teacher DH needs to leave his job.

[greenteaandchai]

DH is a Maths teacher (A Level). A very good one. He is head of something and many other things I can't remember, he's also SLT.

DH HATES his job. Every day is the anger, the stress, the cries of how much he 'can't do it anymore'.

DH also privately tutors, in fact, he has built such a reputation that he runs a successful company doing it. He earns more privately tutoring than his teacher salary. It helps that I am an accountant so I can do his finances easily.

I've produced cash flows, projections, financial models. I've proved he can quit. I have proved his business could be a massive success. I also have said, if you quit then you can always apply for another job if this fails, there's enough of them. I also earn more than double DH so we can easily survive on my salary.

Up until recently he'd say 'I want to quit' and I'd say 'are you sure? really?' and i'd console, I was the therapist, the ear, the teacher, but all just got angry responses of 'you don't get it'. So now I am saying QUIT. Stop moaning or quit.

AIBU to say that he can easily survive without this job right now and he needs to sort his mental health out? At the moment he is juggling everything well enough but with a lot of stress and occasional mood swings. However, we are TTC and I am clear that he can't juggle when/if we are successful because he is never home at the moment.

Would like to get opinions.

YABU - teaching is security, do it, keep it up
YANBU - do the other business idea, sort your mental health out.

Would be very interested to hear from teachers who have left the profession too.

Quitting teaching was the best thing me and my husband have done. He's gone over to the DfE and I've moved into the school office to keep my term time hours. We have so much more time together and as a family. Neither of us is sitting down to work at 9pm after the children have gone to bed. Neither of us switches our laptop on at weekend any more. It's bloody awesome!!

I voted YABU because I think your options are too polar, there are other options available.

What does he want to do? Does he actually want to quit teaching? Could he change schools?

Anyone would be burnt out doing two full time jobs.

But if he's employing others?

Employee and sole trader/own business owner here.

This is about change, which is scary.

Absolutely go part time or somehow reduce hours, maybe go back to being teacher rather than head of - reduce, reduce.

This gives energy, time, headspace to devote to the business, nurture and grow it.

Lose some of the shittiness around the full time full on role, spending money, time and care on the thing he loves.

Earn more money doing that.

Be your own boss.

Make sure you have a private pension too, tho.

When you say he earns more tutoring than he does being SLT in a school, do you mean per hour? Because I don’t see that he can possibly outearn a full time annual leadership scale salary by doing a bit of extra tutoring in the evenings. Something’s not quite right there.

Teaching is fabulous (I’m a secondary teacher) if you’re in the right school.

I teach in an independent school. I earn 60k as a classroom teacher. We have a five period day - I never teach more than three periods per day and I never take any work home after 4.30pm. It’s not stressful - I have small classes of well behaved children, a supportive SLT and great colleagues. I used to be a head of faculty and stepping back to classroom teaching has been fabulous - so much less stress and I can just focus on my work in the classroom rather than admin, targets and endless meetings and emails about pupil progress.

If your husband enjoys the actual teaching part of the job, I’d recommend he moves to the independent sector for better pay and work life balance.

Tutoring is all very well but it’s not a steady income, the pension is shit and the hours are concentrated after school and into the early evening, or on weekends, and he’ll have hardly any work during school holidays. You mentioned trying for a baby - him being a tutor won’t be conducive to family life if he’s working between 4 and 8pm and you’re trying to get children fed, bathed and put to bed by yourself.

You need to think a bit more flexibly here I think. In the right school your husband could be much happier. Running a tutoring business won’t be a walk in the park either and comes with its own stresses when you factor in an unreliable income, a need to generate your own clients, and unsociable
working hours.

I wonder if what the OP means is that, based on what he makes at the moment, he has the same/higher earning potential if he were to rely solely on his tuition business? Of course, as others have said, that would depend on a regular income stream which is not guaranteed. And it’s likely to include evening and weekend work, which is definitely not ideal with a new baby,

OP, so sorry to hear you’re in this position. It sounds horrible and unsustainable for both of you. I was the teacher in this situation and I fully admit that when I was burning out it became ‘all about me’ and I absolutely wasn’t present for my husband in the way that I should have been.

I hope this doesn’t sound patronising, but has your DH taken time to break down, maybe with a mind map or something, exactly what it is that’s keeping him stuck? Maybe that would help with the way forward. For example, is he struggling with losing his seniority after working so hard to progress? Is it fear of the unknown? Does he feel able to share his feelings with his line manager and could any support be put in place? Like many teachers, are there things he still enjoys about the job that are keeping him invested like actually being with the kids in the classroom. If so, is there something he could do to retain the parts of the role he enjoys whilst removing some of the stressors? Like, part time hours topped up by tuition, stepping back down to a non senior role? Or, if it’s a school culture problem, a different school/type of school. Like the previous poster said, I’ve known people make the transition to private schools and enjoy a better work life balance. It’s not always the case, though. I worked in both state and private and found the private equally stressful in its own way - lots of pressure to maintain their reputation and the obligation to do extras in your lunch hour, after school and weekend/holidays, to ensure you were providing all of the extra bells and whistles the parents were paying for. And a LOT of parental contact. Mind you, I was earlier in my career and still working on mastering the core teaching element of the job. I would imagine that isn’t an issue for your DH!

