AIBU or is DH being unreasonable regarding career change

[Logiclady94]

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?

His hobby is playing with orks? LTB.

@SandyY2K

Then you have to challenge him to put the work in to make this happen. This is his mess and he needs to fix it. If he really is the good guy you say he is, he will rise to the challenge and acknowledge that he fucked up, really badly, and it’s on him to make it right.

• He lost his job.
• He's got another job.
• What's the mess? A drop in salary?

One person cannot fix a marriage and thinking it will, won't get you anywhere fast.

People are acting like he's committed a cardinal sin.

SandyY2K I guess you haven’t RTFT and have missed the background.

This isn’t about him losing his job. It’s about him lying to the OP about his job situation to manipulate her into ttc when she otherwise wouldn’t have. And everything that followed on from that.

That was him. All him.

@HomeSliceKnowsBest- you know the figures and brand in which I’m talking about then..

There’s nothing wrong with playing warhammer or even d&d if that’s his thing. As long as it doesn’t come in front of his young family.

And I do agree with @MrsCBY. He lied by omission and tricked you into another baby.

He didn’t share the shit his work life was in with you either.

The two of you really need counselling.

@Kcar

There’s nothing wrong with playing warhammer or even d&d if that’s his thing. As long as it doesn’t come in front of his young family.

Exactly. Painting figures in an evening is not exactly playing a round of golf every weekend.

I hate these threads where it turns out the salient information is all on some other thread I haven't read...

We have had a talk and after a few tears and some home truths, we have both decided we are going to look at signalling

Sorry OP but this made me laugh! Maybe I'll become a signaller as well, I've also been looking for a change.

Did you mention it while you were talking about him wanting more time for hobbies or just blindside him with it? That make a huge difference in how I would expect anyone to react.

I think this guy is flaky. He has lots of hobbies he wants to do 'alongside work'. Seems that's where his focus is and if you're working and subbing the marriage, he'll be able to do that. Your suggestion wasn't the best of course and your approach was wrong. But unless anyone's been there with a Dreamer Of Big Plans who doesn't and never will have the means because his work ethic is out of kilter, then they don't know how rubbish it is to live with. As to freelancing, yes he could in his field but he must already know that. & He hasn't done it.

It's easy to end up skint with this type of man, which impacts on DCs life too. Whilst he insists his pin-money hobbies are 'jobs'. Or remains perpetually disgruntled that his plans didn't come to fruition; yet, doesn't really do anything to rectify this.

@flynow- if you’ve read my previous posts it isn’t a random idea. They are doing training for the new ROC and are looking to take on new signallers after. It would work for DH’s lifestyle and I am interested in because my grandparents and my dad worked/work on the railway. It’s not such an impossible/unrealistic job. One of my stepmum’s family have applied on the last training plan and they are currently doing it so butt out with your sarcastic comments.

@Frannibananni- we had been talking the day before whilst we were in bed about our life and how we wanted to work going forward. He honestly listed everything he wanted to do such as the painting commission, freelance web design & being around for the children more often. I was thinking about it whilst he was sat at the dining room table at 8 in the morning working on my family members website and I just thought of it. He said after we talked that he knew it wasn’t random but because I didn’t explain any of that when I said it that it made it sound more money orientated.

Fuck me some weirdos on this thread. So op has a flaky husband who has lost not one but 2 jobs based on poor performance. He whinges about wanting to spend more time with the kids and his hobby. Ops dad who has a good job that allows that to happen calls and lets her know a way into that job is now available so she suggests it to him as a way to allow him to have the work life balance he whinges about and somehow people have suggested op is a freudian creep who has an inappropriate fixation with her father and is obsessed by money?! And people have the audacity to praise him for taking time off work to parent his own goddamn child when his wife is sick and unable to do it as if he is a fucking martyr?! Especially when one of the children wouldnt have even happened if he hadnt been a liar.

Op its not you its him.

He’s lost two jobs in six years. And walked straight into a better paying one. His poor performance was due in part to the situation going on at home. I think it’s a stretch to call him flakey,

I said the same @Bluntness100. And was told I should be ashamed of myself 🤷‍♀️

@VinylDetective

I said the same *@Bluntness100*. And was told I should be ashamed of myself 🤷‍♀️

If the genders were reversed that would never have happened...

£4000 isn't after tax isn't enough money to career change, and losing 2 jobs in the present climate is hardly unheard of. Do you work in the public sector OP? My suggestion is he aim for an IT based role with a local authority, as there is so much non productive dead wood working in local authorities, no one will ever notice if his output at work is slightly slow. But generally, Web design is a well paid and flexible career, so he'd be mad to give it up. He might be in the wrong geographical area for it though.

YABU. He likes his job why would you randomly choose a whole new career? So strange.

I think OP is getting conflicting advice because people are either sidings with OP or the husband. Both need to align their thinking and expectations as both have a role to play.
The husband is definitely flaky, we only have one side it the story but OP describes port performance and her husband’s interest in child rearing, he is not career minded so not putting 100% into his job. At the same he is distracted by hobbies, your job come first, it’s as simple as that.
OP is not helping the situation, his absence was poor he because of OP’s illness so she needs to give the man a break - agree with people saying that if he had put his career before her health, he would have been ripped to shreds in this forum. To add to this, OP is fixated with railway signalling, and yes it’s a fixation, not a rational interest - who leaves a career in web design to go work on the railways, the mind boggles. At the same time she is letting herself off the hook by saying she is not bright.
The answer is that OP needs to accept that he is not career minded and focus on her progressing her own career. By her own admission, he enjoys domestic bliss, let him do that with some part one work.

Logiclady94 No I get you, I think it makes sense, but you must admit taken out of context it's not a line you hear often... "long story short, we both became railway signallers".

@VinylDetective

I said the same *@Bluntness100*. And was told I should be ashamed of myself 🤷‍♀️

No you didn’t, VinylDetective. You told OP she “didn’t deserve that man” - a man who was prepared to lie to her to control the situation so things worked out the way he thought they should.

You told a victim of gaslighting that the man gaslighting her is too good for her.

If you can’t see what’s shameful about that then it’s not just your reading comprehension that’s lacking.

To be fair, I agree it’s a fixation on signalling, now apparantly they are both going to look to do it. It seems a bit odd, so all I can assume is the op kind of idolises her father, so sees this as the ultimate career path, particularly for a man.

Well, let's just hope that signalling never becomes fully remotely operated!!

@Bluntness100- would you please leave my thread because you are making me feel shittier. I’ve been signed off this work with stress and depression & frankly I don’t need your fucking advice. I do idolise my dad and I thought sounded perfect for DH. DH thinks I would be good at it. Sorry you’ve not got anyone in your life to try and boost your confidence or someone to help with your work/life balance. Please and I ask this with as much politeness I can right now with everything going on to piss off and kick someone else whilst they are down.

@VinylDetective- you can read this and follow suit too. Maybe I don’t deserve him and maybe I am a shit person for trying to help my husband avoid depression too. Please follow my request to bluntness and leave my post and go kick someone else too.

You are both parasites.

This gets better. Now, as well as trying to push your DH into it, you’re also looking to be a railway signaller because your grandparents and father did it. So it seems an obvious choice to you. I’m guessing it will be the job suggestion for your kids also as they grow up?

Is anyone else getting visions of the railway controllers from Thomas the Tank Engine here?

Your DH doesn’t seem one to climb a career ladder. Your job is so stress inducing you are now signed off. Railway signalling will save all the problems all round because it seems to have worked for your grandparents and dad. Okay.