I've been with my partner Joanne for about 10 years now. It all started about 10 years ago when I decided to get back into software development (as self employed). Joanne has basically been 100% behind my efforts, especially as she believes that people should always follow their heart if that's what they really want to do. Luckily my invoice software solutions are now running thousands of businesses in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and I even have some sales in the USA, and I've developed a lot of bespoke business solutions for clients too. My invoicing solutions are developed in Visual Studio, my bespoke solutions were mainly also developed in Visual Studio, but lately (last few years) I've been developing some bespoke Android solutions for clients using B4A.
I will admit something though
@andymc. In the early days I could easily be coding for 18+ hour straight for days on end (the server edition of my software has just over 40,000 lines of code or 40 KLOC), especially as I can be a bit of a perfectionist, I will gladly scrap a few hundred lines of code if I know I can get it running faster with less lines, even if my solution is already working perfectly fine and the end user would never know the difference. I have what my partner Jo (Joanne) says is an intensive one track mind. When I set my mind to something I get tunnel vision and almost nothing else matters apart from family. But in reality it's just that I don't like stoping when I'm on a roll and I want to do things quickly but properly. It does not matter if I'm working on my summer car (Triumph Spitfire), working on the house (complete new kitchen and bathroom including wiring and tiling), I just like to do the best and get things perfect, even if I'm doing it at 3am in the morning.
I was in a different position to you though, you already have a full time 9 to 5 job. I was a self employed network engineer who finally got fed up of constantly going out from one business to another working and networks and fixing computers, it really got me down. I sold my network customers database to a colleague of mine (thus I then had no income coming in) as I just wanted to develop a business invoicing solution and sell that to businesses, I also wanted to developed bespoke solutions for clients too.
Jo has put up with a lot of late nights with me staying up coding. Sometimes in the past (many moons ago) I've even decided not to go to bed at 5am or 6am in the morning knowing that Jo will be waking up at 6:15 to start getting ready for work, so I would get everything ready for her including breakfast in bed and making her lunch for work.
These days I no longer have to work silly long hours as I now get a steady stream of sales and I also have another money stream coming in.
I do know exactly where you are coming from though Andy. At first even though Joanne was 100% behind me and wanted to see me succeed, she would say at times she felt that I preferred to be coding rather than snuggling up to her in bed which was 100% incorrect and I seriously did feel bad about that. It was just that I had given up my previous work and I wanted to start making money again as quickly as humanly possible. At the time that was my main goal as Jo knows once I put my mind to something I just want it completed.
These days I don't work as hard (even though I'm thinking about setting up a bespoke IoT solutions business thanks to B4R). I still have tunnel vision when working, but as I now have a steady income I don't have the urge to code for 18+ hours per day these days. Jo did understand that back then I did feel under pressure to bring money in even though in reality I have plenty of savings and Jo is a really high earner, she an EU initiative project manager. Actually I now remember that back then Jo actually told me to take a year off from worrying about anything so that I could concentrate on my coding and also not to worry about anything especially money as she had all that covered, but me taking a year off was never ever going to happen, and she should have known that was never ever going to happen. That was another reason why I decided to just code late nights, I had to finish my software, and within 4 months V2 (actually it was V1 but in my mind V1 didn't sound good) of my invoicing software solutions was finished and I started to get sales, within a year of releasing V2 sales just took off and being number one on Google search results at the time helped to no end.
Anyway Andy, I for one fully understand your predicament, you should say to your wife that it's more of a potential secondary income stream rather than a hobby. I'm really lucky to have an understanding partner in Jo who does understand what my end goals are for both of us, and it's not just for the holidays either. It's not easy trying to follow a passion when you also have a full time job and a family. I know you are very passionate about your B4A coding as I remember reading somewhere that you coded your flappy birds (I think it was flappy birds) clone on the train ride to and from work, that's dedication for you.
Hopefully your hard work and dedication to your coding at home (especially space invaders) will pay off shortly for you and in a good way.
Sorry about the loooooooooooooong response.
