To ask if anyone has quit their good, highly paid stressful job for a smaller one?

[joanneg36]

I am seriously struggling with the 'having it all' at the moment and interested in others' experiences. Has anyone ever quit their 'brilliant' (on paper) job for work/life balance reasons and how did you manage/what did you do next?

I work four days a week in a senior-ish job. London and well paid but not law/city type money. Husband works too and earns similar. My 'four days', like many people, is in reality 7 days work squeezed into 4 and I am on email all hours. Kids are 5 and 1 and I just feel exhausted and as though I can't go on like this.

We could cope financially with me earning less, we'd have to cut back but it would be sacrifices of the meals out/foreign holidays type rather than not being able to pay bills etc. My bigger fear is about risk to my future earning potential and just general fear of unknown. I don't know how easy it would be to find a 'smaller' more part-time job in my industry but I feel I could at least try....

Interested in all thoughts - feel free to tell me to stop moaning and get on with it!

I did this. I left my job and became freelance because I just couldn't be a good mum and good at my job. One was always losing out and I felt stressed all the time and was always rushing from one thing to the next.

I've been freelance for three years now, and there are times when my work comes first, but I have been careful to plan work around my family and not the other way round. Both my children are at primary school now, so I work during school hours and am then free to collect them from school, take them to their clubs and spend time with them every single day.

In the holidays it is a little more difficult, but I plan ahead, use a holiday club for a couple of days and then have free time on other days. Sometimes I'll work while they are at home - again I plan it so that they have something to keep them occupied if I have a call to make or need to concentrate on something. But, I am lucky that my profession allows me to work from home most of the time.

Financially, things are definitely tighter. We haven't made the improvements to the house we wanted to do. I haven't changed my car for over seven years. But, we spend the money we have on what we want. Our bills are always covered, and extra tends to go on holidays (mostly in the UK, often camping), clubs and activities for the children and spending as much time with family and friends as we can.

My take on life is very much that at the end, it's not the size or beauty of the house we lived in, nor the car we drove that matters, but the memories we have - the things that we did and the people we were with.

I was worried about my career suffering. But, keeping my hand in by working for myself has ensured that my skills are up to date and I have more varied experience than if I had stuck working for the same company. For me it has worked out well. But, I'm a few years down the road now. I remember it being a very, very difficult decision to make, and for a whole year I was on the verge of returning to a full time job with a proper salary.

I don't think I'll remain self employed forever, maybe when they are older I will think about returning to a bigger company. But for now, I'm happy as I am.

I haven't (as never had well-paid job - lol), but I would look first to see what's out there and not leave until you've found something else. It is notoriously difficult to find part-time work (I am looking at the moment), but you could get a more 9-5 type role if you're already managing 4 days a week.
Mine are secondary school age and I still don't feel ready to go back full time as although logistically they don't need you as much, emotionally they need you a lot more!!

I moved from a job in London which wasn't exactly high paying but was highly related to my academic qualifications, fairly prestigious in the area, and used to give me a lot of job satisfaction, I really felt I was making a difference (health research). My job there changed a bit and I didn't enjoy it as much, plus the commute had always been a pain, so when I saw a job 15 min away advertised at a local gov agency the grass looked much greener so I moved. It was definitely a sideways if not slightly downward move. At that point I didn't have DC but now 3 yrs later have a 15mo DD. I am eternally glad that I don't have to commute 1h15 each way every day and wrangle nursery drop off / pick ups, and that my request for part time working (3 days) was approved no problem. (although it probably would've been at my original job which was also public sector)

However I feel I'm stagnating here; the work is repetitive with little scope for creative thinking, there's little incentive to go above and beyond, no-one wants to pay me for my time beyond the very bare minimum required to fulfil the brief so I have no opportunity to use a lot of my skills, my boss is a dick and it's a public sector agency facing huge cuts, morale is terrible and everyone moans constantly and just does the bare minimum. I don't know if I made the right decision for me. I am worried that my confidence and self esteem and my skills (gained through 8.5 years of further education ) are going to disappear completely and I will never regain them completely. The chance of me finding another local job which fits the bill is remote, especially if I wanted to stay part time. I used to love my old job until it changed, I was so proud of working there. When I meet up with friends who still work there their enthusiasm, pride and interest when they talk about their work is palpable and I'm so jealous; I hate talking about my current job.

