DH thinks he's unemployable

[MoJangled]

DH is out of work. In all honesty, he's been out of work for most of our marriage. He doesn't see it like that - he's freelance and sees it as a series of slow patches. Over the last year he has faced up to things needing to change and has tried new ways to get work, marketing himself more proactively and applying for fulltime jobs. But he's a 50 year old in a young man's game, and doesn't compensate for age with engagingness, and his rock-solid trustworthiness and attention to detail don't come over on the first meeting. He hasn't tried to get jobs outside his specialist field. So no dice.

All this is horrid for him, but it's destroying us. I'm working in a big career I don't want, unable to build in more flexibility by downscaling because I can't depend on sharing the earning with him. I see how his confidence is collapsing but I don't understand why he hasn't done more - seek job counselling, apply for something just to tide us over, etc. I've offered to support him through retraining, asked him to just get any work while he pursues what he wants to do, fixed up for him to see a coach, stayed quiet for 6 months in case nagging was the wrong move, but basically the situation is unchanged and has been for years.

I don't know how to support him. And I'm starting to not want to. My resentment is deepening and our relationship is becoming increasingly contractual - he does loads around the house and I think, well, you might as well, its not like you're doing anything else.

Help! I want to be positively building a future together. I feel like I'm doing it alone while he makes me a cup of tea. Any advice?

The only parallel I can draw is when my DH had a job he hated. He was miserable for months and months and it was really killing any joy in our lives. It took me a long time to convince him he could find another job and in the end I had to sit him down and spell out the damage it was doing to our home life. I told him I'd support any decision he made about how to deal with it but he had to do something, anything, to improve his work life.

Do you have dc? Is it bad enough that you want to leave him? His confidence sounds rock bottom and nagging won't help if that's the case... He needs motivating so you need to find something he responds to...

No advice really but in a similar situation been with OH 10 years and he has had about 12 different jobs in that time and over 70 interviews!

It's horrible to say but I can identify with the resentment like you say.

blimey that's difficult.

to an outsider, it kind of sounds like you both have different ideas about what's involved in a relationship/partnership/family.

there may be nothing wrong with how he sees his work life, it's only in the context of your relationship that it's a problem - so he could coast along single, but it's affecting you.

would there be any mileage in relationship counselling? not because you're splitting up but just to communicate effectively and kind of renegotiate what you both want from this.

I saw my dad like this after redundancy in his 40s. Complete lack of confidence. His saving was contract work and with each new contract came more confidence. He now runs his own business but with my mum.
I'm probably going to come across sexist but Ime women are better at brushing off career knock backs than men. It seems to hit them harder and whereas I'd admit it to a friend, men are less likely to. That doesn't mean he can sit and mope.
You need to set time aside to create a plan of action. I would tell dh we need to do this and set a day and time so he has time to realise the kick up the backside is coming and hopefully will formulate his own plan that you can use as a basis to move forward. Be supportive but clear you are unhappy. It will be a tough conversation but every marriage has them from time to time and hopefully you can move forward together stronger. Good luck x

do you have any children?

Teenage we have DS age 4. I've thought about leaving. But being alone wasn't all that either, certainly not worth tearing our family apart. We're good companions, but I want a partner...

We've had versions of that conversation over the years. He thinks what he's doing now (a PR push) is the thing he needs to do. He always does - and it never is, but if he gets some work it'll take another 6 months before he accepts that he needs to try something else. He started a course before Xmas but is now saying it's not what he wants to do - I think it's too difficult for him.

The thing is, he doesn't know how to ask for, or receive help. His DM has aspie traits and I think his upbringing trained him not to, for fear of not being heard. He has no sense of entitlement.

Well done for helping your DH get a grip. Was there any particular thing you said that helped?

Sorry you're in such a bad situation snow

I think there's something in your observation that we see things differently Blinging . He's very accepting, I'm quite driven. I hoped that we would complement each other. I asked him, 3 years ago, what he would do about work if I wasn't on the scene. He'd reached the point where he wouldn't have been able to pay the mortgagee on his old house. I was trying to get him to think pro-actively rather than worrying about what I thought/wanted. He said he'd have sold the house, gone travelling, and then mobbed back in with his parents. I was gobsmacked. He'd rather lose the house than try.

Maybe relationship counselling would be a good idea - but I don't know that we'd survive what it would show...

To be honest, at 50 he probably is close to unemployable. DH was made redundant at 53, applied for 100s of jobs, got a handful of interviews, all unsuccessful. After 2 years he decided he was retired and I'm the only earner now. The job market is cruel.

It sounds like you have different expectations of life.

