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In an ideal world, you’ll have a supportive spouse to work on your business. What happens when you don’t have that?

When you start a business, you hope that you’ll have a supportive spouse. This certainly makes working on the business much easier. Not everyone gets that, though.

Your spouse may be openly unsupportive, putting your ideas down and making fun of the situation—I’d be questioning the marriage then. On the other hand, your spouse may have openly supported your business but then have taken steps to make it hard.

Spouses can intentionally or unintentionally make it hard to work on your business. This could be through not going through with childcare plans or by not helping with housework the way they said they would. What are your options when this happens?

Question whether the marriage is worth it

If you have a spouse who is openly unsupportive and makes fun of ideas, then you really need to question your whole marriage. This is a sign of abuse, especially if it’s done in other parts of your life together.

Your spouse may not think that the idea is a good one, and that’s okay. A good spouse will explain why they don’t think it’s a good idea and help with ideas that could work.

So, my first thought with an unsupportive spouse is to question whether they’re really a spouse you want to keep.

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Have a conversation about what you need

Your spouse may not be happy with the idea of you going for a business*, but that doesn’t mean they need to undermine you. Now you need to speak up to make sure you can make your business grow anyway. It’s time to sit down with your spouse and have a frank conversation about what you need.

It’s important to share if they’re not holding up their end of the deal that you originally made. If something isn’t quite working the way you expected, you need to have a conversation about this. Be honest and share how you think that you can come together to fix it. After all, a marriage is a partnership,

This is also a good time for your partner to share what they need. It’s what they need and not what they want. They may want things to go back to the way they were, but that’s not a need. Find a compromise between what you both need.

Listen to their concerns to work on your business

Your spouse may be unsupportive because they don’t see your business working out. They don’t want you to put a lot of money in and fail. It is worth listening to why your spouse is unsupportive and what their genuine concerns are.

If they’re just not happy with having to take on a little more housework, I wouldn’t see that as a genuine concern. Guess what happens when it comes to divorce. However, if they can see that the market isn’t there for your business idea, listen to why they think that. They could have a genuine concern and just want to find a way to help you succeed.

So, give them a chance to speak up. Allow them a chance to have a voice, and then determine if they sound right or not.

Set your business hours to work on your business

Your unsupportive spouse can undermine your efforts by cutting into your times when you would usually work on your business*. You need to find a way to prevent that from happening. The best thing to do is to set your business hours.

When I first set up my business, I didn’t really have real business hours. I would work around the clock, and it did cause some problems for my life as a whole. As I started to set some hours, it was easier to explain to people that I was working when I was and find time to talk to them outside of the hours.

While I didn’t have an unsupportive spouse at first, I did have some unsupportive people. Having business hours were necessary. It was clear that I wouldn’t just drop my work and tend to their needs just because they didn’t think “work from home” was a thing. This was well before it became all the rage.

So, set your hours. When your unsupportive spouse decides you can pick up the kids from soccer even though they said they would, you can make it clear that it is on them. Don’t pick up the phone or answer messages. Direct calls to them. This is what would happen if you were working, so why doesn’t it happen when you’re growing your business?

Of course, the kids need to come first in all of this. You’ll need to find a balance here, but what would happen if you and your spouse were to separate? What would happen if something happened to you? You wouldn’t be there to pick up their slack, and you’re not here for it now, either.

You may need to call in reinforcements. This could be the only option if your spouse is that bad, but then I’d be in the mindset of a relationship coming to an end if it was that bad.

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What do you do when dealing with an unsupportive spouse? Share your thoughts in the comments below.