I’m desperately unhappy with my job, but my boss relies on me. Should I quit? | Leading questions

We often wind up with feelings of obligation towards our work, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But ask yourself: would your employer think the same?

I work for a small company; there are just three of us. My boss, who is the owner of the company, hired me to manage it while she stepped back before having her first child. She’s since had a second child. At the start, I loved my job. It represented security after several rocky years. But as time has gone on, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with my job and the industry I work in. I desperately want to leave.

I’ve been working on a side gig for 12 months in my free time and it’s starting to take off. If I had extra time to spend on it, it would make a huge difference. My dream would be to take a part-time, mindless job to help pay the bills, but I feel trapped in my current position. My boss is stressed. She’s struggling to cope with parenthood and being the main breadwinner in her household. If I left, I would put her in a difficult position. While we’re not close friends, we have become friends of a sort over the years, and I am aware of how much she has to deal with at home. Of course, I could just wait and see how things pan out, but every day I get more fed up and depressed about having to do a job I resent and am bored by.