How to navigate bad bonus with DH

[gollyimholly]

Sorry for such a long post, but I am hoping it is relevant context. Also sorry if this is more relevant in the money section but my question really is on how to navigate emotions more than anything.

I am a SAHM (our only DC is nearly 2 years old). Before DC was born, I was not planning on being a SAHM but maternity leave was stressful due to DC being in a hospital (with a particular illness she has but is generally ok now thankfully ie. she does not need any special support or care) and I am a far more anxious person than I realised. Neither DH nor I felt happy about daycare and I realised even after finding the perfect nanny, I just couldn't bring myself to leave DC. DH was very supportive of whichever I chose in terms of returning to work or staying with DC. I was very grateful to be able to stay home with DC and still am. Since being married (5 years this year), DH and I have shared finances completely and so it didn't feel like that much was going to be different for me.

However, whilst I was pregnant, DH had two job offers. We both jointly chose the job he went with but ultimately it was the wrong decision. It was the wrong decision for two reasons:

• it isn't the job DH has always worked in but a role that uses his skills instead (eg. surgeon moves into a company to advise on medical decisions) and so because it was so different to what his usual day at the office was he struggled to feel useful or someone that had any gravitas or importance.
• its earning potential is based on bonuses more than anything (it isn't anything dodgy and the company is a household name internationally). The base is half what he usually would be on and from a pure numbers perspective he felt he had failed completely.

Before he received the offers, DH was redundant for about a year. He worked abroad before the pandemic and after the pandemic the company was taken over by another company and brought in all their own people at C-level and so DH couldn't stay. During his year of redundancy he worked in a contracting role (less well paid than both job offers) whilst looking for his appropriate position. It is not easy to find DH's role in the UK at the salary he was being paid abroad.

Given the redundancy, the contracting role and then choosing the wrong job, DH has been feeling really awful about himself and that he's not doing well career-wise.

Yesterday, he received information on what his bonus is for this year (it is the first full year he has worked in this role) and so the first real picture of the bonus. We've both realised how tricky it is to plan life around an unknown bonus and have been waiting for clarity with this year's bonus. And it is shockingly low. DH feels awful. I don't want to say anything negative to him at all and add to how he is feeling. Previous to today we really would be very joint in all conversations including his work and he would consider my opinions equally. Also previously to today, we have been weighing up another job offer but even though it's well paid, it's abroad (UAE) and we aren't feeling very keen about uprooting our young and growing family away from our "village" so far away. My immediate feelings to the bonus are quite crestfallen and also nervous re.finances and would like for DH to job hunt and find something more in line with what he was used to before the redundancy. But it will take A LOT of effort and being on the ball. DH's reaction is to double down on the UAE job offer as he thinks it's now the only way he can recoup all the losses of the past few years.

I want to tell him that he needs to start looking, and looking really seriously, for a UK based role. Neither of us really want to move abroad. If that was me, and it was my job, that's what I would do. But DH feels like he isn't going to get better than the UAE role. The problem here is that, it isn't me looking for a job for myself. I need to be the emotional support whilst he is feeling rubbish and nervous, but I also feel the same. But I don't feel like I can really express that because I think it would just make DH feel even worse about himself. And yes, I can of course go back to work myself (and I don't plan on being a SAHM always) but we are both very happy with me looking after DC for now.

I suppose my question is, how do I be supportive and encourage DH that we need to look harder in the UK, express that we can't live in limbo like we have been because we're pinning too much on an unknown without making him feel even worse.

Sorry this is so unbelievably long. I think I'm part using MN to express my own anxiety but hoping for any advice to how to be more supportive. I feel like we've both messed up and DH's once sparkling career has been really destroyed by a bunch of bad decisions over the last few years. This is something he himself feels but I try not to say I agree because he feels so terrible about how far down a snake he's fallen.

I think you need a discussion about how you want your lives to look long term. If it’s uk village life then yes he can apply for other positions but maybe it’s time for you to consider part time roles. Would that have helped make up the shortfall in his bonus.

