In despair. Husband is taking ages to find a role

I have been though redundancy and so has my husband, multiple times. I don’t know what his role was but for more senior roles it makes sense to initially focus on networking to see if he can get another plum position, that are often filled before they are posted . Are you aware of multiple roles in his field? Can you get on the job boards and find opportunities? If there are few, then what he is doing makes sense, for now. Sorry that he is not pulling his weight with the childcare, I would bring this up but try not to to sound critical as he may be really hurting from the redundancy, especially if it more of a sacking. My husband nearly had a breakdown, I was working and coming home to a dirty home. He was mainly laying down most of the day, but it was like nervous exhaustion. Took him six months to get into another job.

A very well expressed and nuanced post. Sound advice

Sorry OP, he sounds like a selfish lazy loser. He's sitting on his arse while his poor wife on mat leavd does it all and is now returning to work? Two weeks to even apply for anything? You have a selfish waster on your hands. I am so sorry.
Good husbands and fathers do not cause so much worry by being so selfish. Protect yourself and get real with him. He will drag you down.

I disagree im being harsh- OP said she is still doing all the running around etc childcare, cooking etc and he is sat on his phone etc
He can get up with his wife, help with the kids, help with school run, eat breakfast....then go for a swim, then do 2.5 hours of job hunting before lunch, then he can do more, stop at 3 do the school run, help with tea (or make it during the day) return to a bit more job hunting before helping with bedtime/homework and switching off for the evening.

Its not difficult.

People manage to apply for new roles whilst still employed, and looking after children, cooking, cleaning and doing exercise 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Yep, this too

💯

you were already known to the recruiter.
And just because it is sometimes possible it doesn’t mean that it is most of the time.

YABU OP, but your feelings and stress are understandable, and no doubt I would be feeling exactly the same in your position. All markets seem to be extremely difficult right now, so you should both be prepared that it will take some time to get another role - at least your DH is the right side of 40, so he doesn't yet have to worry about ageism working against his efforts. I assume he has reached out to all his ex-colleagues/contacts/clients to say he is looking for work? Joined all the industry specific agencies?

Others have already suggested this but I agree that you should go back to your own job full time and tell your DH he is now the carer for your child. He is not "too busy" at all. When he gets a full time job, he can arrange childcare for your child. This really shouldn't be an argument. He needs to step up, just like a woman in his position would be expected to.

Your husband sounds like mine only we are 15-20 years older.
Too many jobs to mention but generally what happened was that he started a new job, they loved him and vice versa. Then after a year or two cracks would start to appear. From what I could gather, he struggled to finish things, attention to detail was poor and colleagues and bosses eventually got fed up with him. He would be made redundant and the daydreaming phase would kick in.
For example he once spent a huge amount of time designing a washing line that had a cover on it. It cost a lot of money and amounted to nothing. Another time he bought a drone, he spent a lot of time and money getting a drone qualification, did loads of advertising-flyers printed and delivered etc. and got one or two pieces of work.
He had several phases of unemployment ranging from 3 months to 11 months. I learnt to live on peanuts! Then the next job rolled in and we’d be off again.
Based on the above, i would suggest :

1. Make an appointment with your doctor, tell them what you are going through.
2. Get your financials together on a spreadsheet, sit him down and go through it line by line. See what his viewpoint is.
3. Tell him you are at breaking point with his behaviour. And that you have been to yr GP. Make a list of all the things that need to be done. Put together a daily plan of what you are both doing. You may need to micromanage him because of his time wasting. But so be it. Mak it clear that you are not going to continue running yourself into the ground while he contemplates this and that and goes off and makes bread! good luck💐

As someone who is about to be made redundant I find you are being unreasonable. Finding a job can be difficult. often you have the knowledge/skills/experience but so do 500 other people who also applied. Think you need to cut him some slack.

You absolutely can successfully apply for professional roles in a matter of minutes. My most recent role was 30 seconds - read the message from the recruiter, messaged back, yes, I would be interested in the role. Application done.

DH has had several invitations to interview following very quick applications. Most jobs these days don't want a covering letter at all.

Good thing you aren't then. Because if you were sitting around my house on your phone unemployed, not helping with the kids and acting like a lump of sand - you would be incredibly uncomfortable.

The month's notice period isn't even over yet if the £11K settlement amount is being paid at the end of this month!

