To resent that my DPS attempts at running a business are destroying our family

[lucyellensmum]

IVe no money and virtually no food in the house. For the past two years ive lived like this. He has earnt 7K on average and no benefits coming in.

He is a carpenter and very good at what he does, but cannot organise the business at all, so he has irate clients on his back all the time, he has to work ridiculous hours to get jobs done, for what??

Now i know there is an obvious answer to this, i should get a job, i do have earning potential but very little experience. I cannot do the part time thing because we would lose the tax credits we are finally getting and childcare costs bla bla bla - but thats not the point, i really really dont want my little girl cared for by strangers and only seeing her for an hour before bedtime.

So i am lazy and selfish???? But my point is this - if he were to give up on the business and see sense, get a job he could earn 30K and we would be OK (just, as you can imagine two years of earning next to nothing we have acrued a lot of debt - borrowing just to pay the mortgage etc) Its such a mess. If all he could earn was 7K then i would no question get a job, but when you look at things logically it wouldnt matter if i were earning 100K, him running a business that is basically losing money is just plain stupid.

I am at breaking point, i have been sobbing on front of DD all morning and staring at a big packet of tablets that i should be returning to the chemist (ive had them since my father died two years ago) and thinking i could end this now, Im not going to, i want to believe me, because i hate breathing right now but i coudlnt do that to my little girl, i love her so much i cant describe. I fucked up with her sister so much, i was so interested in my own career that i dumped her on my parents all the time so i could study and work, what was that all for?? I now have a teenage daughter that barely speaks to me, lives with her boyfriend and is busy letting life pass by her.

I am full of so much resentment for DP just now, i love him dearly but right now i dont want him, i dont want this life - if i walk away i wont have much but its got to be better than all of this stress = i can only take so much, im not a strong person.

only three months lulu, i am appealing though, as i have doctors letters supporting my claim that depression has stopped me from being able to do things etc. Doubt that i will get anywhere but its worht a punt. If i get the full amount it will be nearly 20K, pretty angry with myself that i didnt realise we were entitled to stuff but realise we probably wont get anything, but if we do, we will be sorted, our debts are crippling us, been living on visas, its a mess, but we will get through it, we have managed so far and i do love him very much, thats what keeps me going, that and my children. I would not want to live without them.

That and him getting bitten by spiders ROTFL - he said he was only joking about the twitch - git.

i am glad it was not a poisonous spider

does your DP not worry too about the money? i would not sleep a wink at night if i was him

surely he must be able to see that this is a very bad situation?

and what does he think the answer is

HE does suffer from the stress of things, it really gets to him and i am worried for him too, he looks like shit. I think he is lucky that he can bury his head in getting the work done, im very much just sat at home fretting. I will talk to him about getting more involved, that was the original plan, but there is only so much i can do when he says a job is going to take X amount of time etc and it doesnt. I did schedules for them when he had people working for him, i printed them out to be given to everyone (his staff were friends but taking the piss) and he didnt give them to them and then when i would ask what was done etc, he would never stick to the schedule even though he had agreed it with me etc. HE is not solely on his own and STILL taking too much time, its driving me nuts. I took a step back due to the arguments me being too involved caused, i felt patronised and like an old nag.

Im going to kick him up the arse later

I think you are going to have to come down hard on him LEM. This has been going on for far too long. You need to sit down together and set ground rules and a time limit. Say 3 or 4 months? Where he sticks to agreed times for jobs - which will mean him being more realistic in setting them. Same with pricing. You doing the admin sounds ideal. That way you ARE working - for all of you. And he has more time to actually do what it is he is being paid to do. He needs to be more regimented with himself.

TBH though I am not sure he will manage it. He sounds too soft to run his own business. He needs to be really tough. Tough with employees and tough and honest with customers and himself.

LOLing at the spider though!

i agree with justabouta

your DP cannot manage a work force or his own business. recognising that is probably quite upsetting for him, but if he can put his wonderful skills to use, working for someone else, making a decent wage, wtihotu the headache of running his own business, tehn so much the better surely?

a good skilled reliable craftsman who has only pulled in £7000 over 12 months is going really wrong somewhere...

it is not a reflection on his skills or his abilities as a craftsman, but as a manager/ boss. two different things

My cousin's dh is a carpenter and has just set up on his own after years of employment. He is doing loads of shopfitting whilst the business takes off (has to work nights apparently). I agree with tigermoth really, to start with something regular and do the extra stuff around it slowly.

It sounds like he's a perfectionist, which can be a problem when you're needing to be commercial.

I'm sorry you're in this situation. One thing I did notice when I read the thread is you're putting a lot on your DP's shoulder to make the changes. However, you appear not want to make any changes yourself since you want to remain a SAHM. Is that really fair?

You need to jointly decide on what approach to take. After all the future is about the both of you. Perhaps he is at a lost of what he needs to do and so just carrries on because he doesn't know what else to do.

I think it sounds like a situation whereby you need the other one to be the strong one. For instance, your DP sounds like he needs your help with the business side of things. Meanwhile, perhaps you need your DP's help to boast your confidence to get a job etc. (Balancing out each other weaknesses in a positive way).

