I have a 5 and 3 year old at 32. Can't imagine having gone through the last 3 years of my life 10 years older. Don't think I would have survived that tbh... Kudos to you older fellows who have done the baby-toddler years in your 40s. Wow. How did you deal with the total sleep deprivation?!!!?
To shift back to the other side of this thread, Howard Ducky, I sympathize with your story greatly and hope you are doing well. I started a business with a colleague 4 years ago. We weren't exactly on equal footing starting out; he had much more wealth than me and was relying on my network and skills to get the business running. We structured the ownership loosley, I had about 40%, which I at the time thought was more than fair as he was giving me a lot of freedom for someone so young, and I was essentially going to get to work my idea with someone else's money. He was also a friend that I had worked with for 4 years.
Well, 2 years in and other financial circumstances have him trying to pull out of our venture at a critical juncture. I had been doing basically all the work with him as a silent partner occasionally weighing in with a directional nudge. I needed capital to complete on a massive sale. He revealed that he had been trying to sell his portion off to a competitor. We had a fight. He reluctantly agreed to put up the money for the deal after i had already approached my supplier contact to see if I could work a deal with him to front more of the cash until the purchaser paid... but the damage was done between us. He forced me out with a small package, and the equity worked out to be pretty low value when he sold the company for scraps.
My wife was also on Mat leave with our second at the time, but her job was not at all executive level... her EI income was almost the same. I was quite panicked- but fortunately with the combined equity and savings was able to live freely for 6 months and be with her and the kids... It started out very stressful as I didn't know what to do, but once I settled down and the panic faded, i realized that it was the best time of my life. I was so unbelievably fortunate to spend that extra time with my kids while they were babies, and was able to support my wife a lot more than otherwise. We are still trying to work back our savings, but I scored a great job I am way happier about 5 months later. Because of that tight bond with the kids built during that 5-6 month window, I feel like I am way more firm about my work/life balance now than I would otherwise have been, and i feel as though it has actually benefited in my current work place. People respect that I am such an active and focused father and are vocal about supporting that.
It is stressful but things will get better. Spend the time with your kids and enjoy it. Don't worry too much about your skills and trust your network as someone else said. That's how i worked into my current role. I am a little gunshy now about thinking entrepreneurially, but I hope that will return over time as the wound heals.
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