Lots of PP have said therapy and DH's MH. I have no idea how to explain it to him... I don't want to paint him in a particular way, but he just doesn't believe it. He appreciates my MH is impacted by hormonal shifts/motherhood/birth trauma etc but feels like his isn't impacted in that way. He thinks therapy is fluffy stuff and just doesn't buy it.

Have you not read the op's posts? It sounds like she has done her utmost to reassure and praise him, and has just expressed her anxieties on here to get help and advice (which is exactly what these boards are for).

When I read your OP, I felt quite cross with you and the pressure you were putting on him but the more you write the more I think many of the problems are his and his ego’s. He is unreasonably attached to status (that linked in thing is mad), more so than you, and it sounds like it’s making him miserable.

I would seriously consider the UAE and see if it would get him back on track if you all went for a couple of years. And by that I mean you really dig into it, ask questions etc etc and he's not just grasping at straws

I understand you don't want to go, but you're not the one bringing in the money and as SAHM you don't need to work there either. You can carry on as SAHM.

I would be worried he's compounding a career error by staying in the UK if the opportunities aren't really there. I don't know the sector but I can easily believe it's better abroad.

You just need to get a job. Nursery is wonderful for the age your son is. You say you're both happy about you being sahm, but your post is literally the opposite! I couldn't sit at home telling dh what jobs to apply for and knowing he is under a huge amount of pressure...

Our daily life and savings are thankfully ok just from base. The bonus would make other things much nicer eg. Saving more, earlier retirement, buying a nicer house etc

He really needs to do some soul searching, probably via therapy, about what kind of life he wants. The standards he has set for himself are making you all miserable.

I think the saying "comparison is the thief of joy" is relevant here.

He needs to stop comparing himself to other people (who may be secretly so stressed and miserable they have a nervous breakdown or throw themselves under a train next week).

As I keep saying, you need a serious heart to heart about what actually matters to you in life and how to achieve it.

Private school from the start, for example, is going to be a huge outlay and keep your husband in golden handcuffs for about 15 years. It might also deprive you of having a second child to love, and your daughter of a sibling. Is that a price worth paying? For me it absolutely wouldn't be.

Your DH needs to lead the decision-making on his career, not you. Empower him by helping him work out what he wants not telling him your opinion. He might find coaching useful and some employers offer this internally.

I also agree with other posters that you need to focus on securing work for yourself. Being the only one working in a family is hard especially when things aren’t going well. The longer you stay at home the worse your anxiety will be. Anxiety does not get better by itself - you will need to push yourself forward by taking small risks and changing what you do. Don’t guide your DH’s career decisions from the sidelines. Make your own.

You need to go back to work, OP. Being a SAHM is a luxury you can't afford, and you also need to take the pressure off your poor husband. And your child will have the benefit of mixing with other kids at nursery.

I think this is the point really. I was a high achiever and remember the first time I ‘failed’. It was completely devastating and like imy entire sense of self was broken. It took me months to recover. But I did. Got back on my feet and focussed on what I needed to do first the next stage. Your DH needs to figure out how to do that. I think you can support my maybe naming what’s happening - that perhaps his whole self image feels under attack and talk about that.
you going back to work or not is a red herring. Fast forward some years and I was a SAHM and tried PT work for a bit abd it made our familiy’s life much harder as we had to work around it and it made zero difference to our finances. Sound like you’re in a similar position.

Having read the full thread, it sounds like he really needs to adjust his perspective or he's heading eventually for a type A perfectionist breakdown.

You mention he wants to send dc to private school but with an under 2 year old that's 3 years away! that's 3 years to net another job in the UK if it's what he really wants. Not putting the role in LinkedIn. Also madness.

Maybe what he needs to do before anything else is find some kind of topshot career advisor type person? (I'm thinking of the series billionaires. There's a psychologist career advisor person...do these people exist?) Anyway an actual professional advisor. Who can maybe counter some of his reactionary choices and help him strategise.

