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

Agree he needs to be doing paid work now and managing his business on the side, this is too much pressure on you when you've just had a baby.

I think your partner needs to find at least part time work to fund household income and alleviate pressure.

You need to find a job and change your expectations on salary. It seems you need a job asap so would compromise until you’re in a position to do so in the future.

its not a question of resilience but practicality and financial stability for the foreseeable for you and your children.

what if you can’t find a job in time? What is partner currently doing- looking for funding? I think there needs to be a degree of realism from him as there doesn’t seem to be any likely cash flow from his business for sometime?

Really want to reply to all posts, some very helpful responses. Thank you so much. @Nutmuncher with regards to help, my family can’t help. It’s always been this way, I was in precarious financial positions when younger, which is why I don’t want to be again.

you aren’t unresilient. But maybe your appetite for risk isn’t matched to your DH’s.

I say the word ‘resilient’ as I wondered if it was my fault I wasn’t handling it well.

How else are you supposed to handle it? The money runs out this month. There is no nice way to handle that and his 'hopes' for investment are not going to feed your DC or keep the lights on. He should be urgently looking for work as well as you. There is no reason he can't work at weekends or evenings at least.

A business not making a profit is not a business - it’s an expensive hobby. He should return to paid employment and put his business plans on hold until he has investment secured or the market is more favourable.

Thanks so much @financialcareerstuff I have thought about the shares, in fact he mentioned it. I feel and hope we’d never get divorced, but I thought shares might put me in a worse financial position. Ie wouldn’t I be entitled to have his ownership in the business if we got divorced? If he gave me shares it would be a smaller fraction. He couldn’t give me an equal share now.

I do need him to validate and care about my feelings of overwhelm and stress. I really appreciate all your points, thank you.

No, you don't need to be more resilient. Your husband needs to behave sensibly and responsibly and provide income for his family.

I say this as a business owner. If he wants to start a business, great. But keep your job as you do it on the side. It isn't a great idea to quit your job and sacrifice reliable steady income when you have a family to support, unless you have new business already secured and know money will be coming in.

As he's been working on his business - whatever it is - for months now and STILL has no income from it (hat is 'funding'? what about actual paying customers?), he needs to look at getting a job immediately as you have pressing financial needs to take care of.

It's terrible timing but you're in it now so I'd just try to battle through. You're in the trenches at the moment but try to keep your eye on the prize. You clearly believe it could work so between the two of you, give it your all. You'll hopefully look back in years to come on how hard it all was but be glad you bit the bullet, sucked up the hardship and got where you wanted to go.
My parents went through something like this. They're millionaires now but they talk about the electricity getting cut off, the house about to be taken from them, 3 small children etc. They held each other close, cried together at points, prayed a lot and just focused on shielding us from the stress. And then it all came good, quite suddenly, after about 2 years.

People have mentioned leaving full-time work without savings was reckless and I agree.

The only way I can explain it, when he finished the business plan and I read it (more proof read it,) when our baby was quite young. We had so much going on, I can’t remember what he said about personal savings and how much he would have. The emphasis was on me returning to work and covering the costs.

He had in the plan to expect to receive different funding in different months and this meant I could work 4 days a week. Obviously this hasn’t worked out.

I agree, I should have insisted he have ‘x’ savings on leaving. Ie x months to cover all our costs, in case of emergencies.

We’ve been talking this morning and he has given me some dates in February when various funding should come in.

I feel keen to get back to work asap (working on it) and start to try saving even a little bit of money. As someone said, it is unfortunate I basically need to find a higher paid job that before leave ideally, so more stress.

Thank you @Grammarninja that’s so moving. Thank you for sharing, so glad it is ok now 🙏 xx

My husband ran his own business so I understand how you feel. I agreed to it though and he always drew a salary from it, albeit not a huge amount. It was hard and stressful ( we have 4 children) and I knew I had to keep working as the possibility of the business folding was always there.

It worked out for us as my husband sold his business for a healthy amount and is now working for the purchaser on a 6 figure salary. I reduced my hours to part time, although I don't have to work, and we have a very high standard of living.

It's not for the faint hearted but I have no regrets supporting him. He's an entrepreneur through and through, but any rumblings of new business is quickly shot down by me as I wouldn't go through it again.

I'm hugely risk averse but I backed my husband in his business too. I didn't have a baby at the time but it did involve lots of sacrifices. We even cleared out our home and moved in with family for 3 months so we could do airbnb for extra income.
I believed in him and it also worked out. He went from 60k a year to 600k a year within 4 years.

my husband started his business after i got pregnant. it was nerve wrecking at first, as it took him months to get any income from the business and i was also in the firing line at work..i was eventually fired one year later. the difference is we had a good amount of savings to see us through..

it never gets easy, even after income started flowing, i had to take on most household stuff and also got help (nanny, cleaner) despite me not working full time as the business is eating up all his evenings and sometimes weekends. actually, the more successful the business becomes, the less time there is. what helps is he wfh so he is around for lunch, 5 min break here and there..would be a diff story if he worked in the office.

i knew the risks we exposed ourselves when he started and was happy to take them on. i also accepted my career would take backseat for some time. so whether you need to be more resilient is smth you need to decide for yourself.

