Husband’s business, baby - do I need to be more resilient?

[NurtureGrow]

Hello,

Im hoping for advice, especially from those whose partners have businesses, or have one themselves.

We have a 15 month old. My husband handed in his notice on his full-time job last summer, it was a 3 month notice period. He left in the autumn to start his business. Around the same time, I was made redundant and never went back after maternity leave. It was too late at that point for him to stay in his job.

The money I got from redundancy would have lasted 8 months. As he hasn’t had income yet from the business, I had to pay all bills and the money is almost gone after 4 months. We will basically run out of money at the end of this month. I’m sure we can sort it out.. hopefully.. he is hoping to get a small amount of investment and I am urgently looking for work. I had hoped to return to work max 4 days a week, but due to our financial situation, may need to do 5.. (I know not everyone can do less days.) I need to find a job at the same salary as before, or higher. I was hoping to do something less stressful.

I agreed he could try the business for 1 year, what I am wondering is, do I need to be more resilient? I feel this time should be for enjoying our baby/family and seeing family. But instead we have this pressure on us. I do try to support him; I proofread, discuss, do what I can. But sometimes I feel down/grumpy. He feels we will be better off financially if this works, as don’t have savings now.

I feel I’m meant to hold space for our baby, for him, and take responsibility of getting a higher salary again myself. I don’t have family to talk to or offer consistent support.. I’d just really like to build our life together, not have pressure for something that may happen in the future.

The question and problem:

YABU - yes, you need to be more resilient, people do this all the time. Focus on supporting him. This is the nature of supporting your partner with a business.

YANBU - it’s understandable you are finding this hard. It’s too much to do at once. It should be put on hold for an until your baby is bigger, so you can better enjoy the present

OP, it’s a really tough situation, but I do understand about the funding, and if you and he talked through it thoroughly so you were both on board with him handing in his notice, then I think this largely falls under ‘tough but unfortunate’ versus unfair.

However, he needs to be-

1. validating and caring about your feelings of overwhelm and stress
2. doing everything he can to push forward the business in a realistic way
3. committed to a timeline to go back into employment if it doesn’t work out. (He can always promise to give up his work to any investor)
4. carrying far more of the load around the house and with the baby
5. it also needs to be clear that you have Joint finances and you have a stake in the company. I would say legally, not just notionally. I’m not saying this will happen to you but I have a friend who carried a lot of the load in a very similar situation- husband building this potentially very profitable business, waiting for investment. But she had no actual shares. She has just signed a divorce settlement giving up all claim, in exchange for the house. The business could be worth multiple millions within a couple of years, but the legal expenses and complexities of fighting for that are too great. You should have shares. Not only is this important in the case of divorce, but it’s important psychologically. You are then sacrificing for your whole family and yourself, not your husband’s dream- and he is accountable to you for delivering to some extent.

if these things are in place, and the business has real prospects, then yes I think it’s the time to lean in and carry the load and deal with the discomfort for a while. As long as you all can keep your head above water and stay well through it. Building a business is really hard, but hopefully you will both look back in great pride at pulling out all the stops.

OP, you keep asking whether you need to be more resilient. Has your DH told you that you need to be more resilient? I don't see this as a question of resilience. Your DH has decided to launch his own venture without ensuring any real safety net is in place, and is now putting all the pressure of managing the household on you. He should have been saving for months before deciding to embark on this, it makes me question his business acumen to be completely honest.

You already have enough to deal with as a new mum, now you need to find a new job with a higher salary and therefore will probably be even more stressful than your last?! Unbelievable behaviour.

You need to set a deadline by which he has to secure funding by, and if he doesn't do it, he needs to go back to work and put his plans on the back burner until he can realistically afford to support his family alongside his new venture.

No direct experience but my dad started his own business when he had two young children. I don't know if it's fair to say you have to start a business alongside working, how would he have time to do both? (That's assuming he is working 12 hours a day 6 or 7 days, if not then he can do paid work as well).
However you are not unreasonable to feel like you do Have you told your husband how you feel? Is he supporting you emotionally and practically? Any chance of moving closer to family so you have some support?
I will be honest and say your husband is unlikely to make loads of money in a year. I won't say how long it took my dad to be financially comfortable but it was a lot longer than a year.

