Husband in fairyland, how do I get through to him before it’s too late?

[Nitpickpicnic]

Back story is: me 46, him 50, 7yo DD. Married 11 years, together 15.

When we fell in love, we were both in fairly well paid corporate jobs, with all the perks. Both owned houses from a young age, worked very hard to save and pay them off.

Just before we married, he got made redundant but admitted he’d been less than enthusiastic (knocking back higher responsibilities) for previous 18 months. He had a dream self employment/passion idea and went for it, saying that the redundancy was ‘fate supporting his dream’.

I left work soon after our wedding to care for my terminally ill dad, and try to sort out his complicated affairs (including a big real estate project he’d committed to but couldn’t fulfil). So DF passed away, and significant inheritance followed. The money from our houses and DF supported us through DH’s dream businesses 1 & 2 (concurrent), a child (infertility issues = costs), my birth trauma issues and now here we are.

Financial advisor at Christmas showed us (separately) how we’re out of money and in trouble. No chance of paying for the education we’d like for our daughter, no real retirement savings, and very few earning years left. My reaction was to immediately take as much responsibility for my part as I could. Got counselling (financial & emotional) to get my thoughts straight, cut our spending by 3/4, and am trying hard to get back into the workforce.

Problem is DH is a bit too dependant on the glamour/acclaim he gets through the 2 businesses ‘he’ runs. His only acknowledgement of the situation is vague commitments to ‘do better’ in the same direction. He’s regularly in the paper, etc and everyone in our lives thinks he’s this successful entrepreneur because of it. I should add he is very likeable, spiritual and an ‘everone’s best friend’ kinda guy.

Meanwhile I’m wringing my hands about our DD’s future, and stressing that I’ve supported every day of our lives for a decade (like, every bill), working on the back room boring jobs in the business as well.

I want to keep our family in tact, but I feel responsible for safekeeping what savings are left for our DD’s future. He’s stonewalling when I try and get him to understand he has to rethink these ‘vanity’ projects and get a real job while he can. Won’t hear of it, won’t talk about it (unless I count the times he humours me to shut me up, I think?).

Do I have to leave him before he gets it? Make him stand on his own feet? Feels like game-playing that we’d all never recover from. Any ideas?

Would it be feasible to ask him to ditch business 2 in favour of business 1 (and possibly some waged work)?

Only worth considering if the business realistically has the potential to grow and generate more income.

Instead of blowing your inheritance on being a SAHM and him playing the entrepreneur for 10 years, you could have bought another property and be living comfortably off the rental income for ever. You've both made very poor financial judgements so I have no sympathy for either of you.

I have not read all the threads, but may I offer a word of warning. If you are listed also as Director of those 2 businesses and they officially are made bankrupt it will also affect you now and the future. Be wary of signing any documents he puts in front of you related to the business in case he suddenly 'wises up' and does a runner with any remaining funds. For you and your daughter's sake I would open a private account and shove any spare cash in there as the 'rainy days are a comin'. Best of luck.

very few earning years left

Well, he's got 17 and you've got 21 until state pension age...

peekybo thanks, I needed a laugh! At my ‘witchiest’ low-point I may have outlined to DH how, looking back, I might have had a lot more fun with my inheritance instead of bankrolling his fun!

My spending on me was mainly medical, counselling and help with weight loss after a bad birth/newborn stage. I should have done all that on a tropical island with your limpid-eyed abs man perhaps!

And yes, our child is at a State school. Not sure the relevance, but hey ho. I was hoping to afford private school or outside school hobbies/tutoring for her teen years plus help with university but that looks very unlikely at this point.

I will never forgive myself for my financial naïveté in these last years, but it took all I had to pull my body & soul back together and raise my child. I tried to keep all the plates spinning, and that one crashed. Now I’m trying to be positive and make up for it. Of course I know we’re still better off financially than some. But I’m finding it hard to contemplate a future without him living with us. We’d be selling off even more assets to do this, plus breaking DD’s heart (and mine).

