I started a business with a partner. It’s the sort of business where we have different skills and handle different things. We both work so it’s taken some time, but we’ve got everything set up. We’ve invested several thousand pounds. We’ve also signed up with a local innovation centre for regular support meetings.
I used my holidays from work to spend time doing business stuff that needed to be done. My partner hasn’t taken any time off and says he doesn’t have time. I’ve switched my job to part time to work on the business, but my partner says his employer won’t consider that, even though he hasn’t asked. I’m spending every spare minute working on this. My partner has signed up for an amateur dramatics show and is rehearsing two nights a week and every other Sunday - time that could have been spent on the business. He refused to give it a miss because “it’s his only leisure time”.
We’re now at the point where I’m stuck. The business can’t move any further forward until my partner does the work he’s supposed to be doing. The last two meetings with the business adviser he hasn’t taken time off work to attend, and I’ve had to turn up and humiliate myself by saying the business has made no progress because my partner isn’t doing his share.
The business partner is my DH. I’m so angry and upset. Not that he doesn’t care about the business, but that he doesn’t care about ME.
He knows how much I need this business because otherwise I have no future. Prior to this I was receiving MH counselling because I was literally threatening suicide, because I felt trapped in a job I hated with no way forward. He knows I’ve given up my job and got a crap min wage job so I could work part time on the business, he knows our money has been invested in it, he knows that when our savings run out we can’t pay the bills unless this business is up and running. Why has he let me make that level of investment only to fuck me over by not doing his share?
My job was making me mentally ill and it was DH’s idea to start a family business as a way out, to benefit us both. We have a disabled son who is unlikely to ever get a job unless we have a small business that can employ him and eventually he can take over, which is another reason we agreed to do it.
He’s letting both me and our son down and I’m so upset. I know that only solution is to dismantle the whole business and throw it away. But this is such a betrayal that I’m literally considering divorce. And I’m back to feeling suicidal and crying all the time because I have no future. DH isn’t happy about it but he’s the one who’s sent me back there! He offered me and our son a future, and briefly I was so happy and positive, then he pulled the rug from under me.