AITAH for refusing to let it slide after my wife said I run a “hobby business”?

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Imagine pouring your soul into a dream—say, a bustling trades business that keeps your family afloat—only to hear it dubbed a “hobby” in a heated spat. That’s the gut-punch one dad felt when a tax paperwork mix-up turned into a verbal brawl with his wife. He juggling deadlines and diaper changes, only to be told his life’s work is a side gig. It’s the kind of sting that lingers longer than a late-night argument.

For this husband, it wasn’t just a word—it was a jab at his sacrifices, especially after fires, financial strain, and his wife’s battle with postpartum depression rocked their world. When he pushed back, she doubled down, leaving Reddit to pick up the pieces. Was he wrong to take it personally, or is there more bubbling under this domestic dust-up? Let’s dive into their story and sort out the sparks.

‘AITAH for refusing to let it slide after my wife said I run a “hobby business”?’

I’ve been starting/running a trades business in a major city. It’s going into its fifth year, we have 8-12 employees, have won awards and grown every year. The conflict: I called me wife to ask her about a paperwork problem for taxes - turned out we needed the completed 2024 for something (we hadn’t yet filed).

She said it would give her a panic attack and she’d faint if I said she had to. I found her docs on my desk in the morning, figured I would try to fit them in during the day but couldn’t. So as I was figuring out the plan for the evening time wise (two kids, lots to do) I called and asked when she wanted me to do it

I meant that evening, would she prefer I work late and come back at a certain time to take over for the rest? Come home do bath and dinner and then do it? None of the above? She got very angry and said I was asking her to figure out my life for me.

I tried to clarify that I wasn’t and what I meant, that I hadn’t had a chance to do it as I only had the files in the morning and she yelled at me and told me I always had some excuse because of my “hobby business.”. I didnt yell back I just sai, “That was way over the line. Totally unnecessary and inappropriate.”

I said that I put everything into building the business to help and support our family, and I couldn’t believe how she could dismiss me and .. everything. That it felt like she was calling me a loser and a failure. She angrily responded that she just called it a hobby and I was entitled to think what I want but I was a “f**king liar” for saying that she was implying a lot more than just one word.

She said she was just expressing frustration and I said, well no, you insulted me and you knew how much it would hurt.. that was the point. She didn’t argue, just said she was entitled to express her frustration and it wasn’t her job to manage my feelings about what she said.. Context about this:. My business is in its fifth year.

I won’t say it’s been easy. It’s been the hardest thing I ever did in my life. I (38M) had a desk job and was quite successful in one sector but the low pay, heavy hours and dependency on grants and funding was heavy. I couldn’t imagine doing it another 40 years, so I went looking for new careers. I applied to things I was over qualified for.

I applied to things I was qualified for. I applied to things that, you’d think, anyone could get. Crickets. It is hard to change careers. Then I found the skilled trades. I had to go back to school and get fit in one fell swoop, but I did it and toughed it out in some high production companies. Eventually, a friend of mine at one and I decided to start our own.

We saw many problems in our industry, for employees, for clients, for owners and opportunity in the market. It’s been a wild ride. Everything was progress well until a fire destroyed our service trucks in year three. In year four, my wife had a second child and experienced severe PPD which resulted in numerous hospitalizations and.. well.. rage directed at me that was highly destabilizing.

The worst happened almost a year to the day of the fires, which we hadn’t yet climbed out of. It is march 2025 but it feels like marchvebbruary 2024 to me. The bad year just never ended as the build up of critical business stuff that needs to address is .. haunting. It took us six months to replace the trucks after the fire but keep running somehow, and we still were dealing with early years growth pains.

I thought the next year would be tough but stable. It was not, it was worse. The worst year of my life, and I’ve had some rough ones before all this. My wife has worked for us and helped, not because it was desperately needed but because she couldn’t get another job. It allowed her to take a year off for both our kids and stay home.

I pay 75% of expenses, and the situation places extreme stress on me as if I falter or revenue is low there is nothing else coming in. On the other hand, she works from home and has flexible hours and both kids are in daycare full time. When I am home late or need to work more for the money / business to survive first 5 she complains I’m not home.

When I’m home she complains about money things.. I’m a pretty stoic person in terms of being screamed at, but this was just beyond beyond. I wish many things were different, but to call my work a hobby when it’s the only support for our family and important to me?. She sees no problem. I feel pointedly degraded.

Words can hit like hammers, and calling a thriving business a “hobby” in the heat of a fight is a blow most would feel. This couple’s clash over tax forms wasn’t just about schedules—it peeled back layers of stress and unspoken burdens. Let’s unpack it.

He’s grinding through a fifth-year business, scarred by a fire and growth pains, while covering 75% of expenses. Her “hobby” jab, intentional or not, landed like a dismissal of his hustle, especially raw after her PPD strained their bond. She’s juggling home life and flexible work, but her snap about “figuring out his life” hints at resentment—maybe over unequal mental loads. Both are stretched thin, and the fight was a pressure valve popping.

