[Peony]

I knew DH had long hours at work before we got married. He is a business owner, I used to help out in his office before dd was born, I know what he goes through. My father was also a business owner so in some ways it's all I've ever known. DH's company handles computer networking and telecommunications for businesses, he seems to have gotten into a niche of mostly medical and oil and gas (no flames for that, I'm in the SW, I'm surrounded by these companies

). Anyway they aren't small clients, but clients with lots of money that demand ALOT of attention no matter what time of day or week it is. DH has been in business for 6+ years now, but it's only been the past 3 that has been bad. We can't take a vacation, even going camping in the mountains means he doesn't have cell service and there always is some emergency that his employees can't handle while he is gone. The cell phone is always attached to his head, he is on it all day long, he tracked his calls once, 120 a day.

So you can imagine what it is like being around him, if he is actually able to get away and met us for lunch somewhere, the phone rings practicially every minute. It doesn't stop at 5pm, he has to take his phone everywhere, we're at the park with dd, dh is on the phone, we are taking a walk, dh is on the phone, this is our life. DH has to tell dd all the time that he is on the phone and she has to be quiet, it just breaks my heart, she is so excited to actually see him and then she has to stand there and not talk.

That is just the cellphone, he always has some emergency where he has to remote in and fix it, we also can't go anywhere with his laptop. Then there is all the things that go along with running our own business, needless to say DH is never here, if he is actually here, then he is on phone, computer, or thinking about what he has to do next, we never have just DH.

To give DH crediit he has really tried to change things in the past, hire more employees, more techs, and general manager (which he has 2 of right now), but it has never made it any easier on him. It's just more people that are calling him, or screwing things up. It's really been taking a toll on me and dd, not to mention dh. He is always under so much stress that I'm never seen him relax, never. I'm starting to get very resentful, to the point where I don't care. Yesterday was awful, dd fell out of her chair at the table while pouring her cereal. She pushed 3 of her teeth back, I spent half the day at the dentist's office while they tried to fix her teeth, which they ended up having to pull two of them.

DD was crying for her daddy, DH was able to swing by the dentist's office twice just for a few minutes and then he had to go back to work. He couldn't even come home early, his e-mail server crashed and he didn't walk in the door until 6:30pm, he didn't work until dd went to bed at 9:30, then he was up until 1am working again. He was able to cancel a business trip that he was supposed to leave on today, but we really needed him yesterday he couldn't be there for us. It's always this way, anything there is an emergency I can not count of him, he has never once been able to be there for us. When dd was a baby and had 107 temp, her and I were at the hospital while they ran tests, DH was working. When I ws in labor with her, he spent the entire day on the phone, telling his clients he'd be there as soon as this was over.

:

DH isn't heartless, he cares very much, he was bawling today because he couldn't be there for dd, but his work always comes before his family. I've been asking him since I got pg to make sure he could take at least a week off when this babe came, i'll be lucky if he takes 3 days off, which is what he did when dd was born. It's really coming between us, I am so resentful now of his business, which makes him feel even more alone because he feels like he can't share anything with me. I feel that his work has already taken over enough and I don't want to hear another single thing about it. I just cringe when the phone rings, because I never know if it's another issue and now he is going to have to go in on the few precious hours that he somewhat gets off.

I'm just really needed to write this all out, and get it off my chest, sorry it's long.

 

[supermuma]

I couldn't read without posting.

My dh and I have some major scheduling difficulties with our jobs (we have completely opposite schedules and it is really hard to have family time or alone time) and it is not the same as what you are describing, but I know how stressful our situation can get for me.
I can completely empathize with you.

I wish I had some real advice for you!

 

[Sweetiemommy]

It sounds like you are going through a terribly hard time. You said that it has only been this bad for the past three years, do you see a possibility for improvement in the somewhat near future? Or do you see it staying the same/worse as his business continues to grow? If you can see a possibility for improvement, I would consider 3-5 years a temporary time and try to stick it out. Otherwise, perhaps it will be possible to find a manager type who is capable enough to handle many of your husband's responsibilities. This involves a certain level of delegation and loss of control that your husband may find difficult, but he will need to do this in order to be an active participant in your lives. He will need to teach his employees that they are capable of handling crisis (or work to find new employees that are more competant) and more importantly, teach them to not come to him with every little thing. Furthermore, he should use his voicemail to allow for small periods during his time with you and dc to turn his phone off and allow people to leave messages, even for 5 or 10 minutes at a time, so that you and your child know that you have his undivided attention. He can then return his calls within a reasonable time period, but he will at least be making a small step at carving out some time for you in his day. I hope that things get better for you, please try to work this out before you totally disengage. He just needs to learn to delegate and carve out reasonable times during the day to take a break. That is hard, but not impossible! He obviously loves you and is working hard for your family, this is a fixable situation.

