Hi, I’m prepared to be told I am being unreasonable but I was only making a suggestion. DH and I had a massive argument this morning with regards to me suggesting a career change for him. He is a web developer/designer and has been doing it since we got together 4 years ago, when we met he’d lost his job and it took him about 6 months to get another.. he had enough savings to live on during that time. He had been in that job since 2017 until he got let go in June 2020 because his performance had dropped and he hadn’t progressed at all.
He has since got a new job but because he his progression hadn’t moved at his old job he got a new job at the same level he was on but for less money (£4000 less) he was told he would get a pay review in January 2021 when his probationary ended and if he met it he would potentially get the original job adverts salary (more than his last job)
So long story short I said to him this morning why didn’t he train to become a railway signaller like my dad? He could train as he has more qualifications than I do and he could freelance in his spare time if he still loved the web developer role and he blew up at all.
Saying that the only way I’d be happy is if we had more money.. it’s always about the more money. He told me I don’t respect him and that if I liked the money so much why I don’t study to become one like my dad. I told him I’m not smart enough, I don’t have any qualifications.. I earn more than him right now as I work in a good industry.
I only suggested it because my dads hours would work really nicely for the lifestyle he wants, he wants to do his hobby in his spare time (painting figures and playing war games) he also wants to do podcasts, paint other people’s figure for commission work, freelance web design and get married, move to a nicer area and so on and so on... it is a long extensive list which he would have more time to do all that as the job is 3 days on 4 days or 4 days on and 3 days off (I can’t remember what my dad said, he likes to work himself to death so he does a hell of a lot of overtime)
I feel awful for suggesting it now as I was just trying to be helpful as I don’t think the web developer role is working out for him. He has two lost two jobs and he hasn’t gained any progression in nearly 6 years. I feel like I lost a bit of respect for him when he lost that job because he didn’t even tell me he had been put on a warning or anything. He had been supporting me through two terrible pregnancies and one illness that required surgery. He told me his work understood and then during lockdown he had a meeting about it then when I asked him what was going on, he told me everything. He then got a call that afternoon to say he’d been let go. I didn’t know any of this and it made me have to return from maternity early which was stressful because with covid we didn’t have the childcare set up.
Was IBU to suggest it? And was DH being unreasonable for blowing up at me?