This ties to a bigger issue: entrepreneurial strain on marriages. A 2023 Forbes survey found 62% of business owners report spousal tension over work-life balance. Dr. John Gottman, a marriage expert, says, “Harsh words escalate when couples don’t repair small hurts”. Her quip wasn’t small to him, and her defense—claiming venting rights—missed his pain. Gottman’s work suggests they need a timeout to hear each other.

They could try a weekly check-in to split tasks fairly, easing her load and his stress. Hiring a CPA, as Redditors suggested, could nix tax drama. Readers, ever had a partner’s words hit your sore spot? How do you cool off and connect? Share below (Forbes article on entrepreneurial stress).

Check out how the community responded:

Reddit didn’t hold back, diving into this marital melee with takes as sharp as a toolbox blade. From slamming the wife’s word choice to sniffing out deeper cracks in the couple’s dynamic, it’s a thread packed with heat and heart. Here’s the best of the bunch:

Dlraetz1 − A hobby that pays 75% of the expenses and employs her. She is waaay out of line

Simple_Assumption577 − NTA. You can tell her she is entitled to feel frustrated she is not entitled to place her frustration on you.

eevee0000 − Your wife is mean. Weird she would call the family’s only source of income a hobby. She did it to undermine you but she should be your biggest supporter. NTA

TheRealRedParadox − NTA tell her that she is in fact responsible for what she says if she says it to specifically hurt you. And no, she does not in fact, have a right to express her frustration. She doesn't have that right at all lmao. When you're frustrated you deal with it like an adult you don't snap at and belittle your husband.

Horizontal_Bob − Yall got way more issues than her calling this a hobby business. And I suspect there’s a lot of backstory behind her angry words. Not that it justifies what she said…but her words were a symptom of a larger problem my dude

SirenSaysS − Speaking as someone who studied issues in entrepreneurship in grad school: When you start a business, your whole family needs to be on board and supporting. For her to be that enraged, I'm thinking that while you were building a business, you were been ignoring her when she's been reporting issues to you, and it's probably been going for a long time.

I'm not talking about keeping the romance in your marriage alive but mental load of managing a household while you manage a business. So I'm going to be one of the few people to say that ESH, because this rage came from somewhere. So look at your home and find out what's falling through the cracks.

Also, this comment about this being a hobbyist business does remind me of my last semester in grad school, where my professor shared a slide that classified businesses by size and revenue. I'm not going to dig through my old hard drives to find it, but

Basically the scale, iirc, was under 15 employees, certain amount of revenue, and notably, the business would cease to exist if the primary driver (in this case, you) retired. So I'm wondering if that's where her phrasing came from.

t4thfavor − I mean,

_iron_butterfly_ − You're NTA. But it makes no sense to me that a small business with over 7 employees doesn't have an accountant/CPA to do your taxes. Pay a professional. They are cheaper than a divorce.

puddingcrypt − As someone whose parents have been in a similar fight for nearly two decades, I gotta ask this: Do you take a regular paycheck in exchange for your labor in your business? Like a certain $$ every two weeks? (except in cases where the business has too low funds to pay everyone the income they earned, so you gotta forgo your own check to pay your employees to avoid legal issues).

Or do you conflate the business with

Those numbers might go up, but they couldn't be realized whenever we had emergencies, so we were effectively always living paycheck to paycheck.  It creates a lot of tension and anxiety.. Thanks for letting me project my family issues onto this post lol

Puzzleheaded_Mix4160 − INFO: What is the division of labor like in your household? How much time do you spend at home versus at work? And how common is it that you realize you need something (like tax forms) at the last minute where it falls on her to sort out? And was it a mutual agreement that you open your own business?

I don’t want to point fingers, but this sort of reeks of missing missing reasons. There’s something to be said when a post is “I am the innocent hardworking breadwinner who slaves away and sacrifices all while my wife is a crazy evil hormone monster who doesn’t support me ever”.

“Asking me to figure out your life for you” speaks of something deeper than just PPD rage demon, that sounds like someone who is also wildly overburdened and you might not see it because you’re entirely wrapped up with your business. If she’s holding down the fort primarily by herself (while possibly battling something as serious as a post partum issue) and handling all of the invisible labor, that’s something that needs inspection.

These Redditors are swinging hammers of their own—some nailing the wife’s jab as cruel, others digging for the roots of her rage. It’s a digital barroom debate, but does it solve the puzzle or just add noise? One thing’s clear: when stress boils over, words can leave bruises. What’s your verdict—did he overreact, or was her dig a low blow? Jump in below!

This “hobby” hullabaloo shows how fast a stray word can crack a couple’s calm. Was he right to call foul, or should he have let it slide? Reddit’s split—some see a wife lashing out under pressure, others a husband fighting for respect. The truth’s probably a messy mix, but it’s a reminder that love takes work, especially when life’s a grind. What would you do if a partner’s jab hit your pride? Spill your thoughts below—let’s keep this convo humming!

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