Why did you think he had savings, and did he think you had savings? Because otherwise, he’s decided to do this with a young family and to be entirely dependent on his wife’s income, which is beyond reckless. Beyond.

i am struggling to understand why you didn’t have a conversation about the numbers and how long his savings would last.

Having no way of paying your bills is not about needing resilience. You need to have a proper conversation and have a plan, and he needs to pull his socks up.

You seem to be so caught up in supporting his dream that you are tolerating far too much.

I don’t think his plan was crazy, and it sounds like there is potential for it to take off. I think you were both poor at communicating with each other in advance on finances, and also in leaping into this without a sufficient cushion of savings.

Obviously the redundancy was unplanned, but funding so often takes far longer and growth/development is slower than ideal that this is needed.

Can he take on any short term consulting roles to fill the gap in the interim?

I feel for the both of you. He clearly has an entrepreneurial spirit, but he's ignoring reality. He's behaving as if he's still in his 20s, as if he's single with no baby, but he isn't.

It was selfish and reckless of him to do all of this whilst you were pregnant or on maternity. That time should have been spent preparing for your baby and relaxing as much as possible, with him as your financial anchor and support, but instead he's carried on as if that didn't even exist.

It's really shit and unfair, but the type of life he's leading now is usually led by men with plumy backgrounds with wealthy contacts, and even for them, it can be serious ups & downs for years & years after they start their business.

If he's determined to to do this and been seen as 'full time', then he needs to be the one staying at home looking after your baby. Obviously he'll be part time at least because he'll have the baby to attend to, but on paper it'll look like he's full time. That will enable you to go back into the workforce and keep your C.V going. When things get busier for him, the child might then be school age or maybe you can go part time if that suits.

Be careful. Don't sink all your money into his business. Given that your are tied together financially, and you're married, I feel like you need legal advice on this and that your husband doesn't end up doing something daft like offering your house as an asset.

Hang on so even if he got double the funding he needed, he still plans to be pretty much absent at home because ‘he wants to start a business’ marriage is a partnership and he’s a dad now, you don’t owe him his dreams op. When no one in your marriage is looking after you, you need to. Does he do much at home now?

I can’t believe someone with a young child quit their salaried job with no savings to start a business. No savings??? That’s crazy. Surely a healthy cash buffer should’ve been a precondition to quitting.

I’m sorry OP, this sounds so stressful. Fingers crossed you can get a decent job soon and that will ease the pressure financially. Some really helpful responses from PPs familiar with how start-ups work - hope all works out for your DH!

Nope!! He needs to get a paying job.

We had a kind of similar situation. Just as went back to work from maternity he lost his job. No redundancy as not worked there long enough. I had reduced to 4 days.

Luckily he was making money straight away. He is a trade so probably that makes a big difference. I have since dropped my management position to 2 overnight shifts with the same company as it’s a decent pay for just 14 hours. He did go through a few months only just making enough money on top having his van broken into and wrote off. He started looking for a job but luckily work is coming in again.

Child care is expensive, even with the “free” hours. So it doesn’t always make sense for both parents to work. Especially full time. He needs to get a job and try and work on his business on the side until it makes money to support you all.

You're living off your savings and they run out in a month. You're not over reacting. You're under reacting, and dismissing your own warning alarm in your efforts to cheerlead his decisions.

You're in another country, about to run out of cash, with a young baby. If you didn't find that stressful you'd be missing a few brain cells.

He needs to urgently get some money coming in, while you look for a job and work out child care, and if that's him doing a night shift stacking shelves, then so be it. I run my own business, and they're not built on big ideas and looking good.

They are built on common sense, good decisions and there hasn't been much of that going on in your situation, and hard work, unfortunately it's time for some of that, and doing what needs to be done. I've cleaned toilets, my dad had two jobs when we were small and he was building a business up, becase the bills need paying.

Time to check back into reality.

I think "delusional" is the word here. You should be bloody mad at him. If I were you I would be putting in claims for benefits because how are you going to feed and clothe your child?

Is the funding guaranteed, is there a time scale to him getting it? Companies promise all sorts and then pull the plug or push back funding dates at the last minute. The fact he hasn't got funding to the original time scale is proof of this.

Is it definitely funding and grants and not a loan?

Is there going to be demand for the product he makes? Some things are great on paper and look like they are in demand but in reality there is no demand or viable for them.

