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?

What does he want to do? I’m a teacher and left briefly but came back to it. There are jobs out there that want qualified teachers. Can he not go and do one of those? PM me if you want details x

I'd feel the same way as you OP. And think its bad timing for him to come out with it now! Can he not retrain in the evenings or part time whilst still working as a teacher? I agree with pp that if he finds teaching stressful the police is a strange idea

I think your DH needs to have some careers counselling. Teaching is brutal but so are money worries. I think if he has an exit plan it will mean he can stick it out for a year or so to help his plans come to fruition.

Would leaving his school and stepping down to be a regular class teacher be an option. He could maybe pick up tuition to help make up his money?

There are options although I think joining the police as it is less stressful is probably not a realistic one.

Teaching can be very hard and when your love for it has gone it is horrific.

This is a tough one because mental health is so important but at the same time you've got to a place that you thought you were both happy and this is a bit of a shock.

It'll need to be a staged plan:

Could he start by decreasing hours and you increase?
Could he go for counselling to help with his mental health?

I think it might be fair to agree to change but it'll have to be done in stages so that the family is kept as stable as possible. He can't just stop earning without a plan.

Can he not retrain in the evenings or part time whilst still working as a teacher?

Is this a joke? He’s so stressed in work he wants to leave for mental health reasons and now he is supposed to add extra work retraining in the evenings?

@SaltyAndFresh

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.

Oh I do think he owes her. She took a back seat while he found his career, like many women do. She’s juggled work and kids and the house whilst he has climbed the ladder. No she’s got to do it all again whilst he ‘finds happiness’

Fuck that

Police officer here. Also married to a police officer.

The Met have already reached their growth target several months early and have a waiting list for recruitment. I’d imagine most other forces do as well. They are also changing the way recruits complete their training so it’s not a simple six month course anymore.

He would also be looking at quite a few years and a couple of promotions before he’s earning £50k a year.

My sister in law and her mother are teachers and I honestly don’t see how policing is any less stressful.

You will also have to factor in the physical stress of shift work. My husband is at work tonight and by the time he has finished this set of shifts he will have worked 96 hrs in 8 days. It’s not really family friendly. I’m lucky enough to have landed a role that is office hours but I do absolutely everything for the kids and at home.

I can totally understand your fears and frustrations.

Ultimately though, it may be that, for his health, he can no longer sustain this career.

How bad is the stress? Could he discuss being signed off work with his GP? He could then use the time to come up with a realistic plan of how he is going to support the family.

It doesn’t sound like he can carry on being miserable/ stressed forever, but maybe he could carry for a while within a larger plan to move to a different career.

The more time he can stick the job, the longer he has to plan how the family can bridge the gap in income. Hopefully this would only be a temporary gap.

Haven't read the full thread. But I'd be a bit annoyed - yes I'd want him to be happy, but when I'd supported him the first time retraining I'd have expected him to do some proper groundwork and research to make sure that was the career for him. So teaching is too stressful- fair enough, but from what you've said it doesn't sound like he has much direction or idea of what he actually thinks would suit him long term (other than police will be 'easy.' to get into) so to be honest I'd be wary the same thing was going to happen again. And it's also shit not to acknowledge that the pressure on you increases when you are supporting him retrain

I'm afraid you're being unreasonable OP massively so. I left teaching after 17 years and I had no idea it had taken such a toll on my mental health. When it's time to go it's time. Would you rather wait til he ends up being forced out by HR because he keeps having time off school due to stress, because that is what happened to me. At least this way he gets to plan his exit.

@Reubenshat, perhaps he'd like to switch roles while OP develops her career. She didn't have to anyway - lots of families have two FT working parents.

I'm not sure this all makes sense. If he has dropped all his extra responsibilities how is he still on £50k?

I know someone who did the same, quit cos of the stress because of one particular school they were in just really ground her down. Took a break and did agency work as a supply teacher and 2yrs on does moan about having dropped income etc. But that is the tradeoff.

I think its okay for your dp to want to leave but he should do it with a plan in place of what he wants to do.

Firstly he needs to see his GP. I’m not suggesting that he should take meds simply to keep teaching indefinitely BUT it may help him to see a way forwards more clearly.

How much can you save each month now? If you live as frugally as possible but without immediately moving house? I would start doing this now and saving as much as possible to build up some sort of reserve.

