get that it’s a good opportunity to do something you enjoy but it’s hard for any parent who works Monday - Friday at a tough job (assume so given he earns a lot) and then is parenting alone all weekend. I mean I get it, I did it being a single parent. Would I have been happy doing it if I had another parent at home Monday - Friday not working whilst kids are at school, and then working on the days I’m off. You must be able to see why everyone is saying they sympathise with your husband. I guess he’s hoping that by now you’d be bringing home a lot more than 12k a year for your efforts. Or more for his efforts. Also means your children’s weekends are restricted too as you can’t enjoy the normal family days out when the kids are off school. It’s a lot that you’re all missing out on, so I guess the lack of progress is a sticking point.

Imagine if the tables were turned here and it was a stay at home dad who had a four year old weekend hobby business that still turned no profit.

I think we all know what the misandrist hypocrites on here would say.

Cocklodger would be one.

Not to mention getting those feathered water birds that quack in a nice row. 😆😆

Which is why hobby businesses are usually run by women. The OP is not being that unusual.

She's one of three earning 12k by working weekends 7 months of the year. With more profit in future. I'd say that was a damn good business and hardly a hobby.

The MN vitriol is strong here.

I thought for sure this was a reverse. No way would I work full time while my husband stayed at home all week with school age children and then took off for half the weekends over a year for his hobby job that pretty much only funds the twice a week cleaner.

Wrong. Most 'hobby businesses' don't impose on the high earning husbands at all. That's the point.
OP's husband is not only massively adversely impacted, having to do childcare all weekend after working FT all week. He doesn't even like his job! If she pulled her weight, he might be able to scale back.

I have about 4 or 5 weekends to myself (well, with friends not my family) each year. What's wrong with that?

When's his turn to bring in £12k a year pursuing his hobby while you support the family and forego free time?

I wouldn’t support my husband working weekends if it meant him earning 100k let alone 12k. I’d much rather survive on much less and actually have the weekends together.

I don't stick up for men normally, but I'm team DH and I think you have the absolute life of riley, OP.

Why do you have a cleaner? You literally spend five days a week at home, you should be cleaning your own house.

If my DH was a stay aat home parent with pre teens, had been doing a hobby for the past 3.5 years under the pretence that it’s a business and spending every weekend out of the house and was at home all week and still expected me to pay for a cleaner I would think he was a lazy arse not cleaning the house, and would probably have divorced him by now.

This isn’t a business it’s a hobby. Time to call it quits and get a real job.

What's your plan and timeline to take the business from the current no profit and no earnings beyond your £12k pa to the millions that others have scaled to?

Does the cleaner's pay come out of your earnings? How much does that leave? If I was a SAHM to school aged kids, then if my DH worked FT and unless I was immensely wealthy, I would expect that keeping the house clean during the working week was something that I did during the 6 hours a day the kids were in school.

How do you feel about spending most weekends away from your kids for half the year? How do they feel about it?

Do you really not see that for some balance, when you have 5 (yes, fairly short and term-time only) days a week to please yourself, that your DH should also get some downtime that isn't work/caring for the kids?

If you feel comfortable sharing more, please DM. I once owned a small franchise and loved it. Would love to look into starting a business again. I can get excited about most ventures tbh.