Oh dear I want to cry now!! Best go make myself a and find some .

Moggle

I can empathise. I don't envy my previous colleagues' houses or cars or holidays, but I do envy their involvement in multi-million pound deals. I'm also working at a level way below my experience and skills but 10 years (!) after downsizing my job I might just be in line for promotion which will bring me back within sniffing distance of my previous level.

Reading some of these posts, I wonder why some woman even bother having children...

moggle - becoming a remote self-employed worker at your old job sounds like the answer. Don't let your network fade whilst your confidence decreases....

RoboticSealpup - gosh that's an eye opener

Need why do you write women rather than men?
Do you think only women are the ones who should not work?

Are you a fundamentalist Muslim or something? Why shouldn't women work and have children?

Why should we always be the ones to sacrifice everything particularly when in the end the children are much happier if you can fund their house deposits and pay their university fees than whether you changed 10 nappies a day rather than 3 when they were 6 months old.

In fact Moggle why don't your proose this to your old work place now.
You can work for less than the cost of an employee so it is "cuts friendly". The next time someone leaves you can start - tell them you're not in a hurry.

Or do you need a laboratory? in which case I'm stuck...

I haven't RTFT, but thought I'd add my experience.

12 years ago I was working for a large, well known engineering consultancy, full time. I was meant to work 40 hours a week, but worked nearer to 65. I was more than familiar with the train times home after 9pm than before 6pm and I was exhausted. I'd worked through glandular fever, unknown that I was actually ill - I was that used to feeling so tired. We went abroad for a long weekend for a 30th birthday and I fell asleep on the airport bus and pretty much didn't wake up till we got home.

One of our clients was a large public body and we joked that we could never get hold of anyone after 3pm on a Friday afternoon. One evening (yes, I was working about 9pm) I needed to look up something on their website and strayed over to the jobs page. I saw a job I fancied... about 12 hours before applications closed and rattled off an application. I got the job and took it immediately. I took a 25% pay cut, but I just could not go on with how I'd been working.

I'm still there. It was very much a lifestyle change. I work part time now, as I have 2 DC, and flexi time. Maternity leaves were great and I had 8 weeks off with hyperemisis with each baby. No hassle from work at all, no pressure, only massive support and a phased return to work.

I love my job. I can't imagine working anywhere else. And I have never, ever missed the money. We live a fairly modest lifestyle, but we have time, and headspace to live. I can't imagine doing my old job with DC. I have a friend who is still there. She is meant to work 3 days a week - 24 hours. When she raised with her line manager that he was regularly working 35-40 hrs, he pointed out that the full timers did 70!

There was a Facebook meme going round yesterday that said "We were not put on the Earth the work then die" and I totally agree.

Choughed thanks xx
MissTriggs It is an option - possibly not going back to work for my old job (one of the plus points was that they employed many people with the skills I had and really valued them) - but I could easily freelance. In a way it's the obvious answer and what's more I have a parent doing it in a very similar area. It's a matter of confidence at the mo - currently I don't feel I can sell myself as would be required for self employment. And ambition too. I'm coming to realise that perhaps at school and home as I was growing up, academic skills have been valued perhaps a bit more than they should've been to the detriment of other traits / skills which I don't naturally have but could have been helped to develop. I can see that I am not very ambitious and find it hard to motivate myself and it all turns into rather a vicious circle. Very "woe is me" at times, don't want to help myself.

The irony is I am also self employed - I have an additional income from a hobby which is reasonably lucrative for the time I put into it. I love it and could happily grow it, but can't see it generating quite the income we need from me, once you take into account the non-salary benefits one gets from employment especially in the public sector.

