To be annoyed about DH changing career?

[3ormoredogs]

I know I probably sound selfish here but I had to ask anyway.

DH is a teacher. He is quite high up band wise. While training I supported him and have done the bulk of the childcare and running of the household while he worked himself up and trained, went on multiple courses and stayed up late working etc.

My career suffered through being a parent but I still work almost full time and contribute £25k/year to the family pot as well as doing most of the drop offs and pick ups and usual child related activities! I am also mid qualification to try and increase my own income but I don’t work in a high paid sector so DH is the main earner.

DH obviously does the childcare during school holidays which saves us a small fortune and means he can spend time with the DC. He is also home early enough to help and the job is pretty stable so we don’t tend to worry as some people have had to during corona etc.

We have finally started to pull ourselves around financially. Not rich but can afford to buy the odd nice thing without worrying and go on camping holidays that type of thing. We have just got out of debt. We have also just bought a new house that requires a lot of work, top of our budget but a family home in a rural area with good schools which we were planning on doing up bit by bit.

DH has hated his job for a while, moved around a bit to different roles in different schools and has now declared he wants to leave teaching and retrain. Apparently he can’t cope with the job any more and it’s causing him to be miserable and lockdown has made him see just how miserable. He has also said he’s been having anxiety at work for a while and does not want to cope with that amount of stress and pressure for the next 30 years.

I feel bad that he hates his job but don’t know how I can pretend I’m not very annoyed when he is talking about a drop in income of at least £20k which would mean an end to being able to afford anything for the next 5 years. We do not have any luxuries we can cut back on and very much live comfortably but not enough to loose £1k per month or whatever it would be.

He said his mental health is more important than money and his family think I’m selfish for saying this is not something we can look into with small children having just bought a house and that he needs to stick it out a while longer.
Not only that but the lack of job security really worries me in these uncertain times, he hasn’t even decided what he wants to do yet! He said a trade of some description or maybe police force as he thinks as a teacher he would have a good chance of getting in? Plus the shift work and childcare issues it’s going to create.

So, am I a selfish person thinking about my own happiness or should I be supporting my husband and thinking we could make this work?

Anybody dropped massively in income who can tell me it would be okay in the end?

I would say this is a mental time to be looking for a job. DH was made redundant in July, has been applying solidly for 3 months now and has got nowhere. He is senior management in the 3rd sector. Uneployment is massive currently and about to get worse come October.

I would ask him to stick it out at least until next year. He would also need a specific plan. You can help him but it should be driven by him. You shouldnt have to pick up the pieces all the time.

I think I would feel the same in your situation.

I have no educational experience but what about jobs in education which don't involve teaching or being in a school? What about school inspector - no idea how much they earn but with his experience he should be ideal. There may be other educational, non teaching jobs of which I'm not aware.

@QuantumPixies he's had time off, if it was a case of OP saying they would have to drop from 3 holidays a.year to just one then sure, but putting the family in a position where they cannot pay the bills and might lose their home without any attempt to make a plan?

Sorry for typos. Should say I’d support him to retrain for the SAME money.. and plenty of professions for 50K.
And he’s mad to leave a stable profession at the moment

Does anyone actually read what the op writes? She has already said she works 60-70 hours a week and is trying to get a qualification on top to help her career wise so people telling her to work more hours or do something to maximise her earning potential are being dim.

I also don't think you are being unreasonable.

Police work isn't low stress, and doesn't seem a sensible plan.

Plans you could do now. Can he look at teaching roles at other schools, including the private sector. Can he look at going part time, 4 days a week with a day to himself when your own dcs are at school would be a drop in salary, but not to the extent you were discussing and might give him the time to do research into non-public sector jobs.

Could he look at jobs in education that aren't teaching - looking at exam boards, ofsted, delivering teacher training etc.

Few jobs pay around the £50k mark without stress and being able to stop thinking about the job as soon as you are out the door. Living without financial security is stressful. That needs to be factored in.

It's a good time to join the police as every force is currently recruiting. But the starting salary will be nowhere near £40k and he's delusional if he thinks it's less stressful than teaching.

The shifts, the politics, dealing with the 5% of the public all day that the rest of us never mix with, unexplained deaths, domestic violence and the constant dealing with drunks in the night time economy.

but agree with a pp - why doesn't he look for a role in the local authority? Or is a private school an option?

Could he drop a day? I'm a teacher and cope fine because I'm 0.8 of a full timetable. I still earn a fairly decent salary as I'm at the top of the pay scale.

I don’t think he’s on the verge of a breakdown. He’s always moaned about work, who doesn’t.
I had no idea that he felt this bad. He’s had stressful times but also good times where he has enjoyed it. It was only last year he was organising clubs for the children and going away on trips etc.

It’s cost us £8k to move here alone, not including the £10k we’ve already spent on it. We bought pre lockdown, I don’t even know if it’s worth what we paid now. He did not mention this at any point in the moving process.