And I’m grimly sure he’d partner up again without a problem. Thanks to his public profile and contacts over these last years (and he’s quite good-looking), he’ll no doubt find another sugar-mummy. Leaving me to feel ever-more the dupe!

Thanks again for responses, it helps to know.

Well, he's got 17 and you've got 21 until state pension age...

at which point all the people who didn't choose to piss their inheritance (or no inheritance in most cases) up the wall will be paying to support you in your old age. FFs. I've been working 34 years so far and still have another 16 to work before I am due any state pension. DH was a SAHP for 3 years funded from my income and what he could earn part time on top. We've both still managed to save for retirement and we've not had the benefit of an inheritance and were raised in poverty.

You need to sit down, work out a budget and split the required income 50:50. Tell him he's got a month to either make the money through his hobbies businesses or he get gets a job. Not starts looking vaguely to keep you quiet but anything, something to bring actual money into the household fund. No income then you'll have no choice but to go it alone. Does he know you're seriously considering leaving him?

This is actually more or less a cock lodger situation.

If you want to bankroll somebody, it could be a penniless lover with eyes like limpid ponds and washboard abs. Peekyboo feel free to expand on this hypothetical situation ...

I’m sorry to hear about your birth trauma; I hope the counselling helped. It’s hard for people who’ve had straightforward births to understand just how horrific a process labour and birth can be.

If you can protect your remaining inheritance, please do, and in your name only. It’s time his businesses ran on money they generated.

I wish you luck with the job hunting. Don’t forget to include anything you’ve done for his businesses on your cv.

As a pp said, are you a director in his company? If so, it’s time to get some advice about protecting your assets in case of redundancy. If you’re not part of the company, maybe the house should be in your name only to protect it.

And if your daughter is 7, you’ve got years to save for university. After school activities are not usually hugely expensive, and she could always get a part time job herself to save.

Good luck!

Could these businesses actually make enough to support you with work ?

Another PP is right, you need to check very carefully that you will not get dragged in the mud if either of these businesses go belly up.

OP are you in the UK?

If he is making £15000 but everyone thinks he makes £200,000 that’s one thing.
But I think it’s a net loss?

I'm lucky enough to have a partner who supported me in leaving a disastrous professional situation, having a fallow period to get my shit together again, and setting up a business in a new field that has changed my life a zillion-fold for the better even though we are worse off financially compared with the old career. So I understand the importance of having fulfilling work, and the trade-offs between happiness and money, and all the quality of life issues that arise.

But 10 years is way too long to be expecting someone else to pick up the tab on everything, and tbh it sounds as though what he has is not so much a business as a very expensive hobby. I think the time has come for him to take stock of what he is doing and how he's doing it, with a view to making some changes that will ensure the long-term viability of a career that is clearly important to him. However freely or foolishly - or otherwise - you gave that support, the situation has changed now and you both need to rethink how you are cutting your cloth.

I wonder if you can present this as a creative process, an opportunity to assess and weigh up what the business is doing well or badly, ways in which it might expand or be redirected, experiences or training he might benefit from and which might feed into future activity. Encourage him to treat it like life coaching or something. There will be people who think this sort of approach panders to him, but he sounds like a man with a large but fragile ego, who would respond better to attention than criticism.

I guess it depends what his good qualities are and how much you love him and want to keep your family together. I think it also depends what the numbers are, as with all the talk of big inheritances etc, I do wonder whether the real problem here is that you want a lifestyle very few people can afford and which is incompatible with all but the very highest earning careers.

We’re not in the UK, no.

I really don’t think I can give much more detail on the businesses, they couldn’t be a more ‘outing’ combination. One is loosely in the performing arts, as a PP guessed. Everyone’s so amazed and impressed he’s ‘made it’ in such a fickle industry. Think thousands of people applauding him, every second weekend. The other job gets more press. It’s hard to compete with that level of adoration, or be heard over the universal applause he gets. I get told how lucky and proud I must feel, about 30 times a week. Smile, grit teeth, move on.

Many of you are right, I need to change the language I use. They’re hobbies if they cost money, and businesses/jobs only if they MAKE money.