Suspect once / if we have a DC2, after the end of that mat leave it will be crunch time to decide what to do.

Anyway that's all another thread (or three). I remember posting a thread on here when I was considering the jump three years ago and got a similar mix of responses!

this is such a tough one...which ive been battling with recently my princess is 4, and at school.

i wanted to give up my rather well paid job up, but i decided not to, its personal preference. its stressful and can be hard going at times, but i made some adjustments to make sure my daughter was getting the best of me and my time.

i left the stress at work -Takes some practice but with a longish drive from the office to the after school club gave me plenty of chill time in the car.

Work can wait... ok i am a devil for taking work home, sometimes things dont get completed on time that's life, me and my boss (MD) have a very good working relationship, if i dont get chance to do something i tell him, and say ill do it at home tonight and send it on...most things are done by email these days anyway... but i always wait until Jessica is in bed!

Annual leave means annual leave.... again im my own worst enemy ill work from home during holidays...i wont now, and i purposely leave the laptop at work. if its desperate they can call me.

this may not help, but its just a few things i changed to ensure i got the best of both worlds.

Thanks for the HBR link, v interesting. And depressing

Need, Pmsl at that question. Such a cliche!

Also agree that teenagers can really need you.

Mommy is right - if you can leave stress where ti is that works. I was once interviewed by a journalist profiling a series of successful women. The journalist said all of the successful ones including me seemed able to draw a halt - say I've done enough, good enough work and that's it or good enough evening with the children. We didn't obssess over perfection. I once life coached someone and they had this as their principal problem - could never stop thinking they could improve what they had been doing whether that was the work they were doing or something for the children. The journalist said the ones of us who seemed to have a happy balance of work and home were "satisficers".

of course now my youngest are teengers and my 20 somethings are finding their own life work balance it all seems easy for me in this later life stage with still probably 20 or 30 years of working life ahead of me. Now no one is up all night breastfeeding and I don't geth ome to toddlers pulling on my legs or a baby needing a breastfeed. It all gets a lot easier as they get older.

Hmm difficult one... Personally I now work part-time in a job-share. I went back to work part-time after having my second child. I was full-time up until then. Having said that my role isn't that well-paid or challenging!

I don't miss working full-time in a better paid job, which I did have when my first was born. My husband works away so somebody needs to be the continuity in our home and I just couldn't see how I could manage full-time work with two small children with my husband being away, so I have a not particularly demanding part-time job which enables me to manage our family life. At times I find it frustrating as there are no career development or promotion opportunities where I am and there probably never will be!

Financially we can manage it as my husband has a good job - I can still pay my half of the mortgage and bills etc so I don't feel totally financially dependent on him, although that doesn't bother me anyway, we're a married couple and he has always had the greater earning potential so it would have been silly for him to take a step back from his career instead of me.

However I enjoy my two days off with my daughter, we go to toddler groups etc and have fun making new friends, I made a promise to myself that if I went part-time we would do fun things and not just the housework! It's also nice for my son to be able to come straight home from school a couple of days a week.

Sometimes I regret putting my career on hold, however I am biding my time until my daughter starts school next year, building my up my contacts and looking at other career options hoping to make a career change then. They are little for such a short time, and although it is frustrating sometimes I know that I will not regret making these choices and short-term sacrifices in the future when they are older.

As BikeRunSki has said, a wise person once said "nobody on their death bed ever said "I wish I had spent more time in the office"!