 

[littlehalo]

I agree with the PP that using voicemail could work if he is willing. Is it possible to have him set limits such as, don't answer the phone at all from 6-7PM, or something like that? Then, you know you can count on at least a specific timeframe for family time. It's great that his business is booming but it's sad that it is at the expense of family. Hopefully this is a temporary situation and he will be able to resolve it soon.

 

[Peony]

We have tried the general manager thing, in fact we went though 4 of them in 2 years. We do have 2 full time guys in the office right now sharing that position, but their capacity is limited. After dd was born, DH handed over control over to a manager, trusted everything was going great, relied on him to relay info, etc... We almost lost everything, it's over two years later and we've yet to see black ink in the books. He didn't pay bills for 6+ months, stole money, drove off clients, he changed the books... Despite a couple years and paying thousands of dollars to try and get them straight, we honestly still have no idea how much money we lost, we do know that the amount probably rivals our mortagage.

Needless to say, that is why our manager will never fully run the company, DH feels the need to oversee everything after that experience, and I understand that.
As far as the other employees go, DH has really worked to get good ones who are well qualified and able to handle the volume of business he does. We are in a rural area so we've had to move ones from cities, which gets very $. He also just payed to send one of guys off to school for several weeks to become certified. His employee situation looks better then it has for several years, he finally has 2 of his techs that are on the same level knowledge level that DH is at. Before, DH has had the most knowledge so he had to be the one to work at the more difficult clients.

I can see where it can get better very soon, we hope to be operating in the positive next year, that would be a huge weight off DH. Plus with the other two good techs, DH is really working for the next 6 weeks to get them into the difficult clients that only he knows and teach them all about their network before baby comes. But, I've also learned not to look forward to it to much, because we've thought several times that things were turning better only to have other large issues pop up, and then we are back practicially to where we started from.

I will bring up turning off his cellphone for short times, I really like that, I can't stand the hear that thing ring.

Someone always has to be on-call for the emergency #, DH was supposed to rotate who that was, but somehow it is always DH. Thanks.

 

[chiro_kristin]

Hugs mama and your dh and dd!!

Owning our own business too and trying to get into the black, I understand. While I cut my hours back to take care of ds, my dh has to pick up the slack.

Your situation sounds even worse! I'd give it some more time, but what I'm really concerned about here is #1) possible burnout, and #2) the long term effects of stress on his health. And of course the effects on your family dynamics.

 

[mammastar2]

Wow, that sounds stressful!! I understand why he would have extra difficulty letting go after an experience like the one he had with the former manager.

I work in a pretty high-stress fast turnaround profession, and clients can indeed be demanding, and their schedules don't always mesh with yours. That said, people's expectations also depend on what they experience of you - if you hop to it and answer your cellphone at all hours without fail and start responding to each and every need that's presented to you immediately, people assume that will always be the case and act accordingly. I expect the professionals that I deal with who I know are always using their Blackberry to get back to me faster than the ones who I know don't use one! So maybe your husband needs to start shifting the expectations that others have of him.

You mentioned that one day he had 120 cell phone calls. What would have happened if he hadn't responded to 2 hours' worth of them right away? Would the sky have fallen? My guess is probably not. What about if he let his employees know to only call for emergencies after 6 pm? Or if he let clients and employees know that he will turn off his cell phone at 6, check messages at 8, and return only the urgent ones, getting back to the others between 8 and 9 the next day?

There's a big difference between ensuring you know what's up with the books, and responding to every single call the second it comes in!

 

[Ragana]

Amy,

First of all, my sympathies to you for the stress you are going through. I recognize your husband, because I was like that, although not quite as extreme. To give you some background, I have been the breadwinner since we've had kids and my DH has been a stay-at-home dad. I went back to work when both kids were 3 mos. - the first time to a stressful full-time job in an office and the second to my own business (office at home). I hope that my experience can be useful to you in some way. Here are some things to think about:

1. "Can't"
One thing I noticed in your post is the word "can't" - your husband "can't" get off the phone, "can't" take time off, etc. It sounds harsh at first, but replace that with "chooses not to." I had to learn to replace "I can't" with "I choose not to" to define my priorities. This is hard and painful. What ended up happening was that I made the decision to leave a very stressful and soul-sucking full-time job to start my own business. Believe me it's difficult to come to this realization (for us it involved an international move to boot), but once you do, your husband can begin to value his life energy: you know the old saying that on your death bed you won't wish you spent more time in the office, but more time with your family doing things you love.

