DH announces quack job search

[MurielPuce]

Help me, mumsnetters... So, we're having a tough time financially; like everyone else, the bum economy has hit us hard. Both DH and I do freelance consulting, and this year has been so tough! The overwhelming bulk of the income for the past 5 years (easily 2/3rds) has been mine, and because we've both taken fewer jobs to work around the kids, we've had basically no money coming in since December.

Yesterday, while opening another huge mortgage bill, which I will pay, I say, "So what are your plans for work this year?" And he goes, "I'm thinking about taking a course in kinesiology.... maybe get some clients."

!!!!!

First of all, let me say that DH is a genius. Without exaggeration he is unbelievably smart. He can do the Guardian cryptic crossword in an hour. He outperforms winning University Challenge teams, he speaks fluent French & is teaching the kids, he is a statistics nut who actually understands how the stock market works. When I met him he was doing an economics degree. He's incredibly clever, a good dad, and a nice guy.

"Applied Kinesiology", as far as I can make out, is a kind of alternative therapy where you wave crystals over the body correspondent to different organ functions and that connects to muscle functions. For example, if your foot hurts, a therapist waves a crystal near your liver, and presto, your foot is fixed. I think. I'm not sure how it works, or that it does work; the first 10 searches for "kinesiology" on the web return results that say "quackery". DH had a session last year that he felt helped him, and has had like 5 other sessions since, and now wants to go into it as a career.

I can't support this! I mean, financially, I DON"T MAKE ENOUGH MONEY to be the sole breadwinner while he gets set up, even when he is up and running his income prospects are v-e-r-y l-o-w, and I absolutely cannot get behind a job that I am embarrassed to describe to others. Secondly, I love him, but his people skills are TERRIBLE. He is definitely a back-office type of personality. How can he build a career, support 2 kids when the whole job of a therapist relies upon being good with people? If he would have said "teacher training" or "law school" or even "medical school" I would have been 100% behind him, but I am not okay with this!

Am I being unreasonable? Someone, give me advice please. I am too embarrassed to talk to friends or family about it, and every time I look at him, I feel like I could strangle him, so I am absolutely not in a place to talk to him rationally right now.

[IsItMeOr]

ovenchips I'm perplexed that you struggle to understand why somebody would find it difficult to continue a relationship with someone they think is stupid.

And how does the amount of stress/worry in our lives impact on that?

[ohyesiknowwhatyoumean]

I've ncd for this - been on MN for a few years, since exH left for the OW = who was more supportive of his bonkers beliefs. She was one of his clients and and they have now set themselves up doing couples counseling I believe . Over our 25+yr relationship he had lots of weird therapy and while I was I was generally supportive - he paid for it himself and some of it seemed to help placebo effect

He finally got very involved in something that I just thought was exploitative and bloody stupid and I told him I thought it was dishonest of those who ran that particular kind of therapy to charge people the kind of money they did. This was the relationship killer for him - and was the eventual grounds he used for my unreasonable behaviour in the divorce. Though to be fair I was very happy to be rid of him for that to be the case because I wasn't going to pretend I thought this therapy was anything other than an expensive crock of shit (though with enough common sense good stuff in it to hook people in).

I had lost respect for him when he insisted on pursuing this and it was the death knell of our marriage. He seems happy in la la land with his new disciple and I am certainly happier not having to be non-judgmental about something I judged to be very wrong.

I'm sorry this isn't more helpful OP - but if he is going down this track and you are not it might be a deal breaker.

[ovenchips]

IsItMeOr. But OP doesn't think her husband is stupid. In fact she refers to him as a genius. She thinks his plan is stupid, which it may well be.

And if you don't get about the knock on effects of living with tremendous worry and stress, which doesn't leave you with a lot of time to worry about the morality and beliefs that others have, then you're pretty fortunate.

[IsItMeOr]

ovenchips you're right, I made an assumption there.

Experiences growing up have left me with a focus on morality as a central part of myself, which I have found has stuck with me through lifes ups and downs. I don't generally worry about the morality and beliefs that others have, but I am intimately concerned with the morality and belief of the people I choose to spend my life with.

[LittleFrieda]

OP, Did he complete his economics degree?

[seeker]

I don't understand why being under worry and stress would make you less concerned about the morality of the person you were living with. I can understand how being very broke might make you compromise your moral compass, but not to care less about it. IYSMIM.