How long will it take you to complete your qualification?

I would tell your DH that you will support him re training only once you have your qualification. He needs to use that time to come up with a coherent plan. In the meantime you will have accrued some savings that could be a buffer if needed.

Work related stress is bad but so is money related stress. Not saying he shouldn't change career but at least look for one that won't have the equivalent in stress due to poor pay and financial worries.

My husband gave up his career as an accountant to work part time creating content for websites and SEO - something he has no qualifications in.

Not ideal as we'd just had a baby but mental health comes first.

I think both of you would feel better if you had a plan. It may mean giving up the house (if required), it may mean starting to save now in case of him not being able to take it any more. Both of you should look at the job options available to you and see what is the optimal. What if he took at 20k job but did tutoring on the side? Could he do exam marking? Private school? Could you then also think about what you might want to move into? Good luck - it is a hard situation, but I was in a v stressful job and did a switch - luckily I didn’t take a pay cut - but I would have if it was necessary.

YABU; he’s right - health is far more important than money.

He’s telling you his mental health is suffering; you need to listen and support him, not make him feel guilty for wanting to change and pile more issues on top of him.

So a person should stay on a job that they dislike so they can the finer things in life.. No way. Do a job that makes you happy. If it's less money manage with what you have not what you had.

I hear you OP and don’t think you are being unreasonable at all. I have one of these who has suffered with job related stress for years but has never looked seriously into ways of managing his reaction to stress. Instead he has blamed the kids, blamed me and blamed our relationship. For years I suggested he reduce top part time but he wouldn’t even ask- but he finally did last year now enjoys the balance. I’ve said fine leave but you must be able to meet your half of the bills in whatever you do. He’s the one who wanted private school, big car and big house. He doesn’t know what else he would do but has never seen a careers coach.
So frustrating and so wrong to spring this on you only after your house move.

Hi OP. Police recruitment is brutal, can take upto 12 months with paper sift, assessment centres, fitness tests, medical and is now either an apprenticeship degree (paid obviously) or graduate entrance. As he's a Teacher I would guess he would go for graduate entrance.

To get to 50k without overtime is rank of Inspector. So that's two professional exams, two interview boards, two portfolios - after the PC probation of two years - he'll have to be a Sergeant first for a couple of years minimum (first exam/board/portfolio) where he would manage a shift of perhaps 15 but could be more.

It will take him 7 years to hit 40k as a PC. He will pay 11% Pension. He will work days, evenings and nights, weekends, bank holidays, Christmas Day. Have days off cancelled at short notice and won't be guaranteed to finish on time - if the emergency comes in ten minutes before you finish and there's no one else then you're going to it. It's not an easy job. You've got to be prepared to fight if needed and then justify why you have. He'll get assaulted and abused. He'll see death and destruction and the worst side of humanity, things you wish you'd never seen. You've got to be able to compartmentalise and switch off. It's not for everyone and it can be extremely stressful.

But it's the best job in the world........

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

What a pile of shite, do people actually think like this? Also intrigued as to how many of those saying ah just let him quit would be happy to be staring down the barrel of losing their home, struggling to make ends meet, whilst he had made zero actual effort to find something else?

Policing can be vv stressful, and IMO is worse working conditions than teaching.

I think you need to be supportive but my husband has talked about similar and I was undeniably anxious about it for reasons like you.

Steer him away from police though. I have two police friends who used to like it but have found it very stressful last few years due to continued cutbacks which has meant inflexibility with regard to shifts etc. One found it unsustainable alongside having kids and left.

I agree with you OP. I would feel bloody annoyed.

Yes I agree with everyone else that MH comes first etc, etc. But I would still frankly be quietly seething for a while.

I am pretty resilient and handle stress very well, whilst I fully appreciate that having a mental health illness is horrible, I don't appreciate how both in my work life and marriage that this means I just suck up more and more.

Two silver linings for you:

1. You probably don't realise how much his MH is impacting you / him / the family.

1. You sound very organised and resilient, is this an opportunity for you to step up/. Do something different whilst he takes the lions share of the work.

A couple of other points which may help. Can he take a period of sick leave ? If his MH is that impacted, a period of paid sick leave may be a good breathing space to get well again and figure out what next. Does he have to immediately retrain ? What about a less demanding role ? Or a role in a related sector (Ofsted?) or tutoring? Or in the private sector ?