I hope things work out for you.

(NB you don't need anything as flash as Sage - QuickBooks is good if you want a software package but if he's a sole trader below the VAT threshold then the paper accounting books in Smiths are very handy)

He knows all of this i think, i begged him to let me becoming more involved in working with the staff and making sure they didnt take the piss, but they were his "friends" and didnt pull their weight. Basically he was paying them on a day rate so it was in their interest to take longer, they would get paid more and it would eat into our profits.

I dont want him to give up, but i think he needs to get some agency work or something. HE has just invested 1000 pounds on machinery so we need to get the use from it - i wish he could see that he needs to toughen up. He is more or less scared of the phone, its not a recipe for success, i do feel that i have let him down and should have supported him more, i just can't get out of this rut.

Justabout, thankyou for the kind offer, but can i take a rain check, i would be too ashamed to meet anyone in RL after being so bloody weak on here. PErhaps we could have an arrangement that we meet for coffee when i have sorted myself out

I am so with DP just now. He has just come home to fetch something, and i have just got the whole "do you have to be walking around with such a long face" shit, "don't you think i'm stressed too" bla bla bla.........He says he is at explosion point and that he is more stressed than i could ever be . Then he started going on and on, "i obviously cant do this" "i should just get a job" "all my jobs go to shit" etc etc - but all in an accusatory way - as if to say that it is my fault he feels like this. He puts me in a position where i think "thank god" he has seen sense, but what comes out of my mouth it "don't give up, we will manage (god knows how im supposed to magic food out of thin air for dinner tonight!) you can't give up because of me" I make him worse apparently, my negativity etc, but there is only so long i can put on a brave face on this. I love him dearly, he is my soul mate, but im almost ready to leave - another victim of financial disharmony screwing up a "perfect relationship".

I am so with DP just now. He has just come home to fetch something, and i have just got the whole "do you have to be walking around with such a long face" shit, "don't you think i'm stressed too" bla bla bla.........He says he is at explosion point and that he is more stressed than i could ever be . Then he started going on and on, "i obviously cant do this" "i should just get a job" "all my jobs go to shit" etc etc - but all in an accusatory way - as if to say that it is my fault he feels like this. He puts me in a position where i think "thank god" he has seen sense, but what comes out of my mouth it "don't give up, we will manage (god knows how im supposed to magic food out of thin air for dinner tonight!) you can't give up because of me" I make him worse apparently, my negativity etc, but there is only so long i can put on a brave face on this. I love him dearly, he is my soul mate, but im almost ready to leave - another victim of financial disharmony screwing up a "perfect relationship".

i will look at that later justabout, when i feel more positive - sorry, i am just being so self absorbed just now

i wanted to scream at him, i want to get him back home and scream at him, i want someone to tell ME it is going to be OK, becuase i cannot see a way out of this now. I honestly think if it wasn't for DD i would empty those tablets down my throat right now - then again, does she really deserve a mother like me, self pitying, unmotivated, useless

When i did my PhD, i would find myself under this sort of pressure, lots of deadlines, almost impossible time frames, then writing up (which was hell i will admit) and the same oppressive feeling would sit on me. BUT it was MINE, and i could control it, i had the choice, get stuck in or walk away - i almost thrived on the pressure, i would get through it by setting myself limits, and say - by this time, this will be done, that will be finished and the stress would be gone and i would use the stress to get stuff done. But this i have no control over, the more i try and help the more he accuses me of making things worse and not understanding the pressure he is under. Just because the stress isnt "mine" doesnt mean i dont feel it.

I asked him when he would be finished this job, he says he doesnt know - he priced it for three weeks and has already been doing it a month, since easter tuesday, is that a month?

You poor thing.

As everyone else has said, he's a craftsman and not a businessman. It sounds like it's time for you to sit down and acknowledge exactly what you've said here, that his attempt to start his own business is destroying your family.

Tell him that he's had a noble attempt at making a go of it, but it hasn't worked and it's time to get a job that enables him to support his family.

He can always try again when the financial situation is a bit less critical, i.e. when any kids have left home.

Has he kept his tax and accounts up to date? He MUST MUST MUST not be in a position that Inland Revenue come sniffing around for three years of unpaid tax. That would just be too unfair on you.

LEM - I think you should get a job and contribute to the family coffers. Is there anyone who can take care of your DD while you work for a while?

If you have a PHd is there anything you can do from home - mark papers, paid research, or talk to expat about how she makes money from researching university exam questions.

In many ways you are both reacting in the same way - burying your heads and blaming the other person. What you need to do is start using your obvious considerable brain power to work out how you are going to make more money.

As far as DH is concerned - he may be better off scaling back the business for now - sack the workers, and just work by himself. I recently paid £8,000 for a set of fitted (bespoke) wardrobes that were done on site, in a week by a wonderful carpenter - so there is money to be made!

Think of this as just a blip - you don't need to be making a decision to work for the whole of your dd's life - just for the next few months. I rather suspect that getting out of the house and working with other people, might help with your depression to - I know it was a huge help to me after I had a spell as a SAHP