Would he maybe benefit from a career coaching session or perhaps a short course of counselling to help him explore everything and alleviate some of the emotional burden on you?

Best of luck in what you decide and with TTC.

We pay £50 an hour for A level maths tutors in our area - but how on earth does he earn more from tutoring than teaching? This man must be working so much he's prob exhausted with little free time.

I agree with this, it's why I voted yabu.

I'm a teacher and genuinely love my job, in an independent school, it's an easy gig.

But I do like to moan sometimes to dh, tbf not like op's husband more like anecdotes of how unreasonable SLT/parents etc can be and I sometimes even make dh laugh and he helps me laugh it off.

I'd much prefer my dh helps me laugh about my gripes than insisted "why don't you just quit so you can stop moaning at me".

Obviously it's not ok that op's dh brings anger home. Anger is not really ok in the home imo. But I'm also unconvinced that quitting his whole successful career would make him less angry.

(I'm a huge fan of working part time though so I'd recommend that to anyone.)

YANBU he needs to quit at least for 6 months and see how life looks/he feels. You're right he can go back if he needs to

Just to reiterate when I say - definitely not condoning op's dh getting angry at home. If he's getting angry at op (and/or any kids if they have some already) then that's even potentially abusive and needs addressing.

I'm just not convinced that quitting his career would be an automatic quick-fix for his emotional dysregulation.

If I were op I'd focus only on how dh's ways affect mine. Focus on the outcome you need rather than the means you think he should use

Eg - you are often angry at me and that makes me unhappy and affecting our TTC. I need to you stop being angry at home. You say that your anger is due to work stress so my suggestion is that you reduce your workload/quit your job but if you can find another way to stop being angry at home, that would be equally fine.

Put the ball in his court, let him have agency over it.

So for him it's not "my wife is pressuring me to quit my entire hard earned career", it's "my wife no longer wants to endure my anger, how do I fix this."

Have you factored his pension into your financial calculations?

Teaching is an awful profession for mental health at the moment. I wouldn’t return after children for this reason.

If he’s angry then quitting his job is g going to solve that. He has an SLT job on SLT salary and, from the sounds of it, an all or mostly A Level timetable with the SLT reduction in contact hours. He also has enough spare time to do a significant amount of private tutoring. The issue isn’t his job. He clearly seeks out additional work and stress for himself.

He can quit if he wants but I’d be really surprised if in the long term it’s financially better to just private tutor. You need to consider the pension too and if you are TTC don’t underestimate the financial value of a parent who works school hours term time only. Private tutoring mostly involves working when children are not at school. It’s evenings and weekends. Is that what you all want from family life when you’ve got small school-aged children of your own?

Do you even want children with an angry, stressy man? There’s nothing to say changing his job will change his anger.

All very good points. You’ll feel like you’re on your own op.

Yanbu at all. Staying in a job you hate and makes you miserable but you don’t actually need to do is irrational. Is it a fear of people thinking he’s a failure?

My thoughts exactly! Probably half the reason he’s stressed is that he’s working two full time jobs??
I’m SLT too, it’s very stressful and very hard work but my god, there’s no way I’m tutoring on top of it!!

He is earning more as a side hustle tutor than SLT?! Wow. He is either storming that side hustle or vastly underpaid slt. I know primary slt would be much of a step up from ups3, but high school should be well into £60k. And you earn double? Id have left teaching in a heart beat.

it isnt the money keeping him. Is it the job defining him?

he could do a half way thing for a year or two first …. Drop responsibilities and go part time. There are loads of home ed children and adults who need maths qualifications so he would be pretty busy. If he gave his notice now, he could could start part time working Christmas time. There will be other driven staff keen to take on his school responsibilities.

This in spades .

I'm sorry OP but if you're husband is earning more tutoring than being SLT the reason in he's stressed at work is because he's completely neglecting his duties at school. He should quit his job and just focus on his tutoring.

I have friends who use tutors and I’m told they pay about £70 an hour these days.

It doesn't matter what the particular job is, if it is causing ill health and negatively impacting home life and relationships, a change is needed.

On this occasion it's teaching, but it could also be retail, office work, health care etc.

It is easy to say this from the sidelines, as I know the 'money trap ' is a real thing, but you can't simply whinge and be unhappy. You have to do something about it.

I moved into a different sector 6 months ago, pay is higher. I’ve just secured a company training role with a pay rise. Companies are crying out for trainers. I do 9/5 flexible working - time for the toilet - and tea. I’ve been on two holidays this year so far, have others planned. It’s so much cheaper!
I have also dropped DD off at Uni, winner!
I can buy more holiday and work extra paid overtime (double)

I’m surprised by how many transferable skills there are in the workplace.

DH was a secondary school teacher too. He now works in FE and loves it. Your hubby could do that two days a week if he wants some security. It won't be anywhere near as well paid as secondary but what price a life?