The original post: /r/amitheasshole by /u/Throwawayairportaita on 2025-03-13 03:29:29.

My husband is a tradesman. He’s always wanted his own business as he hates having a boss. He started doing freelance work over the years and felt like he could go out on his own someday. I’m a teacher and at the end of 2021, my district asked me to head up an initiative that bumped my pay up (quarterly stipends) without a ton of extra work. Around the same time, his company of 8 years got bought over. We decided this would be a good time for him to go out on his own. My teaching job provides steady income, I hold our family’s insurance (we have 3 kids, oldest is 9), and the stipends provided a little cushion. We also had about 40K in savings.

Things started out great, but a year later most of the work in the area dried up. He took contracts out of state to keep working, but didn’t make as much because of lodging and food. He suggested we buy a camper him to live in when he was away. I agreed. That came with a hefty monthly payment, but alleviated some of the cost. Then the out of state work became fewer and farther between. He was home more making no money at all. My husband is a hustler and was constantly putting himself out there, but the cost of supplies went up, so he had to raise prices for his services. This made things worse, the cycle continued.

As hard as it was to be home alone with 3 young kids when he travelled, it was worse when he was home. He was miserable. A potential contract would cheer him up and then fall through. We went through this for months. Midway through 2024 we were simply out of money. We were living off of credit cards. He took some seasonal work in the fall and that’s the only reason our home wasn’t foreclosed on. He felt like a failure.

Early December an old friend called him to ask him if he’d consider working with him. There’s a corporate project and they desperately need people with my husband’s skill set. $61/hour + $1500 sign on bonus if he started within 10 days. We thought it was too good to be true, but 2 days after Christmas he had a contract in his email. He started right after the new year. His first check was like manna from heaven. It’s taken 2 months to breathe again even with my pay. He’s gotten paid 4x & his most recent check was the first time we had money left over after we paid bills. We took the kids to McDonalds to celebrate.

The problem is he’s miserable. It took a week for him to remember why he hates working for other people. I watch his light dim more everyday. He is working OT weekly & I feel bad he has to spends so much time there. The other day, he fake-casually mentioned that he heard from a company out of state. “It’s the opportunity I’ve been waiting for” he says. “It just came a little late.” I love this man, but I don’t think I can support this again. We put 40k+ & about 15k in cc debt into it. He was gone for months at a time and it was HARD here. And we still have a huge monthly payment for that camper we can’t sell. Would it be cruel to tell him he can’t quit?