I’ve been working at a soul-sucking job that I have to drive 2 hours a day and I don’t like for 1.5 years. I do alright. I was a teacher and I want to get back into teaching because it’s more purposeful and fulfilling.
My wife found out about a year ago that her father was in fact not her biological father. A few months later he died. This caused her trauma. My wife is a teacher as well, and she said she wanted to take a year off and go to therapy. I was not a fan of the idea, because we need 2 incomes to feed our 2 kids and fund her spending habits, but I agreed as long as we cut our spending and she focused on getting better. We inherited some money from her father and moved into his house and sold our old one for some money as well. I’m talking to a fiduciary to invest this money so it doesn’t get spent and we have money for the future.
Last week I was offered a teaching a position. I was frustrated by the fact that I had to decline it, because we cannot afford the pay cut. If I don’t get back in to it this year, my certification will lapse and I will have a hard time renewing it. I was devastated and explained to her my frustrations. I told her that taking a year off is not the norm, and that she hasn’t been working on herself, she’s been spending more money, adding to her hoard, and avoiding any sort of physical or emotional hardship. I told her that I gave up something that I wanted (and she wanted for me) so she could continue not working.
Next month she is flying from the midwest to Vancouver to see Taylor Swift with my oldest daughter. I told her today that it frustrates me that she is going through with it. I understand that she had a tough time and that this is a cool thing for them, but I wanted her to understand that it frustrates me that she gets to do this while I’m cutting back on things and declining a job I wanted. I told her to CONSIDER flipping the tickets for a profit of a few grand. She responded that it feels like I’m trying to ruin her good time with guilt and that she really is working on herself, but it’s all internal, so I can’t see it.
I just feels unfair and if I pressure her not to go, I’m going to be made into the bad guy. I’m in between a shit and a turd place.
Hmm well the executive decisions on her part are definitely a problem then. Personally in this situation I would want to stabilize expectations by getting at least a rough outline on paper. Sit down with her and say something like “lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and trapped in my job—like I have the whole weight of the family on my shoulders etc. I know you’re still (understandably) working through some things and I want to continue to support you and I trust that you will follow through and rejoin the workforce in the next couple months like we discussed but I’m disappointed from having to turn down a job that I would have enjoyed and it would really help my own mental health if we had a bit more of a concrete plan so I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and have a plan in place to let go of this awful job that takes up so much extra time. What do you envision yourself doing? Here’s what I have been thinking about for myself, put together does that feasibly support our family or do we need to massage the plan?
The financial planning has also been getting to me and it would really help me out if we came up with a fixed budget for the next couple months. Your dad’s estate gives our family a chance to establish some lasting financial stability (or kids college or whatever it may be) if we play our card’s right and I don’t want us to squander the opportunity by living above our current household income and regret it later.”
Even if you’re not feeling like a team lately I think it’s important to keep a lot of we’s and us’s in there—the future is something you are planning together.
That’s really good. Thank you.