The structure of the businesses are unlikely to affect my financial position if we have to walk away from them, or they end up in debt. Presumably I’d be responsible for keeping us even more than now, though. It’s a good reminder from those warning me, to make sure there’d be no sexually-transmitted debt. Worth my checking in that direction. Thankyou.

Thanks Scelestus & MrsLupo, for taking the time and care to answer in such depth. Loads of food for thought. Might even borrow your language in talking to him. Brings clarity to my conflicted mind!

It makes up for some of the (less helpful) other responses. Hopefully now that it’s clear I won’t ever be a burden on the UK taxpayer, some will be consoled. Never imagined my financial woes and ‘mia culpa’ would raise the ire of strangers?! But sorry if it’s offended people, I guess.

My DH and I ran our own business for many years, and we were adamant that if it didn't make money, then we would pack it in and do something else. We both loved working in the particular line we had chosen, but it was a business, and not a hobby. We planned and were brutal about the generating of income, while making sure that expenditure was kept to an absolute minimum. It was so successful that we retired when I was 51 and my DH was 54. However, that success was in many respects due to the fact that we constantly reviewed the business, and if things in a certain area were going well we expanded them, and if it wasn't we either changed our approach or eliminated it. There was no room for sentimentality or ego massaging.
From reading your posts, I think what I would do in your position is seek the help of a very good accountant who can analyse the businesses accounts, and give you fair and unbiased advice about the chances of the businesses making more money, or identifying those items that make a loss, and also to see if these are viable businesses or just vanity projects. Tell your DH that this would be a good idea as a 10 year business review, and make sure you go to the discussion together.
Lastly, and this is something that would really concern me, is that there is a rule of thumb in business that you do not use capital to keep the revenue side of the accounts in the black, and this is something that your DH has been doing with your inheritance and property sales.
Good luck.

Morning OP

I think you said upthread that you don’t actually know how much business1 brings in?

That needs to change.

Can you put the remains of you inheritance into your pension today? That would force the issue.

What exactly do you feel you need to save for with regards to your daughter's future? It's not clear.

It's a little more complex that you're not in the UK I guess, here kids from even very poor backgrounds can still go to university and pay back the loans after when they're earning a decent amount. Are you in a country where she'll be unable to attend if you don't save up thousands to pay for it upfront?

One of the careers is semi-pro/lower-level pro sports, isn't it?

If it's the sport I'm thinking of, it's a financial black hole unless you're very, very good or have loads of sponsors.

Hmm.

If it arts/performance related, could you look at his fee structure and do a ruthless review of his business model? Is he going stuff at or below cost for the prestige?

Regardless of the worry about not being able to fund your child’s future possible needs- how about yours? Do you have pensions? Is the current house fully paid off? I’d be more concerned with what I was going to do in the future after work was no longer an option. If he won’t acknowledge there is an issue- then it’s uo to you how much of an issue this is. Do you want to continue limping along until you have absolutely nothing, or do you feel that you could walk away now? Sounds like a shitty situation all round.

Well, at least you have realised your financial woes and are trying to take steps to address them. And certainly your DH needs to get his head out of the sand sharpish and play his part in addressing them.

But hard to see how it is all entirely his fault - yes you’ve both been living off your inheritance, but you could have worked in the last ten years to help protect the inheritance instead of burning through it. So many of us have to “put body and soul back together and raise a child” while earning a living to pay the bills at the same time.

I am utterly agog that you've spent 10 years like this and wasted your fathers money. Other people have been through traumatic births and had to lose baby weight whilst life has continued including holding down jobs I can't believe you've actually used those things as reasons to have not worked for 10 years. You actually sound like your head has been up your arse about this as much as your husbands has Been.

You need to know how much money his business is making that is an immediate condition. If he's only with you to be bankrolled you'll soon find out but that doesn't mean that you should have to kill yourself finding jobs and making all the money or sacrifice for him to continue his swanning around.

This:

"You need to know how much money his business is making that is an immediate condition"