If the situation were reversed, and he had the big career and you were freelancing, a sahm and doing 'loads around the house', that would, to most, seem perfectly reasonable.

Some people simply don't want to spend their lives in pursuit of material things. I am one of them, myself. I freelance, and I deal with all the housework. I don't care about fancy clothes or luxury items.

DH, on the other hand, does. So we live in a city, in an apartment he chose, which I think is insanely priced, but he has the big career and he wants to spend his money on it. He knew my views fully before we entered into a serious relationship, though. I was living in a small house in an inexpensive area with minimal 'whistles and bells', and my earnings paid for all the things I felt I needed.

DH is not fussed - I have asked him this question a few times. If he was, I would feel like he was trying to make me into something I was not.

If you don't enjoy your career, maybe it is time to have some long chats about where you two are going, and if you want to stay married, maybe it's time to understand who you both are a bit better. His comment about travelling hinted that he may well be an old hippy like me ;)

If the situation were reversed, and he had the big career and you were freelancing, a sahm and doing 'loads around the house', that would, to most, seem perfectly reasonable.

Yep.

I don't think many people think it's reasonable to force your spouse into supporting you financially against their will because you "don't care about material things".

A 50 year old man whose plan if he didn't have a wife to sponge off would be to sponge off his elderly parents is a pisstaker.

I don't think the "if this was reversed" comments are helpful. I just gave up a big career to be a sahm with a bit of freelancing here and there but it was only after MONTHS of discussion about what would be best for us as a family.

This situation is completely different. The op's DH is not happy with how things are, it sounds like he is struggling to come to terms with his lack of success in his chosen field and his lack of employment was not a mutual decision but a burden for the op that she didn't choose and has resulted in her being stuck with her career she doesn't want.

My DH is now stuck in his job too because it pays really well and means I can do our childcare etc but we acknowledged this before we made the decision and he loves his job. Should that change, we will reevaluate together.

Op, counselling is a great idea. It's daunting if you think you may not survive as a couple but that won't be because of the counselling, that will just be the counselling making things clearer. There is no reason you can't survive as a couple though, it's not inevitable.

And this has just reminded me that my dh saw a counsellor when he was stuck in his old job. It was helpful, the counsellor even told him that he didn't think he was depressed at all, he just needed a job he enjoyed I'd been saying it for months but he found it easier to hear from a "professional".

Have you thought about what he really wants?

Sounds like the two of you are in very different places: you fighting to keep your current lifestyle and hoping for a high-earning husband, him hankering after giving up, going travelling, moving in with his (presumably elderly) parents. You say he's never been a stable earner: are you trying to turn him into something he isn't to keep a lifestyle he doesn't want?

Oh wow, loads of responses, thanks!

I don't think he wishes he could go travelling / just coast, if he wasn't trying to dance to my tune. That's what he'd run away to, faced with his belief that he can't succeed professionally. He's actually naturally very hardworking - picture the loyal second-in-command, making everything works perfectly, and you've got him. He says he feels like a 'failure for not being able to support my family'. I've pointed out that most families are dual income these days but it's not the model he grew up with so he's not comfortable with it.

The mismatched expectation thing is perceptive - but not about materialistic expectations (v normal semi, no extravagant outgoing, I shop in second hand shops. Would have a lot more money for clearing debts if I didn't spend most of it on childcare while he 'worked'). The mismatch is about the degree to which one seizes life by the balls. I don't expect things to be easy and I do expect to have to push past obstacles, but I also expect to reach my goal. He is totally thrown by obstacles and doesn't know how to risk failure, and as a result, doesn't even set goals. Failure, to him, is unimaginably bad, not to be risked, therefore he can't ask for help / learn lessons / try something new.

I know this, and yet have also thought he's taking the piss, by accident if not on purpose... He might well be depressed. Awful to think he could really be right about being unemployable

I don't know how the career coaching went - he won't tell me beyond saying it 'was helpful', but won't go back for more. We've had The Big Talk about every 5 months over the past 6 years, with me trying to explain what I would like, ask him what he would like, examining what's coming in and cutting back what's going out, setting a target date for when he'd definitely change plan if things haven't improved, explaining the hit that our relationship is taking - but as you can see from the repeat frequency, nothing changes.

Coaching is probably a good idea, but I think he'd just sit there saying everything's 'fine'. That's me being as defeatist as I get annoyed with him for being, so I will think about it seriously!

Thanks very much for your thoughts and insights, everyone.

I wish I could help him better.

He's beaten down. Malabrig0 I am approaching the point where I agree with you. But who he is, is someone who's given up. I don't think I can accept that.

That makes me desperately sad.

So I hope this is something I can help him through and he gets his mojo back.