Good luck! :)

Someone commented up thread that in many ways its easier to manage work if you are reasonably senior. I'm not sure it's worth sacrificing a career, thinking a lower paid job with less stress will actually be less stressful.I went back to ft work when DD2 was 5 , having worked for 3 years as a job share , which I can recommend. I had had to go back to work after maternity leave ,as DH was made redundant.I was by then quite senior and well paid (so could afford a cleaner/ironer )and as long as I delivered ,my boss didn't care how/when I worked .There was usually someone to cover my back if need be-rarely happended And pray for healthy kids. . I worked quite near home, which helped too.I was almost always home in time for us to eat as a family ,which I think really matters when children are older , and refused to have a BlackBerry (this was before email was commonplace too, and I did/would not have access to company email from home)There was always the phone if needed . I and my (male ) boss were the only people with children on our Management Team , but if I e.g. called time at a meeting at 5 45 and said I had to pick up DD from after school club I think everyone else was quite grateful!My colleagues never seemed to mind the occasional allowance being made for the fact I had children and had time off for sports day etc They would have acknowledged I more than pulled my weight
My DH,when he went back to work , did not work over- long hours either.He always said if you did so you were either inefficient or over worked. And if the latter you had to adress it .
Admittedly I have been retired for 5 years but I don't believe workplaces can have changed that much

Totally agree that tweens / teens need you more. My eldest is home by herself for 1.5 hours some evenings. She says she doesn't mind, and I know she's safe and happy in her own company, but I do mind. I get home and she starts talking, and doesn't stop until I tell her to stfu send her to bed. I think she needs more time with people around her.

DD2 goes to a childminder, who is brilliant, but it still isn't home. She has breakfast and lunch at school and tea at CM's. All very organised and efficient but she misses out on time at home too. We get home, I start tea, we read her school book or do her homework then it's bed time. I miss spending more downtime with her.

I want to supervise homework, watch crap tv with them, organise kit for the next day, teach them how to cook etc etc rather than everything being a mad rush once I get home at 6pm. It sounds clichéd but it's all about quality of life, which I think in our house is fairly poor at the moment.

IT is so important to maintain your financial independence.

You are taking a huge risk with your children's future if you don't.

I didn't go back after my maternity leave finished. I was in my 40's and had all the debts associated with being in a good job and enjoying the perks. The hardest part was prioritising how your now "one" income was spent.
We haven't had a foreign holiday in 6 yrs (nothing wrong with caravan holiday's IMO), drive a second hand car with no plans to upgrade and we really can't afford childcare. But it has been so worth it.
More energy to do things with my boys, more time and, most importantly,I am happy and if I am happy then my boys and DH are happy.
I am not saying that having to think twice (and maybe three) times about whether you really need that thing you want to buy has not been easy!, especially when you never really had to think about it before you just did it because you where earning BUT I now have TIME which is far more important that MONEY.
Our circumstances have changed now, so I need to go back to work but I am only going to get a part time job to make sure our bills are paid as I am just not prepared to work for "disposable" income at the expense of this time with my children.

I think it is a very personal decision and depends on:

1. your relationship and the balance of power there, as well as the feelings of your dh and his motives for wanting you to work/stay at home.
2. your financial position now but even more so in the future....are you going to inherit property later on, are you up to the hilt in mortgage for the next twenty years etc
3. yours and your partner's attitude to money and possessions.
4. both your attitudes to risk
5. your flexibility in a new career and your partner's happiness in his career.
6. your outlook on life....are you the type to see the positive or the negative in your CHOICES. Because there will be always something to rejoice in and something to regret, just depends if you are a glass half empty or half full type.

I was lucky enough to take a long career break, during which we assessed as a couple that me being at home was advantageous to all the family, and would continue to be so for at least another ten years. I could also see in this career break time some openings to do work that I would enjoy and would pay something, though nothing like my previous wage. We realised how little money it took us to live happily on, that we could still save something back, that me being home meant our location was more flexible (and much better, think 100 times more sunshine!) and realised at 30ish and 40ish these are our best years with our little children. We see our aging parents and that they are all but housebound by doctors appointments, hospital visits etc and we are choosing to not put off our happiness until retirement, especially since retirement is now so late. We want to live our chosen 'retirement lifestyle' now! So that's what we are doing and who knows what will happen in twenty years time?

