Wow. I am shocked and thankful for all of your thoughtful comments.
Here’s what I’m thinking:
1. I was the sole breadwinner for 5 years while he tried his hand at entrepreneurialism. After reading your comments, I realized that I don’t want to do that again –at least not until we’re both FI. So I’m not OK with him quitting his job to start another business at this point.
2. My husband was the SAHP for my son for a year while he looked for work, and he hated it. So your comments about the difficulty of being a good parent while working (or starting a business) from home really hit home. While I may be OK with my husband being a SAHP if there’s a chance he would enjoy it, that seems unlikely. So I’m not OK with him quitting his job to be a SAHP and entrepreneur.
No matter how you slice it, if I could have my way, I’d want him to stop being a complainypants and to work like crazy to find a job close to our home (preferably one with a higher salary).
But as we all know, what we want our spouses to do rarely align with what they want to do. So a new question: How do I make my case using mustachian logic?
WARNING - VERY RANTY - WARNINGVery close to my situation and my feelings (on some days). Below is a rant from a frustrating day after a long day at work...
Thoughts:
1)
2 failed businesses that "broke even" ... I agree that these are indeed failed because there is a whole lot of lost wages during this time. If you retained 60k in income per year on average then his wanting to start another business is reasonable and you would not be concerned, or would just talk about investment risk... BUT he probably just broke even means that you paid off all the loans and sold inventory or whatever to have zero balance at end. And you know that was actually a "good" job on his part because it did not explode and impale itself into a debt pit. Meanwhile 5 years of nearly zero income and zero SAHD and Home care support while this was happening.
New businesses mean MONEY DEBT / OUTLAY at the start, which is the exact opposite of a "stache". Real estate landloring is different, as you generally retain a property that has resale value... NOT SO WITH A NEW BUSINESS. New businesses take years sometimes to grow into income producers.
2 ) Let's face it,
not every SAH parent (gals included) are "home keepers" that make life easier for the sole income person. My SAH spouse was great with kids and pickups and parenting, but lousy at anything involving dinner, cleaning, yard care, annual taxes, keeping up with maintenance (I caulked, mowed, changed lights a lot too), doctors appointments, buying his nephews birthday presents, etc. Which still fell 75% to me.
Boy do I wish my SO was more like "thegoblinchief" or my sister, or many others... It is FRUSTRATING when your spouse is not contributing equal "life energy" to the family. For me, this was partly due to his back injury, so "understandable", but still so frustrating and worthy of a Rant!
3. Wouldn't you feel better if your spouse earned regular $1000/month or so, and was SAHD at the same time? He keeps skills up for future full time work, and is working very hard as a SAHD as well... Note the other post threads about
finding work after several years of SAHD is hard... I think I am on to 11+ years now of his being a SAHD, which was only supposed to last 3 years at first until both kids were in school, and despite follow up promises (such as when buying a new home for more than I wanted to pay) and his solidly looking for work for 6 months, the lack of recent experience was hard to overcome.
4.
How would you feel if you had to remain the sole income earner for 25 years+? There is a lot of stress when you realize that you don't have FU money to take time to change jobs as the sole income earner.
5.
How do you really feel about not sharing 50% of parenting duties for potentially ALL of your kids lives?... My eldest is going into grade 10 next year and I am seriously feeling that I should take time off to help parent as they go through highschool (sabbatical or part time or something) but am also feeling trapped into sole income (nearly) situation.
6. When my youngest was 7, I remember his saying to my pushing that he should find work, as planned... "
Of course I will work if I have to..." but the underlying theme was that on my one income and a 15% savings rate we had enough money that he did not have to work... and he really liked staying at home now that he had free time with the kids in school. This was while I was working at a previous job that I truly hated.
Anyhow, My Rant, not yours. I wanted to share what this could actually look like for you 10 years from now. Of course you and your family are not me! and of course there are many good days too.
Good Luck!