DH being "pushed" out of yet another job

[needahusbandtransplant]

Hi folks. Sorry, this is going to be long but I'm trying to give a full enough backstory so as not to drip feed. But I need to know if I'm being a heartless bitch, or perfectly reasonable.

So DH and I have been together for 16 years and have 4 kids.

His last 2 jobs have been fraught with stress, anxiety and performance improvement issues, with the last one culminating in a payoff to disappear quietly with the promise of a decent reference. This was after several months of him being off sick with stress.

We had anticipated this ending and about a year before, had downsized our property. I wasn't happy about this but I stood by him and, having only 2 kids at that time, this was reasonably easy to do (the downsizing that is). The new house was a bit of a shithole tbh (although in a good area) but after a few months of unemployment he managed to get a new job. Things were looking up, his new colleagues seemed nice and normal and we were able to do up and extend our home and had 2 more kids.

Fast forward 4 years, things have gone tits up at his current job. He's had a couple of run ins with colleagues and people in other depts. they've now decided he's a problem and are now finding "issues" with his work (which has never been an issue till now). So now he's off on the sick again, driving me absolutely bonkers because he's a lazy sod and doesn't actually want to spend his sick leave minding the kids, but is having to, because I refuse to send them to their grans unless their is an actual reason/need to do so.

He had a meeting today with his line manager, and the possibility of a "settlement with a decent reference" was discussed. Dh thinks if he returns to work from sick leave he may be looking at a possible disciplinary and a performance improvement setup.

He has some job apps in the pipeline, but nothing guaranteed.

I'm seriously pissed off! I just feel so fucking hacked off that were even in this situation yet again. Dh thinks I'm being unsympathetic and he should take the settlement. Apparently I'm being unreasonable because I don't seem to care about his mental health! The thing is, logically, I can see the argument for accepting the settlement offer, but it seems I'm married to a man who is so incapable of getting along with work colleagues that eventually he has to be hounded out of every place of work! He doesn't seem to see that he appears to be the problem! I bought all the "I'm being picked on" at the last 2 jobs, but seriously, 3 times?! I work in the same type of organisation, and in my experience, it's very unusual for people in our type of workplace to be "managed out the door", and yet he's managed it 3 times now!

Get him to have some therapy
Start to work again and explore how medium term you can stop being reliant on his earning power

All well and good saying LTB but what are supposed to live on ? Air !

All well and good saying LTB but what are supposed to live on ? Air!

She has a a full time job & grandparents wh help. Her husband is the deadweight here.

3 difficult work situations could just be unfortunate but IMO his reaction is key.

If he was questioning his part in it and asking for feedback or help or support and genuinely worried about how his performance is perceived etc then it would be something to work with.

Instead he is lazy, denying any part in it all and being an arse.

OP you can’t make him change or want to.

You can only act for yourself and your kids.

If you can manage on just your wage and he was a good candidate for SAHD then that’s an option but if he can’t be bothered to do childcare now it doesn’t sound likely.

If having a partner who works, has financial security, values and a good work ethic matters to you then you may have to let this one go and find another.

But give him chance- tell him how you feel honestly even if it’s hard for him to hear, ask him if he is willing to have therapy and try to seethe bigger picture and make changes going forwards. If he isn’t then you can’t do much but leave really.

Tell him to get to fuck. This man will never change. All this he needs therapy bullshit... No he does not. He knows exactly what he's doing signing off with stress. He's a lazy bastard and you need to give him an ultimatum.

*All well and good saying LTB but what are supposed to live on ? Air!
*

Nobody thinks it is an easy option. However the alternative is that women continue to put up with shit partners (be that unfaithul, abusive, selfish, lazy etc etc etc) for the sake of financial security. If we accept that we might as well all time warp back to the 1950s. Personally, I want better for my daughters.

Nobody thinks it is an easy option. However the alternative is that women continue to put up with shit partners (be that unfaithul, abusive, selfish, lazy etc etc etc) for the sake of financial security. If we accept that we might as well all time warp back to the 1950s. Personally, I want better for my daughters.
This ^^

There comes a point where women have to stop being doormats, know their worth and decide whether to avoid the sunk cost fallacy.
If a man is likely to be a financial black hole, irresponsible, obnoxious and rude in his private life, keep losing jobs, is lazy with his kids, at some point the woman needs to think I'm actually better off without him and his shit. I need to make some tough choices that are best for me and my children.

Without knowing him it's hard to say whether it's a case of your dh deliberately (or sub consciously) sabotaging the job because he's fed up/bored/frustrated, whether he's got a personality let's say that means he's being picked on (but he brings it on himself) or he has mental health issues that is causing the problems. I do know people that certainly bring the workplace problems on themselves, but working environments can have bullies just like schools. 3 times however makes me think it's your dh that's the problem whether that's his fault or not I cannot judge. A trip to the gp should be in the first instance and get an assessment to see if therapy of some kind could help him deal with workplace issues better. Perhaps he's just a person who wants to run if there's a slight conflict by going sick?

Ultimately you can always leave but there's some things you can do to see if you fix things first, good luck

A narcissist will also strive to create drama. Nothing as dramatic as a victim narrative, seeing your family's finances jeopardised, then rescuing everyone with yet another job offer, and off we go again...

This could be someone I know, he doesn’t get on with other people and doesn’t want to either, doesn’t have or want any friends, in his own mind he is never wrong, sees himself as much more intelligent than everyone else, has no empathy and can’t see situations from anyone else’s point of view. He thinks if he turns up and does his job then that’s enough but doesn’t realise that getting along with co-workers is actually part of his job too, even though it’s not explicitly written in his job description. And then keeps wondering why he keeps getting let go. It’s so sad because if he’d just make a bit of effort he could have gone much further in his career but he was never going to get a promotion because he was so rude to people.

This happened to my dh in his last job, not the sick, but made redundant ie, settled for a lump sum. I think he didn’t like being told what to do, basically. He’s been his own boss for 10 years now - could your dh set up his own business?

If he has been managed out then he’s probably the problem. If he’s been managed out badly then I can see how it has been viewed by him as bullying and unfair.

As a manager there are two different types of people that I would look to move on:

1. underperformers. Although I would try and give them all the opportunity and support to improve first.

2. toxic personalities who are making the rest of my team unhappy and poor performers. Doesn’t matter if they are my stars, I’d prefer not to have the staff turnover and unhappiness.

Ask a Manager has a really interesting discussion on this. Essentially saying that yes, it's possible to have a run of bad luck at jobs, which then makes you less attractive to the best employers due to perceived 'job hopping', so you can only get jobs at toxic places, which makes you learn more toxic adaptive behaviours...

But sadly it does seem likely that your husband is the problem. Anyone having that much drama at work needs to have a hard look at themselves, maybe see whether they're in the wrong profession altogether.