DH miserable at work and it's draining Hand hold please :(

[rootsandwings89]

DH has never really found his passion at work. He’s worked in finance and transport but has never liked where he works - he tends to work for companies that don’t look after their employees very well. It’s resulted in him being signed off work sick with work related stress 3 x in the last 10 years (at different companies) and last week it’s happened again. He has chest pains and feels stressed but won’t take time off because he won’t get paid.

He has a very good basic salary but no sick pay, flexi leave, benefits, progression opportunities etc. He worries if he looks elsewhere he will take a pay drop which we can’t afford. He doesn’t have any qualifications.

I feel so on edge and anxious. I worry so much about his mental health but also about how we will survive financially if he leaves with nothing to go to. I want to cry all the time but can’t let him know or it will stress him out even more.
I can’t work any more than I am because of childcare. We have a good life but when this happens everything feels hopeless and I feel sick with worry.

Is you working full time and I’m doing part time & childcare an option?

Having had a period of work related stress I can sympathise with your DH. I kept going as long as I could until I was eventually suicidal and under psychiatric care. I was a very strong person and had never had a problem before. It was 12 years ago now and I’ve never fully recovered my confidence and now struggle with anxiety, even in a different job which is a happy workplace.

Has your DH spoken to the GP & is he on any medication/therapy for this? If not then, with chest pains, he really needs to speak to someone to help with his MH & the symptoms. Propranolol and/or Antidepressants could really help him feel less stressed.

Really sorry that you are both having a tough time.

I think he needs to break the cycle by being proactive eg looking for another job, getting qualifications and putting in place strategies to protect his mental health.

Whilst, you may not be able to take on any more, could you switch to a higher paying job to help?

Could he drop to part time and take over some of the childcare so you could go full time? Might be less stressful than the current setup.

Similar here. My dh doesn't get signed off, but he does get in a terrible state about work. Recently he's been being bullied by a very unpleasant supervisor, but also, while he didn't cause the bullying (no-one causes another to bully them) he did make himself unlikeable to the supervisor.

Every time there's one of these blow-ups at work, I feel so unsafe - we cannot survive on just my salary (term-time only school admin) and I feel as though life will just collapse.

It's horrendous really - there's no room for manoeuvre when a family needs two incomes to survive - lose one income and it's a disaster. No room for anyone to 'rest' for a while, regroup, replan, retrain even. And no opportunity - in this country anyway - to live in a different way. We are literally on a hamster wheel, all working in sometimes soul-destroying jobs, to pay the rent/mortgage on a brick box to live in which must be maintained to a certain standard etc etc. No other way to live at all. And thanks to Brexit, it's much harder for any of us to leave.