DH thinking of selling his business
I don't know if I've put this in the right section so please Mod's move it somewhere appropriate if need be.
Until about 6-8 months ago, DH had been unemployed for a long time, most of our 5 year marriage.
He's always talked about being a SAHD and after DD was born this was meant to be the case. However, DD went to daycare 4 days a week, and DH looked after her one day a week. He did hardly anything around the house. Spent most of his time playing computer games, and he suffered depression.
Now that DD is older, he's talking about selling his courier franchise because it's stressful as the Regional Franchisee doesn't run things as they should be run. He's saying that if he were to sell that he would be a proper SAHD and look after DD full-time (I would allow him to have one full day to himself and have her go to daycare once a week because I would want this if I were the one at home). And he said that he would take proper care of the house as well.
I have a bit of reluctance for the following reasons:
1. I'm worried that his depression will come back again because he wont be contributing to the home financially, and worrying about money stresses him out.
2. What happens when we decide to have another baby? It wont be so bad if I get a permanent job where I am because there is paid maternity leave (better than what the government's paid maternity leave will be when that comes into effect). But I'm only on contract at the moment so right now I don't know if I'll still have this job at the start of next year, let alone beyond that.
3. When we're both at home, I do the actual "taking care" of our daughter while he does the fun things like playing and stuff...I'm the one who feeds, changes, baths, does most of the discipline, puts to bed etc. He hasn't got a clue what her routine is unless I tell him. I know that if he does quit and become a SAHD then I'm going to have to write the routine down for him, but then he probably wont stick to it anyway, which means that she'll be all out of balance.
Financially we'll probably be better off because even though we'll be on one income again, we wont have child care fees to pay, and would get more centrelink benefits. Because DH owns a franchise, most of what he gets "paid" goes into business expenses and he only ends up with $200-$400 per week in his pocket but at the moment we have to declare the full amount he gets before all his business expenses to centrelink so our actual benefits are reduced. We've worked out that with him working in the way that he is, we are only about $50 a fortnight better off than when he wasn't working.
I don't know what we should do.
