Argument with DH. But what do I WANT?!

[BrassicaBabe]

DH works a million hours a week. Or close to it. So it's fair and reasonable that I do more overall.

I work FT from home. But I reality by skills or by luck I have more hours available. So I do ALL of the book work, HR, paperwork stuff for DH family business. (MIL and SIL now do 100% feck all. MIL older so fair enough. But SIL lazy and incompetent which is never going change. I really SHOULD just accept that.)

We have a side business with me/DH and BIL/SIL. BIL and DH do a similar amount of work. SIL still does FECK ALL.

Home. DH does a bit. But let's face it with a million hours a week a work it's never going to be 50/50.

So far in 2024 I've felt 100% overwhelmed, isolated and only own. This has ended up with an argument with DH. I've cried. I never cry!

There is nothing DH and I can do about SIL. So we just need to plug the gaps and get on..

I've said how much I feel on my own, responsible for EVERYTHING etc etc. DH asks (in frustration) "what do you want me to do"?!!

I've got no fecking idea?!!

He can't do the book work etc. he's always busy. He can't do the stuff that SIL should do. We all know that SIL is crap.

But yet I feel so sad and isolated. If I can't ask for what I want/need how can DH possibly stand a change?!!

Just because your DH chooses to work many more hours over full time does not mean you need to match him.

If you are doing the paperwork for his business on top of your job, consider stopping.

Tell him you want to pay someone else to do the book work, HR work and paperwork for the family business.

Maybe SIL will step up rather than pay a third party. And if not, at least it's stopped being your job 👍🏻

Thank you. I hear you. DH hours predate us getting together. Hes part of a family business and I kind of knew what I was getting in to. Ok, that was before the control freak twat that I am.

do the same amount of family-business work as youR SIL and pay someone else to do the rest. make sure salary comes out of the business. If she moans tell her that you were doing a much greater share and it was making home life impossible.

You either need to pay somebody else, or you get paid to do it. If you & DH get paid the same as BIL & SIL, but SIL only benefits because you do 'the stuff' then that's really annoying!

Can you not view sil as an employee, give her a performance review and targets?

You are currently working 3 jobs and pulling the main share of the housework, that's simply unrealistic

Your DH is only able to work his long hours in his job by you facilitating that with your efforts, yet that all seems to be flowing in one direction

If you can afford it (and quite frankly I should hope you can when you are both working all hours) outsource as much housework as you can, and outsource the bookkeeping for the DHs family business

Concentrate on your main job, and the side business that you actually have a stake in

I would say your SiL may be lazy, or she may be too savvy to be taken for granted like you are

So you knew what you was getting into. So what do you want now and what is different to when you first got married? You must have known they were lazy b's, so I'm not sure what you are looking for.

If the family business requires so much unpaid labour from you and DH, then it’s a failing business. You and DH need to sit down and evaluate whether it is profitable or not- after you account for the value of the extra hours. If it is profitable, then you and DH should be able to pay to have an accountant and a HR company doing the paperwork. If the business “can’t afford” these costs of doing business, then you are both working for free. Perhaps should wind up the business.

You are not being unreasonable, life evolves - just because you knew he worked a lot pre kids doesn’t make it ok that he does now.

It sounds you are both so accepting of him working a million hours a week, you think that’s the way life is, it isn’t.

You don’t know what you want because you are overwhelmed and a feeling of hopelessness that life will never change which is making you feeling helpless. Do not give info this! Act now before you are a shadow of a woman.

Write down all the childcare, admin and chores of family life - all of it.

and then sit down with your husband to solve the problem of divvying it up. You need to do less, he needs to do more, some you probably need to outsource.

Chip away at a system for a year till it’s right. You will not get it right first time. You will need a big white board for the kitchen and an electronic shared family calendar.

Try and divvy up areas completely - he does laundry, you do shopping, he does dentist, you do GP, you do sports kit, he does packed lunches. This way he is forced to take control of his areas - if the kids have no lunches there is only one person to blame.

I’m not suggesting it HAS to be 50/50 - although that assumption should be the starting point - but he has to take on responsibilities, not just ‘help’.

Outsource cleaning if you can (maybe some laundry too), get food delivered, have some ready meals days, and divvy up some batch cooking at weekends (or get someone to do that too).

As for your SIL, you cannot do anything about this immediately, but you can keep pointing it out, and hopefully the family will gradually reduce her hours.

If your husband backs off all this, tell him you think the two of you need marriage guidance counselling - that’ll get him round the kitchen table sharpish. (And if things go on like this, it’s true, you will.)

