I think DH should give up on his business

[changedmynameagainforthis]

I’ve posted about this a few years ago. DH quit his job at the end of 2022 after a serious health thing and deciding he wanted to do something completely different. He’s now working as something like a therapist (being vague as outing).

The problem is he is not earning anything enough. When we take into account his business costs we are in the minus for the current tax year.

I work full time with a baby and 2 older primary age children. Earning around 60k. We have a hefty mortgage, so DH has asked his parents to help us out while “he finds his feet with the business”. They have given us thousands and thousands of pounds. I am super uncomfortable about it, but I can’t support a family of 5 by myself with the costs we have. They contribute about 1/3 of our household costs at present. I pay 2/3.

Here is the problem. I think DH should get a job and pay his own way. DH thinks there is no problem, everything is paid for, so why should he.

In a way he is correct, everything is paid for. But I am so resentful. I hate having most of the responsibility, whilst also doing all the baby night wakings (DH can’t because of health condition…). When I got pregnant with baby the aim was I’d go back to work part time. That obviously hasn’t happened.

I don’t know how to get him to see that this isn’t working for me. Anyone got a way of making him see that his parents paying his way isn’t ok? Or am I missing the point entirely and he’s right?! Last time we discussed it he fobbed me off and suggested I’m only with him for money

Reading your posts it really does sound as if you’re at the end of your tether OP.

I don’t think there is any point in allowing this to drag on with promises that he will reform. He won’t. He’s only saying that now to buy himself more time.

I think you need to make it clear that you do not have any further capacity for things to carry on as they are. Either he gets a proper job or it’s over.

So clearly the 'mentor' was a waste of money..

Don't waste energy and headspace getting angry or having any more chats. Tell him you want him to get a job, any job, otherwise you WILL reconsider the relationship. Don't say the divorce word yet, but seriously consider it.

Unacceptable to continue to throw good money after bad.

His "business" has failed. He's blaming that on his being a lazy asshole. He's had 3 years of failure. He gets no more time. Time to close up and get a fucking job that brings in money.

He could have had a degree in that amount of time and possibly the money he's siphoned away. But he fucked around and it's time to find out the Bank of wife is closed. He has to work.

See that lawyer, get those ducks aligned, and have them draw up divorce papers. If he doesn't work, he gets served. It's that simple.

I don’t know how to get him to see that this isn’t working for me

I'm afraid you never will, OP, because it's "working just fine" for him...

Time management? time for sauna, gym, does little to support the household? sounds like an excuse to do even less!

But he can work, he is working at something not profitable
and I’ve never read one of these with genders flipped and the husband doing all the nights because the wife can’t. I’ve actually never heard of a wife who can’t do nights with her baby, I’m sure some exist but remarkably it does seem mainly reserved for dads

No doubt the reasons why he hasn't put enough effort into his business (!) are not his fault. They are everyone elses, having to walk the dog, needing a nap, having to pick kids up from school....... nothing to do with his lack of effort trying to make this 'business' work.
Did he really think working 2 hours a day would lead to success?

This was my concern upthread. A mentor who is taking £6k a year off him to persue a borderline alternative lifestyle, should be ringing some alarm bells. OP, have you googled the scheme/process the mentor claims to be a part of?

It's taken him 3 years with no profit to tell him he's not working hard enough? Sorry, but that is unadulterated nonsense. If he couldn't concentrate and put in the hours at the beginning, when it was all new and shiny and exciting, what makes him think he's going to manage it now? No wonder you're so pissed-off. Please tell him this just isn't good enough. He's had three whole years to prove himself and now he needs to buckle down and get an ordinary paying job to help support the children HE fathered. I really feel for you in all this @changedmynameagainforthis

So how come, after three sodding years, his mentor hasn't sorted out his time management issues?

He doesn't have time management issues, he's just bloody bone idle.

WTAF? So basically he's been pissing around for 3 years doing fuck all while you've been working your socks off?

I would have gone ballistic. Just tell him you're not putting up with this shit any more, he clearly has no idea how to run a business, and he needs to bin off the mentor, and get out there and find a paying job, any job and start earning some money.

And while he's looking for work he can do child care and save you the nursery fees.

I feel so angry on your behalf. How dare he treat you like this?

I going to repeat what I said upthread. He needs a job, any job. Don’t let him morph from being ‘a self employed cocklodger’ to being a ‘looking for a job cocklodger’. He gets down to the job centre to sign on pronto and then applies for any job. If you have to, sit and write his cv with him, look for jobs, help him to apply, then do so. He’s proved he’s unreliable so you need to be proactive. Find jobs he can apply for, or if you have his cv, apply for him!

