This could well just be The Fear that every teacher has when returning to work after the summer holidays, exacerbated by the pandemic. It's also been a time to evaluate your own life because when you see from the news that life is precious and precarious, you want to make sure that at least you're living a happy one!
It's a really hard time for everyone. Education is a really shit place to be at the moment. Really shit. And, to be honest, modern life is a bit shit really, isn't it? Housing is too expensive, job choices are limited, it all leads to generalised anxiety and worry about the future. There's also the thing of everyone living to a ripe old age these days, and contemplating the thought of having to work in one field, like it or not, for the rest of your life. It's scary. Every bloody job with decent career prospects seems to have gradually become graduate entry (WHY!?!??!) but when we have chnaged the system so that you can only get funding for a loan for one degree in your lifetime, it makes it very hard to then retrain into something else later on.
When I graduated in the 90s there were jobs advertised all over the place. The cost of living was such that in a family with 2 parents, if one parent wanted to work PT because of childcare or even not at all, or take on a lower paid job for whatever reason, then it was totally doable! If someone approaching retirement age (which was younger than what it is now anyway) wanted to semi-retire because they needed to be there for elderly relatives or whatever, then it was much easier. There were lots of little PT jobs, often worked by people who were not the main earner but whose income paid for the little luxuries like holidays etc as the main earner's salary was enough for the household to survive on.
It's a disgrace that in the UK, a supposedly developed nation, we have got ourselves in a situation where, just to afford the basics to live, 2 adults now need to both work FT in stressful jobs with long hours, and put their children into nursery for long hours. There is now no-one free to voluntarily help others in the community - the vulnerable, lonely and elderly, and to keep an eye on the children letting themselves into empty houses each day after school, because we're all working our guts out to earn a wage simply to pay for a basic living.
However, while I have no idea how we've reached this state of affairs, reach it we have. And we need to learn how to navigate the best path through it. For some this means relocating to somewhere that has a better system, whether that be a teacher moving to a country that has a less ridiculous education system, or to cheaper housing etc.
I think teachers need to develop VERY thick skins. Go in, roll their eyes inwardly at the latest initiative (which they'll have seen 8 years earlier anyway), or whatever the new rewards system is. Just go along with it and focus on the bits you DO enjoy. Every teacher knows that most initiatives and OFSTED requirements are a load of bullshit, they're not what the job REALLY is. The important things are not quantifiable.
Your DH will know this, but these difficult times, and back to school, make it hard. It's not the best time to make a decision, but there's no harm in planning an exit strategy and seeing how things go in the new term. Sometimes even just thinking that you have the option to leave will take the pressure off. I do think there's a need to consider the future from his side, not just the family's. There's never a right time to switch career once you've got a family and a mortgage. Kids will grow up and become less dependent in terms of childcare, but instead they become teens who need financial help through uni themselves. So it never seems the right time. However, it's a loooong working life these days. You can't be in a job that makes you miserable for all of it. Maybe he secretly wishes he had married someone who had higher earning potential so that he could change career without any major financial shortfall. The reality is that you have the hand you're dealt with , you just need to work out the best way to play it.