Also, ask yourself if you have some standards that need dropping. And make some time to look after yourself.

Helpful! Have you ever heard of ‘problem solving’?

Is SIL an employee? Sack her.

Or do the same amount of work as she does. If she can get away with it so can you. Maybe DH needs to actually pay someone to assist who doesn’t have another FT job.

Or you can just continue being a mug/martyr.

I suspect what you want is to stop doing the work for his family business.

So stop. Allow him to solve this problem that he offered to solve.

Stop.

Do you get paid for doing the bookwork? If so hire out as many household tasks as you can to people with the money you earn. If doing it for free, more fool you, it's not your job to take on when you already have a ft job. So decide how you want to go about life - cleaner, gardener? Or if you resent doing it, either the family business is viable enough to employ a bookkeeper- which shouldn't have to be you, or it isn't- in which case time to fold it up, it's that simple.

Outsource and delegate.

Employ somebody to do the bookkeeping, someone for HR and all other admin tasks. Pay good wages, not next to fuck all - no scrimping or trying to get away with NMW or expecting them to do a fulltime job in 15 hours a week. Accountants can also support with payroll services if you want to keep that separate. This is all paid for by the family business and means you won't be sweating over HMRC returns or implementing changes in tax codes/deduction from earnings orders or anything else that's HR related.

Employ somebody to cover cleaning, gardening, etc. Assuming you don't have animals that could shit everywhere before it does its thing, get a robot vacuum/mop - one that can empty itself and return to its charging base without any involvement whilst you're working. Outsource anything that you can't be arsed with or is so annoying and time consuming that it buggers you up for things you actually want to do.

So how did they manage before you came along?

Bless you guys.

Sil doesn't work. I am a higher rate tax payer. So in the nicest sense, there is little point in me taking minimum hourly wage just to get taxes at 45.%. Then I'm my own worse enemy.

I try to see if that DH and are together as a duo. Let's face it, it I don't do the stuff that I do them it only rolls over to DH.

I'm my own else enemy. I'm don't want anyone to do a worse job than me. I DEFINITELY don't want to pay someone to do a job that still needs 50%+ efffort on my part to get the 3rd party to be effective.

So he works in the family business with SIL, he does a million hours, you work in a separate job but also do the books for this family business.

Do you get paid for this separate to DH?
Does SIL who does nothing get paid?

You then have a side business with SIL and BIL. Who actually works on this? Is this part of husbands million hours? Who gets paid from this?

How profitable is either of these businesses?

That was about 15 years ago. mIL did a sterling job with paperwork. I took over took jobs 1) invoices out 2)invoices in. Automated those. And by mistake made her redundant and reliance me on me 100%. It turns out that SIL has been 100% fluff 🙄🙄

@theduchessofspork 😘😘I'll def come back to this post xx

It'll only need 50% effort until they're trained. If you are overwhelmed and have too much on you need to stop and outsource. No point swelling on SIL, I'm sure her and BIL have their own deals and how they allocate work. Besides there's precious little you can do to change her- only yourself.

Pay someone else to do the books.
If sil doesn’t like it she can step up and do it.
Why is your dh working so many hours?
Can he not employ someone else to take on a lot if the work?
I don’t understand about the separate business he has with bil and sil either.
Some people find it difficult to let go. They maintain that they, and only they, have to be there to do all the jobs. In reality this is rarely the case.
Find out why your dh feels this way. There are several possible reasons. Once you know that you can then address the problem.

Can you recieve dividends rather than a salary?

Have you spoken to your accountant?

What does BiL have to say about it?

What is the pay structure though? If family are the shareholders, is it dividends or is SIL on the payroll in name only to flatten out tax and maximise pension? There aren't many perks left in the utter ball ache that is running your own business - dividends / pension / time off are about the only things that make it bearable.

Maybe something revolutionary?

Leave the family business?

If 1 of the 3 people running it is doing virtually nothing, one person is working a million hours and one person is going mental with the stress, that is not sustainable.

Or at least reorganise and re-negotiate?

Just because it’s a family business surely it doesn’t mean that you get no say.

If you can’t change the way the business operates, including dropping deadweight, and your DH doing less hours, then the only alternative is to leave the business. PS. You say you are a control freak, fair enough, but you should still be able to outsource some of your work.

Also why is the SIL getting away with it? That would annoy me right there if she’s getting paid. Very unhealthy and unfair balance.

You can’t go on like this.

Something has to give.