Also He needs to get a job stacking shelves in Tesco before the right job comes along. It’s not easy finding good jobs nowadays, hence he needs to do a low level job first!

Here comes all the excuses he can think up because you want to go through the finances and he is desperate to carry on his zen lifestyle whilst everyone carries him financially.
He’s had three years off support and it ends now or he can move in with his parents and they can continue to treat him like a little boy and pay his way.

The “you’re only with me for money” line is manipulative nonsense. Expecting your partner to contribute financially when you’ve got three kids, a mortgage and nursery fees isn’t gold-digging, it’s the bare minimum of being an adult. After three years a “business” that earns less than it costs including £6k to a mentor is a hobby you’re all subsidising. You’re working full time, carrying most of the bills and the mental load while he does a couple of hours a day and goes to the gym. That’s not a partnership, it’s you funding a manbaby lifestyle.

If he wants to chase his dream fine, but he needs to get a real job alongside it. Otherwise you need to seriously ask yourself why you’re staying and how long you’re prepared to keep being a mug about it.

My response to that (because I’m at an age where I don’t give two fucks (although also at an age where I wouldn’t have tolerated any of this bullshit approx 3 years prior) would be ..

’you utter fucking cunt. Are you telling me that whilst I’ve been running myself ragged to try and support two adults because of your health condition, you ‘haven’t put the effort in you could have’. You are an atrocious husband and a selfish selfish human. Fuck off out of my life.’

That’s even worse, literally couldn’t be arsed……

How can you be a life coach if you can’t manage your own time?
WTAF?

lol you have to almost admire him

he’s not only got his wife working her ass off to pay for everything while he works ( I mean goes to the gym , walks the dog )

and his parents paying for stuff for him

I reckon he will make an excellent Tinder Swindler

if I were you op I would refuse to pay for anything for him and make a plan to leave

he’s the sort of person who will resent you for making him give up his life of leisure

OP, he knows he’s been rumbled, which is why the sudden pivot to the “time management” argument. Expect more gaslighting over the next few days and possibly some aggression before or during the big discussion.
Someone upthread suggested you look up DARVO — it’s worth familiarising yourself with the pattern. Another poster mentioned seeing a solicitor ahead of the meeting, which also sounds sensible.
I’d also be pressing MIL about the bookkeeping she’s doing for him. If she’s looking at the numbers, she’d know very quickly that a mentor isn’t sustainable after the first few weeks, let alone years. Where exactly is her encouragement for him to increase turnover and cut his outgoings?
At the moment her “support” looks a lot like enablement. And that enablement is affecting your marriage, because she is effectively backing him rather than holding him accountable.

He's not going to do any of this, though. It's much easier to gaslight OP into thinking there is something wrong with her.

OP I've been in your shoes. You're just a good person who is being taken advantage of by a bad person. It happens.

There are some very good people out there who would be on your side 100% and don't even need asking, much less telling. As I discovered eventually, though painful trial and error!

Oh, OP. Assuming you haven't finally snapped and are currently burying him under the patio (and I'm sure there are potential witnesses on this thread who'd swear blind he slipped just saying)... NO.

As PP said upthread: he has basically retired without telling you, and is now so desperate that he's accidentally telling the truth. He has spaffed £18k of your money up the wall, and uncounted thousands from his parents, on a 'career' he doesn't care enough about to try hard enough to make it work.

The mentor is shite at best, a con artist at worst.

He needs to get a fucking job. The end.

Please stop paying for everything that enables him to live the life of Riley at your expense.

I'd be tempted to say something like 'the dentist said I really need some work done this month so you'll have to cover an extra £400 of the families outgoings' and see his reaction. Oh yes and 'the car needs X replacing, I totally forgot, it will be another £200, what are you going to do about it?'

If he's poor at time management then I doubt very much if running his own business (even with a mentor!!!) is for him.

I know that his parents have what is best termed 'problems' with letting their kids sink or swim, but would it be worth having a word with them at any level? I mean, what are the tax implications for them of floating two of their children? And what about any other siblings - won't there be implications for any inheritances? This just has disaster written all over it, and your DH should NOT be counting his parents' contributions as his 'earnings', which it sounds as though he is doing.

The trouble with a selfish twat like this is that he won't see the problem. That's for OP to manage. He has made it plain that she just needs to be patient and untold rewards will cascade down from the heavens. If she argues with this, she is simply being unreasonable in his view.

Ask me how I know... one particular DP, when I urged him for the gazillionth time to understand his impact on my financial situation, just sighed disdainfully and said "I think you'll find you worry about money more than I do" as though he was Gandhi!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, you are not making him sound worse.

His behaviour and choices are making him sound worse, because the more we know of him the worse he obviously is.