DH pressuring me to find a job

We don't know what degree she has, and she may not be interested in being a teacher?

Sorry, I was writing about this context - a foreigner with 9 years of economic inactivity. Had she been able to move to cybersecurity, believe me, she would have. I was talking about this particular context, which, let us be honest, is the most realistic context for an average (like me) person. Re-training to be a teacher requires a solid first degree - physics, languages, maths, art. I don't think this lady would be fretting about uniforms if she had a solid degree - she would have retrained as a teacher and her husband would have been up for it, I am sure. But we need to be more realistic and close to the context. I.e. average women, not cybersecurity experts.

I had a work colleague in her 40s leave to train to be a nurse. Probably qualified now.

@MarygoldRose , Middle-aged is 45-65. It's not half way through the average life span.
Middle age - Wikipedia

middle age noun [ U ] uk / ˌmɪd. ə l ˈeɪdʒ / us / ˌmɪd. ə l ˈeɪdʒ / Add to word list Add to word list the period of your life, usually considered to be from about 45 to 60 years old, when you are no longer young, but are not yet old: Once you reach middle age, you have to be sensible about your health.
MIDDLE AGE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/middle-age

The previous definition was from the Oxford dictionary.

"There are only 2 worthwhile real careers a middle-aged (30+) woman can retrain for - nurse and midwife, but they are uniformed..."

A 31 year old is not middle aged. However, as an actually middle aged person over 40, I can say that there is no way I would have the energy to do a nursing or midwifery course and start a job that involved long shifts, standing up and a lot of walking after years of sedentary office work.
That unfortunately means there are no careers the average middle aged woman can retrain for...

@MarygoldRose in my 30s I moved into cybersecurity, Governance, Risk and Compliance with no previous experience.

I have numerous colleagues who have retrained or switched roles into software development, business analysis, Operational Leadership.

I have friends who have retrained as teachers.

Why would you believe that there are only 2 careers women go an go into from age 30 up?

You must have different experience. I know many young women 21+ who did law as their first degree (not conversion course) and are slogging their guts out as paralegals, unable to get a training contract. I also know quite a few young women 21+ who got their training contract and are now unable to find a junior associate position. The hoops and loops they jump through! And still unable to get a job - they are multilingual, some specialise in digital currency litigation and still no luck. You must have several very unusual examples of women before your eyes.

More than two? Would you maybe care to share? I would like to know what they are. I am being serious, not facetious.

I am sorry, this is just not going to happen. Then what?

Well I wouldn't be taking careers advice from you!! What a load of nonsense!

Well you’re hardly unusual with that background! That’s what most people do. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t need to work and can live off interest or inheritance!

Luckily, I know of more than two careers that will give immediate employment though 😂

Not many people would argue that 35 is middle aged these days. At 40, you might get more takers.

I appreciate that you may not know of other career options, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. It merely means that you don't know very much about career options.

I come from a background where you have to earn a living (not inherit, not live off interest, etc.) and in my neck of the woods these are the only realistic careers which will give immediate employment and a good salary with it. I wish I knew other careers like that, but I don't.

45 x 2 (because middle is just that, in the middle, half of life) - 90 and 65 is 130. I don't know any who lived to that age. In my book middle age is 35 or if you are very lucky, 40, I am afraid.

@MarygoldRose , 30+ is not middle-aged. 30+ is a millennial. Middle-aged is 45-65.

middle-aged
[mɪdəlˈeɪdʒd]
adjective

1. (of a person) aged about 45 to 65:
2. "the crowd was predominantly middle-aged" · "the last-gasp ambitions of the middle-aged"

Yes of course if you marry someone workshy or a golddigger, they're going to take you for as much as they can get.

Rather different to a scenario where a couple have been together since university or their early work lives, built up assets/a life together, worked hard and then one partner takes a career break when children arrive or they move country or some other life event intervenes.

You're talking a load of rubbish and seriously underestimating yourself and other women of that age and older.

I've known women retrain to be lawyers in their 30s and 40s and practice for one example.

There are loads of careers women at any age can retrain for. The point is it’s better to have a long term plan than take any old low paying job which invariably have very little flexibility.

Unless the husband doesn’t support the retraining period. But that would be quite short sighted of him.

There are loads of careers women at any age can retrain for. The point is it’s better to have a long term plan than take any old low paying job which invariably have very little flexibility.

Unless the husband doesn’t support the retraining period. But that would be quite short sighted of him.

There are loads of careers women at any age can retrain for. The point is it’s better to have a long term plan than take any old low paying job which invariably have very little flexibility.

Unless the husband doesn’t support the retraining period. But that would be quite short sighted of him.

Seriously. The fuck?!

(Signed, someone who retrained into tech in their late 30s and isn't done yet...)

There are only 2 worthwhile real careers a middle-aged (30+) woman can retrain for

Why only those two?!

I wish (being a wife but the sole breadwinner) one husband/or breadwinner wife one day will have enough in him/her to say - yes, you find it hard to be a stay at home parent and do all the chores? OK, that is it - I quit. From tomorrow - you provide, you pay the school fees, you go to meetings with hateful people, you chase clients, you agree to the common in the law firms pattern 'you eat what you kill', you do it all and I shall stay in the lovely house you will buy, you will pay to furnish, cook lovely lunches and dinners from the stuff you pay for (we don't look at prices in the supermarket) and then we shall see who is really keeping this whole circus on the road. My little brother married a Bulgarian lady, who thought she blessed him and through him, the whole family by agreeing to marry him. To start with, he went along with the nonsense - paid for her 'psychology' degree, house, holidays, child private nursery, her parents' trips to the UK, their private treatment in the UK - because hey, it is a team, right, all family money, not his money, they are partners. Then she sold her mud hut (they are beautiful and white-washed, but they are mud huts with thatched roof) back home and genuinely thought the money was only hers. She was vocal about it - it is MY PARENTS' home she kept saying, nothing to do with the UK. The penny dropped then. He realised that all talk about 'equal' partnership is from a 'partner' who does not contribute financially. He did not have the guts to quit his job, but divorced her, as he had enough of being the 'unreasonable husband' and wanting his wife to work instead of doing a PhD in psychology which she wanted to do after her BA.

I think though it's also about how she has gone about it. She doesn't seem at any point to have had a plan, just content to drift along.

I think this would have gone better if she had gone to ber DH and said "I was thinking about when the youngest starts school, here's what I would like to do.."