In despair. Husband is taking ages to find a role

[saminamama]

a month ago today DH was told he may be made ‘redundant’, he was essentially sacked with a months notice and he signed a settlement agreement with enough money to keep us afloat for 2 months, after the end of this month.

It took him 2 weeks from finding out he was being made redundant to apply for his first role. Since then he hasn’t secured any interviews, and he’s had lots of ‘chats’ with so and so, but nothing material has happened.

I feel like he is way to slow when applying for jobs, and it’s not going quick enough and by now he should have a few interviews.

Posting as I’m really looking for a consensus as to if what I am feeling is valid, as I feel like I’m at the end of my tether. I darent ask him a question or distract him from anything as he takes so long to do.. anything.

im worried about our mortgage, I work but my salary only just covers the mortgage,

really lost and feeling resentful as it feels like he’s not pushing hard enough,

he’s a great dad and a loving husband most of the time.

looking for positive stories and advice as to how I get through this time.

im feeling so worried it’s affecting my sleep and I’ve been avoiding some of my friends, I don’t often feel in the mood to be around others who are sorted and settled when we are in this boat.

im carrying all the housework and childcare drop offs and pick ups so he has no excuse for not sitting and applying for roles, but feels quite futile to be honest, doing all the washing and cleaning.
if he is so slow and easily distracted/harassed and can’t cope no wonder he was sacked, awful thing to say but I’m wondering if it’s true

With respect, you have no idea what roles and levels he’s been interviewing for - quite often these oft mentioned easy to get jobs/temp jobs are more prevalent in some areas than others and often you won’t get a look in if you have had a professional sales/office type CV because they know you are going to be doing this as a temporary measure- they would rather use students etc

I know a few people who have been made redundant from my company. The market is very tough out there right now. A few very good people I've worked with are still out of job 6 months later. One of them is now semi retired after two redundancies. They can absolutely just decide to change locations. We have teams in two cities in the UK. They decided suddenly the business layer must be all located at the northern city. They made all the in the southern location redundant. The technical people are hit similarly, but the northern based ones in my team are all moved into another team, with a different tech stack, with a group wide announcement. There is no option to even relocate to keep your job.

The decision to move the person to Asia would be someone decided it's better to have everyone back to the office, instead of remote with occasional travel. They then draw up a circle around the office, and anyone outside a 2 hour commute circle is made redundant.

I think considering this thread was started late May the DH has had a good number of interviews for what must be senior positions over the summer holidays period. Therefore whatever he’s doing job seeking wise is working and it would be unwise to jeopardise that just yet. Few companies recruit in Nov/Dec so that would be the time if he is self employed to change strategy.

However the shouting is not great.

Respectfully you didn't mention any of this previously so people aren't to know that he's being abusive towards you. As far as anyone on the thread knew he was down and a little bit snappy which is understandable in his situation.

Also plenty of people live hand to mouth for their entire lives, you have a substantial buffer as well as family to bail you out, you need some perspective quite honestly. No wonder the man is cracking up.

There's a saying "The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result". So clearly something needs to change.
He's obviously stressed out to the max by the sound of his behaviour which isn't great for him and is unacceptable for you.
Yes, the job market is brutal right now with relocations, off shoring, cut backs etc etc. But he is wasting his energy on being stressed and is possibly going to make himself ill which won't help anything!
In an earlier post and maybe later too, I did offer (with no charge) to review his CV, understand what industry/roles he is looking at and what other strategies is he using to secure interviews and ultimately job offers. There may be things he isn't doing which are leading to missed opportunities. Has he tried attending some networking groups and making some connections? If nothing else this can get him out of the house, talking business with others and taking the opportunity to promote himself face to face. My offer still stands - nothing to lose and everything to gain.

And yet you are telling others that they are wrong for saying your marriage doesn't seem that solid. This is a description of a relationship that is on the rocks.

Time to take a big step back and both of you decide if this marriage is serving you and your kids best anymore. Separate to the job hunting.

Time for a reality check for him, and a metaphorical kick up the jacksy! "Can't possibly..." needs to be countered with "well there's no other option".

Is he looking at contracts too OP , some industry’s are very contracts driven these days to serve a particular project or sales drive and also means they get to road test the staff member . IT very big on this !

Possibly - but that doesn’t sound likely from what from OP has been writing. It sounds as though he’s only going after what he likes.