It's early for me, but so far she has been behind me 100%. She supported me quitting my FT job that brought in 75% of our income when our first child had just b

It's early for me, but so far she has been behind me 100%. She supported me quitting my FT job that brought in 75% of our income when our first child had just been born to switch to freelancing. I think the key here is that the benefits of this change weren't just felt by me: not only did our income (security) go up, but I had more time to support her in child-rearing efforts and was generally a happier person, so I think these benefits earned trust for the next steps. She is now also supporting me in dialing-down my freelancing efforts (and therefore our income) to focus on bootstrapping a small startup, even as we now have two young children. Outcome unknown, but I keep her posted and we talk about the business (ideas, ups, downs) on a regular basis. That said, I myself am a very risk-averse person and we both are the kinds of people that have always lived frugally or "within our means". This means that, as a family, we have a very low "burn rate" and our runway on savings is very long. So the "risk" of failure is not really that high. We both know that if disaster struck (and yes, we have insurance too), I could get a 9-5 job almost instantly (as much as that might suck). I think one thing to remember is that your spouse is only going to support you as long as your decisions benefit both of you (in the long run, at least). You want more time to work on a side-project? What are you going to change in your life so that your spouse is also getting some benefit? Anyone wanting to delve a bit more into this type of relationship, I recommend listening to the Zen Founder podcast (http://zenfounder.com http://zenfounder.com). Rob Walling (Startups for the Rest of Us, Microconf, and someone who's insight and opinion I respect greatly) and his wife Sherry talk about a lot of founder issues, but I find that the candid back and forth between them gives you a great look inside their relationship dynamic. They don't always agree, but they trust each other. That's what counts the most.