(I apologise for not using my regular HN id)
My marriage currently resembles a train wreck in progress. It began when I decided to start business (solo bootstrap). My wife didn't buy into my vision. I have been coding/blogging from home and things are slowly getting worse and worse. My wife chose to be a stay at home mom and I think she resent my being in her space during weekdays. I still have some financial runway left . Not sure if I should abandon my dream so quick (the few customers I have seem to like it -- and I truly believe I can build a small business). My wife does not want to see a marriage counsellor .What do I do ?
Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
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Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#3My wife didn't buy into my vision.
This is a big problem and possibly not fixable. It indicates deeper problems, like communication problems and incompatible values. It also means you disregarded her wishes and now can't understand why she is unhappy about that.
My wife chose to be a stay at home mom and I think she resent my being in her space during weekdays.
Then get out of her space. Find someplace else to work. Go to a library or get an office of some sort or go to a business incubator space or something.
Also, do not underestimate how freaked out she probably is about the lack of financial security. This is a big hot button for stay at home moms. Can you find a way to give her some additional sense of financial security? This was a big source of friction in my own marriage, which ultimately ended in divorce. (I was the stay at home mom.)
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#4Sorry to hear it, I don't know what to tell you to do, but I will share my personal experience and say that I wouldn't abandon your dream yet.
I spent years working outside the house, whether it was for myself or an employer I was not at home. My wife was/is a stay at home mom as well and that is a full time gig I sure as hell wouldn't want, it is hard. About 3 years ago I started working out of my house, and honestly my wife and I didn't really talk a whole lot about logistics we just did it and honestly had some excitement about it.
Well.... About 3 months in I noticed we both were being shorter with each other and honestly we were more distant even though we were in the same space. After a couple of more months we both realized something wasn't right. We had to have a few conversations about boundaries, separation of space and expectations. It took probably another 2-3 months to get a balance around it, so if you are doing the math from me starting at home full time to us having some balance it was like 6-8 months.
Somethings we did (still do):
1. Dedicated one room to be my office and put doors on it to keep that space isolated. We also setup some rules around it, if I was in my office with the doors shut, she had to consider that I was working and needed to respect that and not interrupt me unless necessary and even then to knock first. If the doors were open then it was open and all I asked was for her to not interrupt me if I was madly typing something out. :)
2. Being me, I also was making suggestions why she should do something differently around the house, or when she would complain about something I'd do the stupid male thing and offer a solution when all she wanted was the venting time. Even if my way was more efficient or better, she was running the house and I needed to respect that and let her do it. If she needed help she could ask me and I'd do what I could, but we agreed we'd have those as conversations not me just sticking my nose into something and commenting etc.
3. I spend a little time every week outside the house doing my work. This helps her and I. For me the change in view and different environments can be inspiring and for her she gets a break from me and to have some alone time. We all need some alone time.
4. I set hours on my work, and do my best not to violate them unless something is going on or its crunch time. This lets the house have a more natural flow, e.g. work hours and play hours.
5. We go out to lunch at least 1-2 times a week together, outside the house as a treat to ourselves, like a mini-date. My wife rocks and will also make me lunch a lot of days cause she knows I will work right though lunch and not eat which is bad.
6. Also, we joined a gym and sometimes go workout together and other times go separately. But it let us have time again outside the house.
Over time we have relaxed rule 1 more, but in the earlier days it really helped us get the cadence of the house down. Also, I get that it seems like you need less time together sometimes, but in reality we found that it wasn't the amount of time we were spending but how we were spending it and respecting each others boundaries. We had and have a solid marriage so while this took us time to figure out we just had to get the respect and rules in place. And of course, from time to time we still get on each others nerves during a given week, I know I can be difficult sometimes if for no other reason is that I am a constant smart ass. But that's just normal marriage to me.
TL;DR> Set boundaries, respect them, setup distinct times for work/home, respect her "job", get out of the house weekly for even a few hours and setup dates or activities together outside the house.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#5I'm sorry for your situation and wish you the best.
You and your wife having a difference of opinions on major life goals is something you should hammer out between yourselves, possibly with the assistance of a professional.
Let's focus on the more immediately solvable problems: if you're getting "You are invading my space" / "I see too much of you" signals, trivially solvable. This happened a few months into my marriage as well (I've been self-employed for the duration). I started making a point to work out of a cafe most days, and eventually found a co-working space. This lets my wife have run of the house during something which (most of the time) approximates a normal work day.
Not sure if it helps your situation, but it was a major stressor for my wife that I was not "with her" while I was physically in the same room with her. She prefers me being out-of-sight during the workday and an attentive husband and father outside of it than to feel like she's competing with IRB and losing for attention at 10 AM.