But you should definitely say you don't want to go to UAE.

I agree with this, it all sounds very ego driven especially with the mention of him being concerned about the lack of gravitas in his current role. It sounds like everything is pinned on him needing to seem important and successful.

I work with a lot of men like this and unfortunately their careers often stall at mid-senior level as they are obsessed with status and perceived success over actual delivery. Not saying this is your DH but some of the signs are definitely there!

Unfortunately I don’t really know what to advise as I think it’s rare for this mindset to change and it sounds like the only solution is your DH getting a job which he perceives as being higher status, but that looks like it’s going to involve a move abroad which you don’t want.

Agh, meant to quote this

I think the "back on track" argument works if they are in financial difficulties and needing to claw their way out of debt, for example.

But they're not in debt. This is about chasing wealth, and a particular lifestyle that you need a very high income to afford. And because it's about that rather than actual need, I don't think there's any such thing as "back on track". There will always be other people with higher salaries, bigger bonuses, newer cars, fancier houses. He'll always be comparing himself to people with more money and finding himself wanting. I don't think there will ever be a time when he'll consider that he is "back on track" and can afford to relax a little, unless he changes his mindset completely and stops chasing this lifestyle altogether.

So it wouldn't just be a few years in the UAE until he's recouped his losses.

Personally I find all this joint responsibility for one another's careers a bit odd. Beyond a discussion such as "Can we afford a drop in salary" or "Can you cope if I need to work away once a month" we don't interfere in what jobs the other person does. I know nothing useful about my dh's career nor he mine.

In your situation if you don't want to move abroad and you don't want to be a single parent in the UK whilst he works abroad then just make this clear to him and let him crack on with sorting his own career out...he's a grown man.

I know you say your DH wouldn't consider therapy but would he be open to career coaching/counselling something that's more work focussed but would give him a chance to consider the bigger picture?

It sounds like they can afford it though. This is more about her husband's self esteem than money.

So this is potentially an even more serious issue than the bonus. It sounds like his mental health is going to impact massively on you and your dc if he continues like this, and you need to stop tiptoeing around him and talk to him openly about it.

Not easy I know, but important. 💐

I will research and suggest it to him.

DH's Achilles heel is that he doesn't immediately see the benefit of getting this kind of support as he doesn't think they know anything he doesn't know himself already. But I do think something like that could be helpful and it might, as others have said, change his mindset a bit about where he is right now.

I think you both need an understanding of what the household needs to bring in to maintain a standard of living that you are comfortable with, and then work from there about how to reach that - you working, UAE, staying put but looking for a local job etc.

I would say though, these years are known to be expensive childcare wise. It’s very normal for high earning families with kids in nursery/w a nanny to find things tight (in relative terms) at the end of the month. So you working would not necessarily be such a help. Tbh it makes me lean towards the UAE offer - head out there, benefit from the lower cost of a live-in helper, and reevaluate in three/four years. Hopefully the money earned/saved would set you up for a better lifestyle back in the UK.

Exactly so.

The role he's in at the moment doesn't sound good is his manager gave him a sweetie when he'd got a poor bonus.

Who does that?

So insulting.

Get a better role where there is more support and more humanity.

You shouldn’t be planning anything based on a bonus. Assume it will be nil and then anything is a nice additional extra. Also don’t discuss the bonus with him, it is what it is. He feels like a failure and based on what you’ve said I hear you are just going to add to that feeling with anything you say.

I think you do need to get a part time job to ease the pressure.

Were I you I would be saying yes to the UAE option. It's the only option that makes sense financially, but more crucially at this point the only option that will get your dh is confidence back and take the pressure off him a bit, and give done breathing space. See it as a short term 2-3 year choice. But that's what I would do.
Job hunting is exhausting and confidence sapping as is working in a job you don't like but having to stay there as you are the only income. He has effectively born the negative brunt of your joint decision making-I think it might be time to let him make the choice on work this time and be supportive of that