He hasn’t put a timeline on it. I’ve apologised for my initial reaction and said we need to discuss it further but that there needs to be a plan in place.
Ideally we would have some savings in place and wait until the DC are old enough to not need as much holiday care but that’s at least 5 years away realistically and I am not expecting him to stick it out that long.

As for the poster who mentioned how would I cope if he killed himself. Really
I’ve hardly said oh DH work yourself into the ground so I can drive a Range Rover, shop at Ocado and eat out 4x a week have I?
If he leaves this job, we can’t pay our bills. It’s that simple.

@Shaniac op doesn’t work that much but is worried about having to.

You're not unreasonable, or selfish. He's not unreasonable to feel as he does, but he would be unreasonable to act on it without making sure he can continue to support and maintain his commitments. You are already doing as much as you can, he needs to come up with a plan.

He's got the dread at the moment which is fine, he may just need to get back in there for a bit while researching other options

I don't see how he is going to earn £50k doing anything else.

Aren't there any steps he can do to take the pressure off? Change school? Hire someone to do work in the house?

I know it's easy to say his MH comes first, but everyone has to make sacrifices for a family to succeed.

Wait, he wants to join the police because that's a low stress job?

It is tough OP, we were where you are 5 years ago. DH soldiered on in a job he hated for 2 years, but came out the other end with a burn-out, anxiety and alcohol dependency. Very tough times.

He then quit his job on the spot one day, and I remember crying in the car park of Lidl as I was scared how it was going to work out, and worst of all I felt I was not prepared. Have if been a SAHM with a part time job, supporting DH career whilst letting my own career prospects slide, I also felt a bit betrayed.

Ultimately it was all for the best, I was able to work more and once DH quit his job. he was very calm and realistic about needing to find something else ASAP

He had to have that realisation himself though, and was only able to think about the next step once he had the headspace from having left his old job

It will probably all work out ok, but ultimately you cannot force someone to stay in a job that slowly kills them .

What really helped me through this was talking open and honestly with friends and family

Be honest to yourself, to him, and seek support. Every marriage hits rocky patches and you can get through this

Op would he be willing to wait a year to see how this all settles Covid wise and to get your home well underway? I think that often when you’re in a job you hate light at the end of the tunnel is often enough. In a year he can reassess and between now and then look at the job market carefully

What are the chances of him not liking the next job and the one after and the one after that.

He sounds a flaky waste of space op. I bet you already shoulder 9/10 of the gravy on the relationship. Cut free - downsize and make the most of it. He never will. The glass is likely always to be half empty.

I'd love to leave teaching to retraine, but my DH earns similar to you, so I can't. I can't help resenting him for it because he's never tried to earn more.

I don't really think you've got a leg to stand on for as long as you work fewer hours and earn less than him. If he's on a high point in the pay spine who must've been earning more than you for a few years so I don't really think that he owes you because you supported him while he trained.

Teaching is great when you're happy. It's bloody awful when you're not.

Breaking into a trade can be very difficult if he doesnt have the contacts. He wont be able to easily find an apprenticeship or training scheme so he will have to do it alone.

Trades like electriciain are technical. They cost money to train into. They cost money to stay in (it costs £00s per year to stay qualified as a Part P electrician).

Where is he going to find his customers? Who will be his competition? We are going to be entering very tricky economic times. People will cut back on getting work done. He will be competing with established tradesmen.

I know the above because DH retrained as an electrician. He was good at it, he was honest, hardworking, his pricing was competitive. In the end he ceased trading. Too many people would get him to quote but then decide that their mother's neighbours cat would do the job for a tin of whiskers so they would rather have a bodge job than one which complied with building regulations.

I think he should focus on Improving his mental health and how he deals with stress before making any changes. Changing careers may work out...or he may find himself stressed again and repeating a cycle. From my own experiences working in a very high pressured work environment, getting to a good place mentally means you can really understand what the issue is and make good choices about how to overcome and swap with stress. It's a lot to put you and the family through without having dealt with the main issue.

Where did that extra e come from?

You're not selfish, but I think a lot of PPs are making big assumptions about a lack of stress in teaching compared to other jobs. Of course other jobs are stressful, but teaching is too, particularly in a schools where you are constantly monitored and observed. My husband is self-employed tradesman and it is not nearly as stressful as my teaching job, which he'd admit any day, even during the current COVID situation. I have worked with him in the holidays and it blows my mind how relaxed his days are - and he is in high demand, very well-respected etc. Whilst I don't think it's the answer to the OP or her husband, let's not pretend that teaching is a walk in the park compared to all these other 'proper jobs' as the insinuation seems to be. I hope as a family they can find a solution.

my dp quit his job without a plan, spent almost a year spending our savings trying to find a job that he liked and ended up in a job that paid a third of his previous salary.
And this was sprung on me without discussion.
We are still trying to recover from the financial implications 2 years on and I hate the fact that our future plans have been jepoardised.
It has caused problems in our relationship too as it felt like he didnt think about the family just himself I doing this.