It is a regretful fact, much remarked upon in sociology literature, that financial pinches cause divorces. Make whatever adjustments to your business are required to maintain the standard of living that she expects you to have. This could include e.g. consulting to help bootstrap the product business, as opposed to burning through savings every month.
Many important stakeholders in your life may not appreciate how bootstrapper math actually works. Expectation management for it is important. Many stakeholders may follow scripts such as "A middle class man should work for a living. Someone who works is seen as working. Someone who is not seen as working is, therefor, not working." This counsels not conspicuously looking like one is not working. If you can develop other commonly accepted indicia that you are doing a Real Job, I recommend doing so. (You are, absolutely, running a real business. Non-entrepreneur stakeholders are not the only people in the average bootstrapper's life who need to understand that.)
Generic book recommendation for improving marital communication: the Five Love Languages.
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#6My wife didn't buy into my vision. This is a big problem and possibly not fixable. It indicates deeper problems, like communication problems and incompatible values. It also means you disregarded her wishes and now can't understand why she is unhappy about that. My wife chose to be a stay at home mom and I think she resent my being in her space during weekdays. Then get out of her space. Find someplace else to work.…
Have to agree with both these points. With a couple of caveats.
His wife not buying into the vision of the business isn't as critical as her buying into him starting a business and being at home. If she didn't buy into him starting the business and doing it from home and he disregarded then I agree things are gloomy for the marriage as she must feel disregarded and disrespected.
However, if she didn't buy into the business idea but was good with him starting a business and doing so from home it is different. I state this because my wife couldn't understand my business and didn't buy into why it would work, but she believed in me which is what was important.
On the financial point, my wife had never known anything but steady 2 week paychecks before being with me. To help her feel somewhat more secure we set aside money from each job (more than I normally would) that was dedicated to our savings. In addition, I gave her a read only login to the accounting system so she could always see the reports, bids, outstanding invoices etc. Plus every week I would tell her financially what was going on so she felt comfortable, we don't do this as regularly anymore but I still keep her in the loop.
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#7For the home office, compromise and go to one of those places where contract workers rent out an office cubicle. My wife applied for a job where she was going to work from home and I told her she could not work from home all the time. She needed to go to an office environment to at least talk to other people for both our sanity. As for the relationship in general, there are deeper problems than just a home office. Maintaining a relationship means that you know what your roles are and what responsibilities those roles have in the relationship at any given time. Sometimes your wife needs someone to listen to her and not solve her problems, at other times it is you who needs that and so on. I always tell couples to start with communication. Set some ground rules for communicating and set designated times for having discussions if you do not have have time to argue at a given moment. Working couples disagree and commit to shared resolutions. Lastly be honest with yourself, what will make you happy (what can you live without and what must you absolutely have in order to be happy), don't ask for ridiculous things, just focus on what want out of the relationship. Be prepared to also have her point of view too.
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#8You and your spouse should be on the same page regarding what you're doing with your career, full stop.
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#9Sorry to hear about your situation.
A. Starting with questions relating to business viability:
A1. Are the customers paying enough to
provide a reasonable income?
A2. Are the backlog of paying work
and revenue growing?
A3. Are you exclusively spending your time completing
paying work and directly finding paying work?
B: Relationship questions:
B1. Do you value your marriage more than your dream?
B2. Are their children involved?
Pulling the plug on a non-working business now is better than slow heat death. A bootstrapped business is different from a investment fuelled startup. Just surviving is good for a startup because it allows the possibility of exponential growth. A just surviving small business takes nearly as much energy, but only offers an upside of "a little better than surviving". Figure out if you're treading water to protect sunk cost.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage?
#10As a short term pressure relief you could work from another location as others have suggested. Try that. If it doesn't help I suggest quit the start up for now, get a good job to bring in the money and and return to the business idea later on. This is assuming finances are an issue. Unless you are rich?
When you have family you need to optimize for everything - wife, kids, financial and dreams, and not just for your dreams. This can be quite a juggle and a tension between your needs.
However the default of the 9-5 job, the rent/mortgage paid and spending time with the family is always a stable place you can return to, and then you can be in a good space prepare yourself and your wife for your next entrepreneurial adventure.
The next priority is to get you and your wife on to a stable footing, with good communication, and build a common vision for you and your family for the next 10 years and the next 20 years which may include building a business. I think talking about the next 10 years alone could give your wife a sense of security that you see yourself with her and the family forever.
Staying at home with young children is stressful, and with a baby crying, dirty nappies on the floor, or toddlers throwing tantrums, the house in a mess and the husband in the way and not helping I can imagine it would be quite stressful for the wife. Plus lord knows how you concentrate and be productive, they must be in your way too.
Lots of great words in this thread, but only you can decide what is best to do. You know all the facts. I wish you the best of luck and hope it all works out. I am sure it will.