
Ask HN: (married founders): How did you save your marriage? - scaredashamed
(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&#x27;t buy into my vision. I have been coding&#x2F;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 ?
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patio11
I'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.

~~~
idlewords
Also, make sure your wife never hears you call her a 'stakeholder'.

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Mz
_My 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.)

~~~
davismwfl
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.

------
nicholas73
With a kid, your wife's priorities have shifted to revolve completely around
him/her. It's a tiring and thankless job, and anything else looks easier in
comparison (true or not). Thus, when you abandon your previous role as secure
breadwinner to pursue your dreams, it makes it seem like you don't have the
same priorities. Add upon that, you are at home and visibly not contributing
to the priority, since you have such an easy time (in her eyes). Lastly, it's
triply frustrating because she is now dependent on you, having given up her
career and her uterus (and thus a reduced chance of finding another
breadwinner), but you have ignored her predicament.

Anyway, not saying she is right and I understand the dream as well. Just
pointing out her perspective (I've got a kiddo as well).

What is done is done, so the thing to do now is to give it your best shot, but
also communicate your progress honestly. You have customers, which should be a
great turning point for the both of you.

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brudgers
Sorry 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?
    

If the business isn't viable or your time is being spent on playing house or
both, it's time to pull the plug.

    
    
      B: Relationship questions:
    
        B1. Do you value your marriage more than your dream?
    
        B2. Are their children involved?
    

These all come into play even if the business is viable because it is
orthogonal to family stability.

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.

------
ruraljuror
Communication is the key. For example, I'm trying to figure out from your post
what the actual problem is. It seems like you don't know, which is not exactly
a surprise. You say " _I think_ she resents my being in her space during
weekdays." First of all, you can ask her what the problem is. Second of all,
you can try to give some breathing room by working in a coffee shop or
something.

Of course that one issue is not everything, but it is something that could be
worked on in the short term.

I highly recommend the book _Getting the Love You Want._

edit: Rereading this, it sounds more brusque than I intended. Also, if you do
ask your wife what is wrong, that can obviously be a charged conversation.
_Getting the Love You Want_ has a technique called the imago dialogue. Even if
your wife (who seems reluctant to therapy) won't engage in this, you can still
use the techniques yourself. For this particular conversation you want to
focus on _mirroring,_ that is: let her speak, then repeat what she told you
and ask if you summarized it correctly. If you're not both on the same page,
this may end up being one-sided. The point is to make sure you understand her
point before you make yours (or vice versa). You will often see you're upset
about very different things.

The book is really fascinating.

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Neptune5
For 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.

------
innertracks
James Altucher has some sage advice for founder types. Definitely worth your
time to check out his blog.

I'm on my second marriage. (First one went 20 years.) I was very clear about
my values regarding money and work with my second wife. I fulfilled every
vision of the man she was looking for except one. She expected a professional
or business man who put on a suit and tie and went to work every day at an
office with a steady paycheck. Ties are for weddings and funerals, maybe. I
constructed my post-divorce life (my financial needs are minimal) so I
wouldn't need a dependable paycheck.

And I love living that way.

Which is one of the reasons I can and love to take on short term projects. Not
needing regular income makes all the difference. At this stage of my life
(turning 50 next year) having to give up that freedom would be reason enough
to leave. Assuming of course reasonable compromises or adjustments and a
family therapist didn't help.

Your life. Knowing yourself and how you want to spend your time on this planet
is very, very important.

------
dragonwriter
It really sounds like you need to sit down and have a conversation with your
wife about both of your visions for the family, financially and otherwise;
right now (from your description) it sounds like you made decisions
independently of her that she didn't buy into, and are now trying to guess
what might be bothering her about that.

What I think you need to do is work to understand what she _is_ thinking, and
work from there to, if possible, come to a mutually-agreeable approach.

I'd be cautious about unilaterally adopting any of the other approaches
suggested in the thread (e.g., working from another location), because if the
real underlying problem isn't "you're invading my space", but, e.g., "you are
unilaterally making decisions and not respecting my concerns", than that may
exacerbate rather than mitigate the situation.

------
ropman76
This is not about giving up your dreams, it's about figuring out what your
wife needs to be happy being married to you. Her being mad about you being in
her space could by a symptom that she feels she is not getting enough of your
undivided attention (as others have pointed out). If she is unhappy with your
start-up try taking about your plans with her more and see how she reacts.
Getting your marriage back on good footing is a bit like A/B testing in that
you need to keep trying different things to see what works. A good marriage
therapist can help speed up the process.