"I think it is a very personal decision and depends on:

1. your relationship and the balance of power there, as well as the feelings of your dh and his motives for wanting you to work/stay at home....."

so if you are Helen off The Archers, giving up work would be A Bad Move!

I think it's also important to remember that the theme of the thread is not about giving up work, it's about stepping back rather than getting off.

There seem to be some posters on mums net who think that any woman who voluntarily compromises her earning power in any way at all is a libertine fool and an embarrassment to her sex and her children. Thankfully the particular one I'm thinking of hasn't made her way on to here.

To me it actually makes a lot of sense to try to stay in the workplace, thus retaining income, independence and employability, but on a reduced basis so that you aren't trying to split yourself into halves or even thirds all the time.

No one berates DH for not maximising his income which he could do by working further away or choosing jobs with more profile and longer hours, so equally I feel women should be able to make the choice that is best for themselves and their family and which makes them all the happiest.

hope this helps, obviously personal circumstances children, partners, finances aside, I just wanted to give you an insight into what I did, I had a stroke Feb 2 years ago & temporarily went blind, sight came back, had tumour I didn't know was there explode in April 2014, eventually had surgery to remove the rest of the crap it left all clogged up inside me in October 2014, what a bloody 6 month faff about that was! I went back to work December 2014 was attacked by a clients maniac sister, I was working in mental health advice at the time and I just thought what the hell am I doing, what's the point!!! I hated the job I hated the clients I hated what I was doing. I decided to take a massive life risk and sell my flat, June 2015 moved home, (thanks mum and dad), obviously having parents that will take you back in helps! I did a horticulture course and now due to start work as a gardener and happy to see where it goes with all the possible opportunities from there, long story cut very short, even though I clearly haven't ha ha!... (hope it doesn't sound too smug or preachy), life is too short, don't hate what you do to earn money to buy things you don't really need or could easily do without. If I had died from either of those medical incidents I would have done it whilst in a job I hated, for money I didn't need in a place miles from my family. I thought I was taking a massive risk just giving it up and seeing what happens, but good things have happened, I have never been happier, I love what I will be doing now, I don't give a shit about not having the money or career status any more, I think because I removed all the clutter that stops you seeing the opportunities around you I was able to be drawn to what I waned to do and I see that as a money can't buy massive luxury.
so

1. Do it, just go for it and do it, or stay, that's fine too, after all you probably already have everything you need.
2. there is no decision you can make that you can't change the direction of, and you will never ever be in a position where you can't just start again.
3. Don't give a shit what anyone else thinks, really, because you will get so so so many scared opinions from others not brave enough, do it for you, your family, your kids and your happiness.
4. do you need your garden doing, I charge great rates!!

Good luck and much future happiness whatever you do.

I don't disagree that teenagers can really need you. My DC are now 17, 15 and 12. But it's still easier than when they were 5 3 and 6 months. Partly because I'm so much more senior now. I get asked if I'm available for something on a particular day, I can say yes or no. When I was more junior, I was told I was doing something. I had no autonomy. I have huge amounts of autonomy now, the only things that are (relatively) set in stone are usually things that have been determined by me anyway. And in fact when I had a crisis involving sudden hospitalisation of DC1 while I was presenting at a conference abroad I was able to just drop out and go home without having to get permission or approval - that probably would have happened what ever level I was at, my firm is basically lovely - but I would have felt worse about it had I been more junior. Another thing to consider is that when you've just popped out lots of kids in a short space of time your mind and body are frazzled. I've recovered from that now. Just about. OP might be feeling particularly grim at the moment because her youngest is only 1 rather than because her situation is long term untenable.

I have no problem with people not working but I find it deeply annoying when they decide that those of us who do don't put our children first, and spend our hard earned on holidays, frocks and handbags. I don't spend my income on any of that. I don't actually own any handbags. Or frocks.

• I can cope with many work related stresses, but don't force me into a life without handbags or frocks or indeed holidays.