Is this enough to leave

[ohsofat]

My DH and I own a small business, not something I wanted from day one and something I made very clear to DH, but he'd had aspirations about owning his own business for years, he pretty much wore me down into signing the paperwork to buy the business etc. So now several years later we still have the business and I still don't want it but DH refuses to sell, which makes me think why am I spending my life with something that has a big impact on me when I don't want it, so the only way to get away from it is to leave DH, but is it bad enough to break up my family.

I think you should tell him straight that you have had enough and if he is keeping the business, you will walk away from the marriage.

We were in the same position, DH really wanted a business I didn't etc, it never made any money and I eventually said I'd leave if he didn't sell it. I had had enough and was absolutely ready to walk. He got rid of the business. There is still a lot of resentment on both sides, me for putting us in that position and leaving us with so much debt. He towards me for making him leave it. We're working on it.

I could have written your post myself. My husband went self employed in 2007 and the business expanded from there but it was me who was expected to keep the business going and I gave up my full time job after my maternity with my first dc.

It was never ever something I wanted to do and I resented it from the beginning. Running a business takes over your whole life. After 2 more dc and still trying to do everything single handed (payroll,accounts etc) whilst he was working away Mon-Fri on another side of the business, I decided enough was enough and in 2014 we closed that side of the business and I went back to work full time. He still continued the other side of the business so I still had the paperwork to fit in for this. This business still takes over our lives as we also employee 20 people too and he can't use a computer so the majority falls to me. He does issue the work and maintain the equipment though.

We would be discussing things and he would have a go at me because I hadn't managed to get something done and then expect me to want sex. Over time this has completely killed our relationship and I am just in the middle of telling him I want us to separate and divorce.

Trust me as I'm 10 years down the line of businesses that became our full time job it does tear apart your relationship especially if it something only one person wanted. I hope you manage to work through it and he listens to how your feeling. Unfortunately my husband never did :-(

brooklyn11 we're also 10 years in and have just sighed another 10 yr lease for the premises. I do feel as if we are in the best position we've ever been in at the minute but also acutely aware how quickly things can change and the thought of still having the business in another 10 years is really not the direction I thought my life would take.

I tend to do the paperwork and DH does the day to day running but yet like you gets annoyed when I haven't done things or done them quickly enough but also gets annoyed if I try to change anything I see wrong when I'm there if he isn't. Whilst it's supposedly a 50 50 business it's very much him boss me worker.

glitterfarts so please to hear your DH did take you seriously but like you I'm also afraid we would both just end up being resentful, whilst I'm not as resentful now (just got on with it) if I do sit and really think about what we've been through it makes me very sad and even more sad that my DC have also suffered by seeing the arguments and stress the business has caused at times, DH would definitely be resentful if I made him choose and he chose me, it would most likely be thrown at me in any arguments we might have in the future.

I read this on my phone and wanted to reply then I searched for the topic on my computer and the first topic that popped up was the one you were saying that you accumulated dept on the credit cards due to business expenses and household needs and didn't dare tell your husband. So you're having to work for this business to keep it afloat, although you didn't want to own it, and you even have to hide its expenses from your husband..all that so that the "poor guy" doesn't have a reality check, that (hello!) his business is losing money.

Having a business together can be really terrible for a marriage. And the type of person that wants to own/run a business without actually having enough knowledge or talent to do it, is very dangerous as the debt can accumulate really quickly.
I'd tell you my story but it's too long.. Basically, after being used to help my husband's company for a year (all based on him not knowing how to run the business he decided to run so I had to "help"= run the whole damn thing on organizational and almost every other level), which pretty much sucked up all my free time and more, and him not listening to me that he needs to concentrate on one side of his business and not "play to be a group of businesses with 2 employees and himself", I finally told him that in a few months' time when some contract ends, I will by no means ever again help his "businesses", so he can either employ someone to do what I've been doing (which would pretty much eat up all his profit) or learn to do it himself.

I ended working or being on the "hot line" for his company around the clock, I would stay at home with our child sick, working at the computer, so as my husband can go to the meetings and play a big businessman. Ha, that'll be over soon.

In our case it doesn't really affect our day-to-day finances that much as he comes from money and has inherited a lot, but just seeing him trifle away money on his failed business projects and moving on from one failure to the next one, has really made me resentful and I've lost most of my respect for him.
I do have my own little business which pays me a good monthly salary and also creates profits every year and I need my time to make that one grow, can't really spend any more time on my husbands' projects.

nirit it's awful and has put such a strain on us, just been speaking to the accountants and the accounts are so mixed up with personal debt (i.e. credit cards) that she is having trouble working things out.

I just want to walk away from it all, the mess of the business, the mess of the debt but I have DC to think about and to be honest I'm too scared.