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tixocloud
I'm really sorry for the situation you're in. It's important that you and your
wife have an honest conversation.

You think she resents you but I would advise you to open up and have a chat
with her to see what she's upset about. Listen to her speak and feel her
heart. Once that happens, open up yours and let her know how you feel about
the whole situation.

Marriage is about compromise and communication. There are many reasons why she
could be troubled and her resentment may only be just a symptom of a deeper
underlying problem. Probe that problem. Figure out what it is.

------
tptacek
You and your spouse should be on the same page regarding what you're doing
with your career, full stop.

------
espresso
> My wife chose to be a stay at home mom and I think she resent my being in
> her space during weekdays.

Communication is key. Try to get a good picture of what your wife has in her
mind, because emotional state or ideas are key. The world is largely
emotional, which you have to find your way of dealing with. Find out the
reasons by just listening. Be aware that the answers or story you get depends
on her emotional state. If something is wrong, she will not tell you something
is wrong even after asking. People focus so much on the negative and forget
every positive thing in a relationship but if people were perfect they wouldnt
love eachother. As for "her space", see below.

> I should abandon my dream so quick

A relationship is always between two people. Both decided to be together,
avoid blame and 'you and me' situation, nobody has a fault here because every
day you (and her) have a choice. Try to give and receive happiness and do some
fun things on the side.

If there is no 'we' in the relationship anymore, communicate or break up.

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atsaloli
My wife did not want to see a marriage counselor at first either. Our marriage
did not improve until we got counseling at our church. Also, I started to
exercise and got on a weight loss program to improve my appearance; and
upgraded my clothing, which is important to her. The marriage is a work in
progress...

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davismwfl
Sorry 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.

------
1arity
Divorced founder here. I had this experience.

It really works to establish this before you get married.

Since the journey you are on, as you say, it really works when your life
partner buys into your vision.

You are going to be making choices about how to work, when to work, and with
regard to the current burn rate of your life, and with regard to the value of
future pay offs, that are vitally important for people in a relationship to
agree on. If your partner doesn't share your passion for this, or believe in
you, how are they going to come on that journey with you? Will they be there
for you and support you when you and your business need that?

Will they give you the extra runway by getting a job, or will they insist you
chuck it in and get a job?

I mean, having a business is a lot of ways like having a baby, you are always
working on it, and everything changes around doing it. And it really works for
your partner and you to carry that weight together.

No one knows what's going to happen, it could all work out. Maybe it's simply
differences in expectations that can be reconciled through communication. Or
maybe it's something more fundamental. At this stage tho, you don't know.

My choice was to cut my losses quickly when it seemed like it wasn't working.
I would caution against that, since I feel that the marriage is an asset,
because of your commitment to each other. When you got married, didn't you vow
to be there for each other, through sickness and health, and failure and
success? So my recommendation after trying the opposite ( and it not working )
is just stick it out. Try to make it work, because that relationship could be
so important to you if it maintains.

In my case, we divorced. Not, mind you, just because of a business. There's
always a mix of things, and both people are responsible. I think the main
thing was simply not really emphatically communicating about what our
expectations were, and also not really being so committed to sticking it out,
we both chose to cut our losses. Well, at least we had the same efficient
mind! Still I believe through lack of communication and commitment we didn't
quite work out exactly what it could have been. So persistence, could really
be key.

Later I found someone who really did buy into my vision, and support me while
working on the project. Objectively this person is far more compatible with
doing this startup, tho the truth is, you never know how things could have
been different, had you done them differently.

As other posters suggested -- maybe get some husband time to yourself, away
from the wife and kid, cafe working, or cave working, or shed working, some
time and place to be around other people who do share your vision. I think
that idea of community really helps. Why? Because in a way you are asking your
wife to be your community if you don't get out there and rely on others as a
community. And being around the energy of others can really refresh you and
give you that mental reset so when you come home, it's like a delineated time,
and you're all ready to go husband and daddy mode again.

It is a scary time. Maybe rethink feeling ashamed, tho. You're trying to
juggle doing a lot of things. You're not doing anything wrong -- you're just
trying to make it work. That's noble, not shameful.

------
dennisgorelik
How long have you been running your startup?

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bbcbasic
As 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.

