Do I stay or leave family business

[doimakeachange]

I work with my parents in a family business. The business provides me with my house, car, many living expenses (cleaner once a week, fuel, all insurance). My work role means I am involved either fully at work or at the end of a phone 24/7. This involves weekend and night work with often no notice, or assumptions that I am available. My house is also where the primary office is (inside the house).
I am married and have two young children (nearly 2 and nearly 5).

I have been working for the family business for thirteen years - part time around university initially, then full time and then became a business partner in 2016.

The problem is that working with my father brings huge anxieties and possibly depression into my self regularly. Many times a year his behaviour causes me to feel great upset. He treats our employees as beneath him and is hardly any better to me or my mum. From reading the relationship threads I think he is most likely a narcissist. Nothing is ever good enough, everything is negative or challenged. You cannot have a conversation with him.

I moved with my family into the main house of the business in December 2021.

My continuing question which arises probably once a year or so is do I stay in this business or do I leave?

Pros of staying: one day I have a successful business which I could pass on to my children. This could possibly include assets (I have one sibling whom this would be shared although they are not in the business so they may receive unrelated assets). (My husband and I do not want to live life relying or what we may or may not receive one day as inheritance and try to live our lives with as much privacy as we can - difficult - we are building up our own financial ventures to prepare for the future and push on whilst we can. He is also self employed and juggles long hours and sharing the caring of small children)
Passing on a business would feel I am breaking the chain of working with a probable narcissist and could make a fresh start for my own children. They love some of the work the business does.

Cons of staying: don't feel like life is my own, regularly unhappy, all due to working with a negative person who puts you down and judges you. This puts me off the house and my home. (We do not own where we live, it is owned by my parents.)

There is so much more to this story. I have debated writing a post for years and have just enjoyed reading the forum for now as a way to learn about people and relationships. Thank you for reading. I have name changed as am concerned about privacy.

I appreciate any help or advice and will try to answer questions if there are any. Thank you.

Hello, before I move ahead I suggest holding here and be thankful to your father for helping you grow up and bring you to a place where you are standing today, think the positive side as all have negatives, employees are never happy so don't listen to them much, they like to break relations to create their own gains, not sure about your father's age but more we grow older the more hard we become in general for youngers, anyhow if you are confident that you can do something of your own move ahead without hurting the relations, you may pick a business within the same supply chain of your fathers current business either on top side or bottom side as you have the best knowledge of this field, becoming a direct competitor to your fathers business could be good idea but will cost the relation.

Ask your inner confidence, how confident you are that you will independently make something much better than your current business if answers come big yes move on if you doubt dont move.

it’s a dilemma OP. I must admit I have a visceral reaction to the thought of working in a family business. I grew up with parents, grandparents and uncle working together in a family business And it had an impact on the dynamic within the family that was really negative - similar that 24/7 being available, bullying and shitty behaviour that would never be tolerated when working with non-family, and normal family relationships were impacted on by whatever was going on with the business, etc Also with grandfather as MD meant that he essentially had control over parents and they resented it. It left everyone unhappy in one way or another but they were tied to each other because of the business. Over time All the relationships broke down - parents divorced, siblings estranged, difficult parent child relationships

i could go on for hours about how dysfunctional it was, but observing all this from childhood into my 20s when parents left the business made me adamant I would never work with family members

if you have great family relationships that can have decent boundaries between work and personal life without bad behaviour like the bullying, then maybe it can work. But I am highly sceptical.

preserve your mental health, use your skills in another job, and establish decent boundaries so you can enjoy your relationship with you parents without muddying the waters through the business

Do you really want to have your entire life dictated by the choices your parents made?

Do you want to put up with someone who treats you and your employees poorly simply because you are related?

Do you want to have your entire life taken over by this business?

I would ask myself those questions and make a a decision.

it sounds to me like you are starting to question the status quo and have realised that this business and how it is run is affecting your quality of life, mental health and your independence.

I personally would step out and go my own way. You have a supportive partner, a family and you can use the skills and experience you have gained from running a business to do your own thing.

This would be much healthier than having your father run your life forever and be dependent to a degree on him and his decisions for almost everything.

Thank you all for your very helpful replies. I'm very grateful you have taken the time to give me some feedback.

MaturingLikeCheese

Very interesting what you say about dysfunctional family relationships. I certainly feel we are in that territory. This business and my father's attitude caused major strain on my marriage a few years ago. We are in a much better place now, but my husband found the pressures extraordinary and it sent us to a bad place. Now it is very draining and I have to try and protect my family from it.

I'm not sure I do what my whole life and choices dictated by this business and my father, no.

He has been judgmental on all aspects of my life. From breastfeeding my children (a perceived hindrance to my ability to do work - unfounded as I have always worked from early days of having a baby doing office work and they both started nursery at 6 months for me to do work beyond the office); historically how we spend our Sundays; how much my husband does or does not contribute to the running of the house - ie irrelevant judgement into how we run our private lives.

Leaving the business feels like a huge step and one I'm not sure I'll ever be able to take. It's scary as it's change; I feel guilty like I am letting my family down. I am the sixth generation of my family to be in the business. So much pressure and what happens to it if I leave?

Thanks again all, lots of food for thought. And so much more still to consider.