Given you're ruling out ultimatums or walking, I would suggest the following: 1) Work on the business a little bit every day. Every day is important, because

Given you're ruling out ultimatums or walking, I would suggest the following: 1) Work on the business a little bit every day. Every day is important, because it builds momentum, keeps you focused on it and keeps you making progress. The progress is important because it demonstrates that you're serious and not a flake. 2) Once you've made a bit of progress (say a few months), see what she needs from you in order to be supportive and see if you can work out a solution. For example, if you're the sole breadwinner and she's worried about surviving, work out how much money you need to survive for a year or so and work out (with her) how you can achieve that. If she's not willing to discuss it or compromise, emphasize to her how important this is to you.[1] Involve her in coming up with solutions so she'll feel she owns them. 3) When you've got agreement, undersell on the expectations. If you tell her it's all going to go brilliantly from day one she's going to be annoyed when it doesn't. If you tell her it's going to be a long, hard struggle then she'll be more accommodating. 4) Keep her in the loop, so she can see stuff is actually happening, and celebrate what small successes you have. 5) When you get in fights and the business is brought up, don't respond. Don't get into an argument over it as that will just cause more resentment later. [1] If you've been working on it for an hour or two a day for three months this will be demonstrably true.