DH used to have a very well-paid corporate job which, had he continued, would have resulted in a very good salary. He didn't hate the work so much but I think hated London/city/office life and so after Covid decided to retrain as something completely different (I don't want to go into specifics but he's a tradesperson/artisan/building things).
Anyway the last few years while he's been retraining money has been very tight - he is now working for himself and trying to set up his own business, but this has also coincided with us having a baby, and whilst I have been on maternity leave we have been chipping away at savings more than I would have liked.
He works hard, is good at what he does, and seems to really enjoy it. But it's a tough industry (especially in this economy) and there's lots of talk about things he could spend money on (workshop, tools, exhibitions) and not a lot of talk about money coming in. I'm going back to work in August, and going part-time, and so losing some of my salary - in many ways this doesn't make sense but he is never going to get momentum behind his business if he also does most of the childcare.
I want to be supportive of his dream, especially as he's not been doing this long and a few big commissions could really make a difference. But since having a baby my priorities have shifted and I can't help but wish he was doing something more stable: it's making me really anxious that we have been late on our mortgage a couple of times now and are depleting savings.
I find it really difficult to talk about it with him as I don't want to stress him out, but I also don't want to become resentful. Do we just put a time limit on it and then re-evaluate? e.g. he has a year to make it work and if not...? Help!