My husband sets up businesses, builds and runs them and then sells them on when they get to a certain size. He also has a freelance income separate to the businesses he runs. It is so important that you are 100% sure there is a viable market for your product before leaving any secure paid job behind.

There should have been a savings pot before hand, with agreement to how much of those savings will be used for funding the business. There should be a time scale of if it's not took off/making £x by y then we do this instead. Using your job to pay the bills is effectively living hand to mouth and not viable.

This is very much a case of shit timing and poor planning on his front. It is not a case of you been resilient, it's that his "business" is currently a very expensive hobby that is not creating income. Sometimes been a cheerleader involves giving the reality check before it becomes financially devastating.

Appreciate there's no point in looking backwards but surely he sees that this cannot continue. If you cannot pay your bills you need to get paid work... now. Maybe that means a weekend job or driving for uber or whatever but you need money coming in. Obviously this was not a great plan to begin with but that's already happened so now you just need to work out how you both have money coming in today otherwise you'll be in a mess in a few weeks.

I would tell him to go and get a job alongside, benefits will tell you the exact same thing.

Yeah the timing, the 'before I'm too old' and the emotions around failure, feels like panic at the responsibility of being a parent and ways to escape it and follow his dreams. A good partner and parent would feel at this point like their dream was keeping their new family secure and being there with them, not leaving all the worry to the wife as the money runs out and in the best case scenario buggering off overseas. I'm sure this is not the vision of your DC's early days OP dreamed of yet she's supposed to be resilient and endlessly support his dreams. The redundancy is a red herring I feel, as he can point at it and say 'if only it wasn't for that...' but women returning from mat leave is a known risk factor and his lack of savings, back-up plans and real world nous are the real problem.

Kindly OP you’re as much to blame for this situation as he is. I would say unless you have bailiffs at your door and mountains of debt then you’ll no doubt be fine long term as the business matures. I’m guessing one or both of you are from families who could support you given the lack of urgency and panic in your posts?

You need money.
This happened to me about the same time of life. Husband made redundant while I was on mat leave. Then teied his hand at setting his own thing up.
I decided I couldnt rely on him and focussed on my career. He had to take a step back so we could pay the bills and eat. Hes now been the lower earner for the last ten years. Deapite his efforts, I carry the financial weight.
When you have kids to feed, the priority is feeding your children, giving them a roof and clothes food and what they need.
Unless tour dh bas a clear plan on his take home income for his busines for the next few years then I would plan for your own income to cover what you need.

Completely agree with this. It was always going to be difficult doing this with no savings, even taking the redundancy out of it.

HMM.. Does the word ‘resilient’ come from conversations with him? If so that plus you having to handle his emotions about success rather than having space to have your own about family security are a bit red flaggy rather than this just being bad timing or planning.

Exactly how quickly will he be drawing a wage from his business? Hopefully if he is getting investors, their investment will cover his salary otherwise he is working for free.

Starting a new business when he has a family to support is madness. Is be very resentful. You definitely are completely reasonable to expect him to earn money.

I was speaking with a someone the other day who is 18 months into "running their own business' and is still not drawing any money. It's not working. But they had a lot to say to me about being "a thought leader', guesting on podcasts etc and a lot of other buzzwords, which ultimately are a not paying the bills.

They are older and in a position where they money isn't crucial, it's basically a hobby that is burning them out. You're not in the position where your DH has the luxury of the same. I would be taking action immediately to safeguard yourself and your son.

Is he from family money OP? What's the back up, he can't be on his last month of cash and not panicking if he's got any financial accumen whatsoever, surely?

He won’t have to pay it back, the person will get shares. I say the word ‘resilient’ as I wondered if it was my fault I wasn’t handling it well.

I think it's perfectly normal to be anxious in scenarios like this. If you weren't you wouldn't be considering the responsibilities you both have or taking them seriously.

As long as you're actively trying to solve the problems you're seeing and not just passively flapping around panicking, it's ok to be stressed here.

Not everyone is cut out for running a business. The ones that do well, are the ones who think ahead, plan ahead, make strategic decisions, and are willing to do an awful lot of work that they don’t enjoy to get off the ground. They may wax lyrical later about following their dreams, and taking risks but most of them didn’t actually step off a cliff wearing a blindfold and trusting that they can fly if only everyone will believe in them.