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.

I worked with someone that was a former maths teacher, he moved into I.T. for similar reasons.

He said when a maths teaching position is advertised, only 1 or 2 people are good enough to be interviewed.

Where as for PE or English there are many more suitable candidates.

I'm sure if your husband quits he will be able to get another job without problems.

I have teacher friends who say otherwise. In fact I am a teacher who does on and off tutoring and I say otherwise. Sometimes maybe. I don’t know why though. But that would still mean 15 students per week every week including holidays to match even the lowest SLT salary, and he has other responsibilities. Just doesn’t seem possible.

I was HOD and to be honest it nearly killed me.

I started teaching because I loved it, believed in transforming students, felt so good about my job. I ended up a wrung out disheveled mess. Drinking, fat, medicated for anxiety. By the time I had dealt with all the stupid futile admin and reporting, I had barely any energy left for teaching.

It was my 18 year old son who pointed out to me that I could just leave. I didn’t have to spend another day shaking with rage at the latest demand from SLT. So I did.

I took a year off and did hourly paid lecturing for different FE colleges, and eventually got my MH back to the point where I applied for a FT job in my profession, but where I also have responsibilities for training.

I get stressed and busy sometimes but overall, it’s an absolute doss compared to teaching. Sometimes you just can’t see how bad things are until you’re out of it.

I hope things work out for you both.

If ne needs to earn a 'full time' salary then tutoring really won't work. He will busiest when you are home from work, you won't see each other. Would he not be better retraining into a whole new industry? Or what about stopping the current tutoring, would that not improve his work life balance?

Lots of people complain about their jobs, especially teachers, sometimes its just letting off steam. I wouldn't pressure him to jump ship.

Doing an already stressful and all-consuming SLT job and adding enough tutoring to earn more than your salary is insane, if not actually impossible. I can't imagine anyone actually doing that unless they had some kind of monumentally terrible financial problem and desperately needed more money than their good SLT salary paid. Of course he's stressed out of his mind- who wouldn't be, with that workload. He could ditch the job and just do tutoring, but he could also ditch the tutoring and do the job without the additional workload. That would be more secure, with the benefits of security, sick pay, pension etc.

He charges more than £30 an hour. Much more. He is an ex exam writer so it helps too. He’s amazing. He runs group classes, has lots of private students. He makes six figures through the business (a limited company)

Yes DH said it wouldn’t be worth it

What's he waiting for then?
How does he fit it all in?

For those confused by DH’s hours. He is mid thirties, he works every single day of the week. Over 100 hours a week. He is NEVER home. That’s not an exaggeration. He gets in, sleeps.

He refuses to rely on my income. He is very proud and believes he should be matching my salary which is part of the issue tbh. I’ve told him we’re a team etc but it’s his mindset.

I’m extremely concerned he will drop dead. Extremely.

He has such good earning potential, and as a couple you are absolutely fine for money, so I have a lot less sympathy for him than I have for someone desperate to leave but really reliant on the money and security.
He needs to do something or stop complaining about it.

I’ve purposefully been vague as I think anyone in our area can identify us. He does more than privately tutor - we have 5 employees (part time), I help out, we have passive income streams, online platforms etc, but it’s relatively new.

this wasn’t meant to be a critique of if my numbers are right. They are. But likewise, a bad year could destroy the business.

Sorry Op I obviously cross posted with your last post

Agree with this

@greenteaandchai My main concern is… does he space to tutor my DS?! Desperately looking for a very good further maths gcse tutor!!

Haven’t RTFT but quit. The business sounds viable and he will always have the option to do supply if really worried.

and then if he wants to go back to something more similar to his SLT/teaching job in future he could try private school, online school or working for a MAT as a subject lead

He's on slightly less than 60k with the new payrise. He would have to take on more responsibility for the next pay band which would kill him.

I earn a stable low six figures and I am 29. We can survive. I think DH is getting obsessed with proving himself as a success.

We aren't flashy. My car is 16 years old, DH's 12. We eat out a fair amount but simple foods. We don't have kids yet. We like holidays, but who doesn't. Part of the reason we spend so much on travel is 1) we have to go in school holidays and 2) we're escaping the humdrum of normal life. But now he works on holiday too because he can't stop. I don't think it's a life.

The key thing here is that even if the business is 'destroyed' he can always go back to teaching, as @dinmin has stated.
So really. This is a zero risk plan... something that I rarely say...!

Also where do you live? How are you doing on things like a mortgage?

DH is reading this thread (why I created it). LOOK DH LOOK. POINT PROVEN ;)

He's not currently with me because guess what? he's at school, working!

From your figures, compared to what so many of us here have, you are RAKING in the £s.

if you are in your late twenties and he is presumably a similar age and you're earning at least 200k between you (sounds like quite a bit more) then surely he understands that you're probably in a better financial position than something like 97% of your peers, or even people much older? It's not a case of 'surviving', even if he didn't work at all your income would still be triple the average UK household income.

Why is he so worried about a bad year, or something disastrous happening? It doesn't sound healthy at all. Thousands of teachers would kill to be in his position, with a financially solvent and supportive partner, but they can't because their £33k wage is literally supporting the whole family and they don't have any fall back. I honestly don't get his reasoning.

There is loads of GCSE Maths tutoring work around, he would always have work. I tutor GCSE Maths and I am sure I could fill my days if I wanted to and I don't even tutor A level. I used to be a secondary school teacher and I would never return to the classroom.

If you're employed under STPCD, schools can't force you to work on your days off, and if you agree to, you can ask to be paid for it. See the advice here: https://neu.org.uk/advice/your-rights-work/contracts-and-working-hours/workload-and-working-time/directed-time/directed-time-faq

I agree there are downsides to teaching part time, but most teachers can't be forced to work additional days.

@cardibach in London a level maths tutoring can be a great deal more than. £60!

I agree. I've worked 3 days pw for several years now and only extremely rarely do I have to take any work home, I'm talking like 3 times a year maximum.

I'm at an independent school so, yes, I am expected in for parents evenings and full inset days but they are usually on my days in, and anyway I only teach 3 year groups so that's 3 parents evenings a year. The most I've ever had to come in on my days off is about 2 days a year.

My salary is maybe 35-40k-ish for 3 days a week as I'm high up in the payscale from teaching so long. It's quite good salary for what is basically a very easy gig, no extra responsibilities, just subject teaching.

If I were op's dh I'd swap to part time just to keep that extra security. Parents usually want practising teachers for tutors anyway.

I agree that 4 days pw is a mug's game, I did that for a while. 2, 2.5 or 3 days pw are ideal.