2. The above result - working less - doesn't mean less money, either. Once I started my own business, I actually began making more money and working less than when I was employed full time and working more. When you prioritize your highest paying clients and get rid of the lower paying/trouble-making clients and stop "putting out fires" all the time you can work more efficiently for better results and more $$$. The "7 Habits" books are good for prioritization info.

3. I agree with the poster who said accepting 3-5 years of stress is OK if it brings a future of work that you love and enough time for a work-life balance. That was my situation, too. I spent 3.5 yrs. at the soul-sucking job, but it enabled me to be in the situation I am in today. However, if it extends beyond what is reasonable for the family, it's time for a change. In my case, I couldn't change my situation, so ultimately I had to leave.

4. It sounds like your husband is the only one who can (or thinks he can) do what he's doing. That may be true in some cases (or maybe not) and it's true to some extent that "good help is hard to find", as you found with the bad manager. But if he keeps doing *everything*, he will burn himself out and in the end that will be a much bigger loss to the business and customers (not to mention your family). I found this information about burnout to be useful:
http://www.docpotter.com/boclass-0toc.html

Maybe he can develop an escalation/ticket system in the office so that calls get screened before he gets them and only the most serious ones reach him? I know that this also requires relinquishing control, which can be a difficult issue for some people. Or maybe what he really needs instead is a good HR person to help with hiring?

5. I also agree with the poster who suggested working out worst case scenarios. What's the worst that can happen if I don't answer this phone call? Maybe the worst possible answer is losing a client - do the math and figure out what that will cost you. Maybe it's actually worth it. Maybe a problem customer bringing in a small profit margin is worth losing to concentrate on a higher margin customer. Maybe the answer is "not much" - in which case your husband can start reducing his call load.

Anyway, I know this was long and rambling and I hope not too harsh sounding, but I really sympathize with your situation. As the spouse, all you can really do is make it clear to your DH how much this is hurting your family and how much you wish that he could use his life energy on things other than work. From person experience, I can say that things won't change unless family/work-life balance/valuing his life energy becomes his top priority.

Best of luck to you and keep us updated.

 

[Ragana]

I forgot to mention that changing my situation also required me to look at my perfectionism and approval-seeking issues, but that's an entire new post for another day. Just thought I'd mention that if it helps identify some of the issues that are going on in your situation.

 

[lisac77]

I just wanted to offer hugs and sympathy. My DH owns his own business, and we haven't seen him in two years. Well, OK, we've seen him, but it only lasts for a fleeting 15 minutes and he's usually pissed off. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I HATE IT.

I hate the fact that he's missed 2 of my son's three birthdays. I hate that his free time is dictated by people who make 6.50 an hour. I hate the fact that he works 14 hour days every. freaking. day. He hasn't had a day off since we opened.

Or, I should more appropriately say, that DS and I are simply not important enough for him to spend time with. He'll take a day off to fly to Baton Rouge to get a car, or to go to the county appraisal office to fight with them over his taxes, but DS's birthday? He has to work. I get sick? He has to work. Etc...

The absolute worst part is the fact that he doesn't bring a dime home to the family. The business is simply not making it. We could go bankrupt at any time. I work full time to pay the bills, but it's not enough.

I didn't mean to hijack, but I really feel your pain! I hope things get better soon.

 

[mommy68]

I feel your pain. It's the same way for us. My DH has ran his own business for a little over 22 years now and it demands most of his time and energy. He takes care of most of the stuff with the employees and customers and I work in the home helping him out with setting appts and doing office work. So it's definitely a family thing. He is the type that likes to get caught up in stuff though and has usually 5 different things worrying him at once. I'm not like that so it's hard for me to relate.

Ofcourse this means I am the one that does it ALL with the kids. He is so stressed out and emotionally drained that by the time he gets home each day he doesn't want to deal with anything. It just keeps him stressed out to the hilt.

It depresses me at times because I feel that he only has "1" chance to see his kids grow up and enjoy things with them that they can only do one time, like first days of school, sports, other activities that he misses, etc. He doesn't seem to care though. I'm afraid one day he will regret all that he has missed.

We do have more time to do fun stuff on a weekday whereas someone that works 8-5 for a company can't do that so I'm thankful. But when it comes to vacations we have to shut the whole business down just to go anywhere and we usually do that around a major holiday each year so we can take a week off. That's the only way he can leave town and not be worried the whole time with what is going on back home. But we hardly ever take little weekend trips. That's harder for us. He would just worry and stress the whole time with "what if's" in his mind the whole time and it wouldn't be fun anyway.