To be relieved DH has been made redundant?

[dontrunwithscissors]

OK, this is a long one. Apologies for the vent.

DH has said a few times that he wishes he'd given up work when DD1 was born. He's never enjoyed his work and wishes that he'd been able to focus on the kids.

We now have 2 DDs (5&8). Up until this week, we'd both worked full time. My DH worked for the most awful company where he was treated like crap every day. He used to go to work with chest pains and feeling sick on a morning. I was genuinely worried the stress from his job would send him to an early grave. (Just one example was one of the managers banging his head against the office door during an argument.)

I've almost always ended up dealing with sick children, school etc because DH was too scared to request time off. (He did once and was told 'be a man. Get your wife to do it. ). We have no family nearby. We seem to have spent the last eight years running around from home to nursery to school. Yelling at the kids to hurry up on a morning because we're late. Not getting in until 6pm and the kids being hungry and grumpy. We never seemed to enjoy time together because we were so tired and stressed. This has definitely affected my performance at work. I'm not where I thought I would be in my career.

A couple of months ago, we had a straight 6 weeks of one kid being sick and then the other. At the same time, I had toe nail surgery that went wrong and I could hardly walk. I dealt with everything--looking after them during the day, running off to catch up with work when DH came home, getting up to them during the night. I have bipolar disorder and the stress and sleep deprivation threw me into my worse ever depressive episode and I was hospitalised. (This was the second admission in six months.) At that point, I told my DH that I just can't keep going like this. The stress was making me ill. I have a good, secure job that I love. If I can focus on working, I can catch up and get promoted. I asked DH if he would go part-time. He agreed at first, but ultimately chickened out because he was scared of the drop in income. I was more than ready to downsize our mortgage and readjust our way of living.

Fast forward to this Monday--DH was made redundant. He got a good pay-out, which allows us to survive on my wage, providing we are very careful. DH has agreed that he will be a SAHP for a year. (The chances of him getting s job are small, anyway.)

I felt such relief when I found out about the redundancy. The last couple of days have been a different world. The kids seem so much happier. I've made huge progress at work.

I can see, however, that my DH is struggling with the change. He's still panicking about what's happening at work. He says he feels lost. I'm worried that he will be lonely, but at the same time I'm so glad that we've had this chance to change our lifestyle.

AIBU? I fear that I'm being a bit selfish.

Just killing time so adding that I talked to DH and he seems OK. I keep having to remind him, though, that this is not his fault. I hate his fucking work for smashing his self-belief.

Did I mention the time when he was rushed away from work in an ambulance as he was in such pain he couldn't talk? He was admitted with kidney stones on Thursday. On Friday morning, his boss texted to ask whetyer he would be at work on Monday as there were lots of things he hadn't done yet.

I was made redundant earlier this year, best thing that's happened, yes we have less money but with regard to DD everything is so much easier and calmer.

I hope that to begin with your DH just gives himself a nice long rest -take the kids to school them just come home and sleep, watch box sets, go for walks, whatever relaxes him. It sounds like he had had to most appalling time and he needs to allow himself to recover from that. As long as your careful, and it sounds like you are, there's time enough for him to decide what to do next.

The actual redundancy process is pretty awful, mine was draining though that's becSuse the guy who ran the coming only seemed to have a fleeting acquaintance with employment law.

Best if luck to you both.

My DH was made redundant from a career that he absolutely loved, two years ago. He struggled at first with the change, and did some part time and voluntary work to help him adjust (fitted round school pick ups etc)
He was genuinely devastated, as his career was completely vocational - but I was secretly really pleased. Because he loved his work, he was prepared to put up with a lot of peripheral shit - his commute wad ridiculous, his hours became more and more unsociable and his salary was really low.
fast forward two years on and, at 40, he now has a new job in an entirely new field with much better hours and a hugely improved salary, working for a company which values him.
I was thrilled when he was made redundant as it was useful for childcare, got him out of a situation which was fast becoming untenable and we could afford to live off his payout.
His mental health was a concern at the time, and I made sure I was hugely supportive and worked with him to get through the change.
But there IS light at the end of the tunnel, OP, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.
hope your DH can see the benefits and long term prospects soon...

Swashbuckling makes a good point about mental health. I think that's the most important thing, given the impact of such an awful employer and then a shock redundancy.
With all due respect to people who have posted about choosing to leave their jobs, it's very different when you're made redundant. Even if you didn't enjoy the job, being made redundant is extremely stressfull and disempowering. It's a massive knock to your confidence which makes it difficult when it comes to next steps (applying for new jobs or making a career change).
OP you sound very supportive so just keep up the good work! And be aware of the mental health issue. Would your DH consider counselling to talk through what's happened? Or if he is resistant to that maybe something more work-focused like a careers coach - who should also help him with the emotional aspect but in a less obvious way.
Does your DH want to be a SAHP, btw? It might suit the whole family but he might prefer to work part time for example. Or in a less demanding full time job.

Thanks for the messages. I think DH has been hit hard by the process. While the company was awful to work for, he took pride in the fact that he kept going and worked really hard to protect those that worked for him from other managers' attacks. There were others who attracted this kind of treatment and I think there was a sense of solidarity between them. He's still worrying about how the people who worked under him are managing.

Last night he asked me if I'm OK 'looking after him.' I think not bringing in a wage has hit his sense of identity.

He mentioned quite a few times before this that he would be happy looking after the kids, providing we had enough money. We're stuck in that situation where we've had to give up our out of school club places (bar one day) and are unlikely to get them back until August 2016. We can't pay for childcare without DH having a part-time job, but he can't get a part-time job without having childcare.