OP I work with people starting businesses. 1 year is not long at all to try and get something off the ground and the vast majority of new businesses aren’t sustainable at this point. It usually takes a few years until you’re looking at a steady sustainable income. You can have loads of plans to have funding by x and y and z dates and it can seem very reasonable to a hopeful mind but statistically speaking, the majority of new businesses fail or at least aren’t reliable in the first years. With that in mind, people who have significant responsibilities (family; mortgage etc) often have to develop something as a side project before committing to it, and it can take several years to do so. Quitting your job to start a business is a very risky strategy and unless there is a significant buffer to last you a couple of years, usually fails. It’s very unfair to put all the financial responsibility on you while your DH tries to launch something - yes you absolutely need resilience to get anything off the ground but you need to be realistic too. Funding was meant to arrive in December, it’s February. You can’t be carrying the family alone. Your DH can try again in the future when the timing is better and he is better prepared not to rely on you.

What an absolute twerp. What the fuck was he thinking? Nothing like waiting until you’ve more responsibility than ever to jack in your job and expect your wife to carry you while you prat about starting your own business. Why the fuck didn’t he get up and running alongside paid employment? Selfish, stupid and irresponsible. Setting up your own business isn’t for the faint hearted, or the under motivated, he needs to get a job.
ETA that’s not to say he should give up the business necessarily but he needs to have an income alongside.

I’d be inclined to support him still. Women and mums are often more risk averse so they will
all be offering from this perspective. It not a hobby and he is in the trenches but if he is in incubators has some intention letters id give him some more time. But he may need to pick up some evening work for extra income to supplement yours.

you are currently in a trough and it sucks to have to step up when you’ve just had a baby. But he hasn’t acted unilaterally it was agreed on this timescale with full knowledge of pregnancy and mat leave. The redundancy threw in a spanner but you can make it work together. Keep the lines of communication open so the resentment doesn’t build.

the start stages of building a business are really rough but if it goes well it will be worth it and youll come out the other side stronger.

he should’ve had bloody savings though!

I am fucking infuriated on your behalf.

He feels he'll be too old if he didn't do when you were pregnant? Honestly you should have been saying that's tough luck, you should have done it before now, now you have to wait. You're going to have a child relying on your income (and yours as you believed at the time, not your fault you were made redundant).

This is the ultimate in selfishness. He's risking your home, your lives, to pursue something that after half a year is not turning a profit!

No wonder he is not getting any investment, he'd be turned away for a bank loan to support this venture that is so woolly it just relies on "investment to develop a product - by the way I need to work full time on this". What exactly is he doing with his time?

He needs to get a job, or you need to get a job to support your family. If that means he has to give up this hobby (because at this point, that's what it is) then too bad. He is a grown adult, with a family. He doesn't get to unilaterally decide that this dream of his trumps everything else.

What does the business do?

Okay so if he's now given you dates in Feb that investment will arrive then that's the test of whether this is real or bs and if the money doesn't materialise when he's said, and it reverts to being 'next month' or 'next few months' you have 100% right to flip/put foot down/draw a line and he has to get proper paid work. The bills need paying. If his funding doesn't cover his share, he needs a wage from other work. Hold him to the dates he's promised today and don't be swayed. By the end of the month, either he'll have enough to pay the bills or he won't and you'll have a very clear answer on whether his plans can be trusted.

Who’s caring for your child when you’re back at work full time and he’s busy working on his business? If nursery, who’s paying for it and doing the drop offs?

Why can he not build his new business around a paid job? That's what any sensible person would do. Currently he is a financial drain and is not contributing - or is he an amazing stay at home dad type who mops the floors while baby is in a sling?

Get paid work both of you. Now. Save money and then your savings cover a years expenses your husband can have 9 months business adventure to see if it can work- if not retur to paid work.
What you are doing now is bonkers.

What happens to the children and families if it doesn’t come good though? For every successful business there’s lots that fail, especially in today’s economy.

The only way I can explain it, when he finished the business plan and I read it (more proof read it,) when our baby was quite young. We had so much going on, I can’t remember what he said about personal savings and how much he would have. The emphasis was on me returning to work and covering the costs.

He had in the plan to expect to receive different funding in different months and this meant I could work 4 days a week. Obviously this hasn’t worked out.

Ok so 2 things here. This is not a business plan this is a man being supported by his wife, going back to work very quickly after having had a baby and with no real plan in the alternative. The fact that it is vague about how much personal savings he has (uncertainty that seems to have been born out by the facts) suggest that it may also have been slightly misleading.

Even giving him the benefit of the doubt I don’t think I could really respect someone who expects his wife to go back and support the whole household so soon after giving birth. On any level there should’ve been an objective thought going through his own head here that he should’ve waited until you were well established back in your career.

Secondly, if this was the basis of his in “business plan” there were two important things that changed. The first was that you were made redundant, the second was that the funding he expected to receive did not materialise. If this was the business plan then it was on him to go back to it immediately and come up with an alternative, such as the ones suggested on this thread, like him working at weekends picking up consultancy work or something else to bring in an income. It was really foolish to wait for another five months (by my calculations) until your money is literally about to run out.

As others have said this is not about resilience, it’s about him taking advantage, and possibly neither of you being business people.