Oh, and OP- I don't think your measures of smartness are particularly rigorous- the Guardian crossword in an hour is OK but not brilliant, speaking French is something loads of people can do, as is having lots of general knowledge. What happened to the Economics degree?

[IsItMeOr]

seeker glad it's not just me who struggles to follow that one. I can see your point about being tempted to compromise - I remember reading something by Viktor Frankl (survivor of Nazi concentration camps) who said that "the best of us did not survive", and explained that he believed some people chose to accept death by resisting in the camps rather than survive in a way that meant compromising their values. Not that I'm claiming I'd do that - luckily never been tested to that extreme.

[ovenchips]

The circumstances I am talking about - living in a stressful situation - is specific to my family circs, it's too identifying to explain but relates to my child and husband both currently having a life threatening condition and being uncertain as to what the future holds.

That's all I was trying to explain. What I have found is that it makes very few other issues matter. Things that I might have had a moral viewpoint about at one time I simply don't now.

[greenformica]

I've been to one to get my body pregnancy ready. Yes people skills and nutritional knowledge is essential. People go wanting solutions to problems. People talk (sometimes emotionally) about their issues - think of all the typical womens/mens issues (painful periods, infertility, depression, sex drive, addiction etc).

[greenformica]

Why doesn't he look into something more practical and NHS approved? Like Podiatry? Lots of old people (and others) that need help with their feed and he could earn a good wage for himself.

[greenformica]

feet not feed

[greenformica]

Someone told me there are part time degrees

[MurielPuce]

Hi there, OP here... so okay, thanks everyone for this, it's been really helpful, and I'm starting to clarify my thinking and find an inner peace about this somewhere. DH and I have talked a little bit, but we're still walking on eggshells.

Now I've had the weekend to mull it over, I think the situation is that I would be more behind a wacko career change if we had spare cash on hand (we don't; we have economised as far as possible; we need real jobs). I'm skeptical about the woo stuff, but it's not just AK that freaks me out; what really enrages me is the idea that faced with job loss his solution is to take a year to study something that may or may not pay off in the end, while essentially bringing in no income. If he came home and said he wanted to go to RADA and then try his hand at a professional acting career, I would freak out in exactly the same way, despite having had a professional acting career myself and knowing that actors are people (who support families) too. If he'd made this decision before we got married, I would be able to think it through rationally, maybe even support it, say, "Go for it-- fly free! Fly far!" and then back quietly away from the relationship to let him plough his own furrow. The thing is that we are now a family unit and support two living, breathing, eating, house-needing, clothes-wearing children as well as ourselves, so making choices to pursue extremely risky careers don't seem (to me) as easy to make.

Looking back over the various postings, I think what's could be going on with him is that we've both been cast adrift by good jobs that are effectively not available to us anymore, and he's reaching out for a lifeboat. He has been helped by a kinesiology practitioner (turns out his GI problems were a wheat allergy proposed by AK witch doctor and confirmed by GP although my skeptical mind says it was kind of an obvious diagnosis) so perhaps in his fevered jobs crisis he has found some calling to preach the AK gospel to others.... If it's a known phenomenon ("I didn't know where I was going so I talked to an x, and now I am one too!"), then I can see where he's coming from, but since we still can't talk to each other without bad feelings, it's really hard to get a sense of where his logical brain sits on this issue, or if he's even thought through a business plan for the future.

What embarrasses me is that I have unwittingly become the kind of Mrs. I never thought I'd be: giving up on my own ambitions to financially support a partner who doesn't seem to have any issues with a free ride. I can't, just can't talk to my family and friends about this, because I know I'm going to get the "he's a weirdo, I always knew it" speech. This is a challenge he and I are going to have to sort out on our own.

Thank you, mumsnet strangers, for helping me to get my head a little straighter. I really appreciate being able to vent.

[MurielPuce]

Also, yeah, he did complete the Economics degree (got a first) and yes, I know that my parameters for describing his intelligence are laughable (fluency in French, his prowess at the cryptic crossword, etc.), but please allow this is a message board rather than a letter of recommendation. And yes, I know there is a lot going on in/near our current field and I am working the LinkedIn thing to try to stay afloat and/or examining all possible opportunities, but our family needs him to pull his weight too. Since he is the one with skills of some market value (in fact I have a music degree.... got into consulting by accident), it's making me nuts that he doesn't seem to want to use them anywhere except alternative therapy.

[FairyWingsAndFlyingThings]

For some reason after reading your title op I though your husband was looking for a job as a duck.
I'm a little disappointed.