OK, he had inkling a month prior to this and it is stressful but you need to take a breath. £36K PLUS your salary coming in means you probably have a year's outgoings if you batten down the hatches. You have a healthy cushion so try not to panic - yes, it's not ideal to see your savings deplete over the next few months but it is what they are there for.

I returned from maternity early (after only 6 mths) in similar circumstances and returned FT (needs must). DH took 6 mths to get another job offer and a further 2 months for a written contract to come through. We had 2 young DC at the time and relocated across the country for his new job and spent another 16 mths in a rental house/selling our house limbo paying rent & mortgage at the same time. It was the most extremely stressful period of our lives and this was back in 2008/9! Needless to say, I like to have a healthy savings cushions for times like this.

You are luckier than most - your savings cushion should last long enough until your DH gets another job. Batten down the hatches financially & up your hours.

@saminamama can I help? Im a coach and career consultant and could have a look at his cv and also perhaps have a chat with him. It sounds like he's in a tailspin and possibly denial which is resulting in a lack of action. It's difficult for you to advise him as you're emotionally invested; my own husband spurned my help when he was made redundant - i was just too close to the situation. Sometimes its worth taking almost any kind of job just to bring in some money but you also have to keep the plates spinning with job seeking as well. Does he have a decent CV? Does he use LinkedIn? Does he have any professional contacts? There are literally LOADS of things he could be doing right now - he just needs someone to apply a fairly firm kick up the a** but also support him. Happy to help or just give some pointers.

Not being funny but if I lost my job I'd be getting a job driving or working in Asda or something just to get some money coming in and then I'd be applying for jobs in the evenings.

Take in a lodger or two.

You DH needs to put in his normal hours working to find employment and then do all the housework during his previous travel time. No more gallivanting, i.e. swimming, computer games/browsing, socials. Finding worthwhile employment is a job. If he cannot find something in his sphere soon then he needs to get some work even at NMW and alongside job hunting. He needs to get his head out of the clouds and contribute to the household now. It is an urgent dire situation and he needs to understand that.

I’m asking because that is what I would have guessed your answer.

They have a credit card on zero percent which they can make the minimum payments on which won’t harm there credit rating unlike not paying the mortgage. They will get no help from UC for paying the mortgage unlike rent, so they can use there savings to pay for it which will keep there credit score in check for a while longer, hoping he gets a job and then if the worse comes they can still claim UC. There is nothing wrong with using savings to protect your credit rating in what is hopefully a temporary situation so you can carry on doing things like remortgaging when the time is right.

Yes of course he should claim new jsa

As opposed to those that add less than zero value like yours?

Also, the deafening irony of being called sanctimonious by a white horse poster

In this salary bracket the lead time for securing a job is minimum 3 months and the likelihood is that its going to come via work of mouth/networking/good relationships with headhunters. I know that being on the phone probably doesn't seem like job searching but this is the way things are now. My DH took 18 months to find a role and it was worth it to get the right opportunity. He set himself up as a consultant in the interim to tide us over financially and it was very lucrative so perhaps this is something your DH could look into once he's set all the other networking channels in motion. My DH did this after the first 3 months when nothing was materialising - it was during Covid so the job market was equally bad back then. If he wants to stay in the same career I would not recommend getting "any job" as he won't be able to get anything in the same industry that he is overqualified for....so that will leave minimum wage jobs and to be honest, if he goes down this route then he is essentially stepping off the career ladder. That's fine if it's what he wants to do, but you will have to get used to living on a much smaller salary. Your DH is probably depressed and demoralised so try to be supportive - I am sure it will all work out in the end. Good luck!

Yes I am and no I'm not but I have been in the past. Not sure why you are asking. You've gone out of your way to state that them paying off 9k in credit card debt would be deprivation when it's not.

If they claimed UC they would get money for each child every month (around 600 pounds) and a proportion of childcare back - plus income for themselves. As opposed to sitting and living off savings hoping rise he's going to get something soon.

However the settlement allowance might be counted as capital which means they have too much income anyway - but that's not going to last. She said the money is going to run out in a couple of months

At the very least he should claim JSA contribution based ASAP. It won't be much income but it might pay for some essentials

This is everything I wish I had said

I would hate to be married to you, you sound incredibly unsupportive. You got a job internally so you were not in the same situation at all.

Good for you. Not everyone finds a new job right away. I literally applied for hundreds before I got one. I have senior ex colleagues who, a year later, still haven’t found anything

I think you’re giving him a really hard time here. A month is barely no time at all when job searching in this market.

I applied for literally hundreds of roles before I got one last year.