Has your marriage been affected by the recession?
PJTV is looking for those of you out there whose marriage has been affected by the recession. Are you working more or less during the recession and is this putting a strain on your marriage? Is your wife picking up more of the load and resentful? Or is your husband unhappy about the stress in the family budget? Does this article reflect your experience or is it something different? Let us know!
Email PJTV at recessionmarriage@pjtv.com
Email PJTV at recessionmarriage@pjtv.com
posted by Helen at 4:32 AM
18 Comments:
I got laid off two months ago. I worked overseas doing deep water surveying. I thought I was just in normal rotation and after being home for 10 days, I get a phone call telling me I'm laid off.
Budgetwise - We cut back on everything possible and we're still looking to cut more. It's not easy. My wife is, thankfully, still employed.
Is it stressful? Beyond belief. Tense? At times. Scary? Constantly. I've been through this before but this time I liken it to being on death row waiting for the appeal you know isn't coming.
my husband and I have been Married for 12 yrs and have 3 children. Before the reccesion started, we had decided that he needed to finish school for several reasons, so we decided that he would stay at home with the kids and finish school.
On that note, I am responsible for supporting the family. I don't mind becasue i love my husband, but I was a Construction Accountant when all of this started. I had just switched to that industry from Public Accounting. I am not degreed, but have been in the industry for 13yrs now, and have some college.
We are haveing trouble because the stress is getting to me and we keep sinking further and further down. We are not in credit card debt, our house wasn't priced unreasonably, but we are on government assistance and my husband and I have no medical coverage, and I have potentially serious medical conditions that are going untreated. With all of the stress on us (especailly with finals this week), We are haveing a few issues.
We can only cut back so much and it was hard before the recession. I have had to change jobs twice already because of doors closing which is making me feel like a curse to business owners.
Bottom line, is I am tired, I want to get medical coverage, and I want to not worrie for a while about if I can make the mortgage or not (started getting behind again). I feel desperate, abandoned, and incapable of taking care of my family for the first time in years.
My husband can't handle stress. At all. In any amount more than what he already incurs at work. That's why I take care of the paying of the bills... at least, I take care of it when I'm not completely overwhelmed by taking care of four children with autism and multiple food allergies. Sometimes I forget to pay a bill and we get phone calls. That makes my husband go absolutely ballistic and start yelling at me and the kids.
When times get tough and we have to cut back spending, there are a lot more problems at our house. The autistic kids don't like change, and my husband won't eat if I don't cook what he likes to eat. Every little thing (like why we are having a meatless dinner tonight or why we are not buying crackers even though we are out of them) sets off a whole cascade of interrogation. I have to explain over and over that this is our dinner, no you can't have the snack you wanted to eat, no we are out of string cheese until payday because you gave it all away to your friends and we are not getting any more. It feels like I spend half my day explaining these things, week in and week out. It drives me so insane that I honestly would rather work harder to just buy the damn string cheese (even though I'm already stressed to the point where my body is breaking down) than hear all the whining.
When we were first married 14 years ago, I was making very good money. Except for one brief period, I have been self-employed since my early 20's, (I am now 44). My wife quit working when our first child was born, followed by 2 more. Around 1998, my industry changed dramatically and I had to reinvent my role in it. I went to work for a company in my industry, and had 2 decent years. But the business kept changing very quickly and I was laid off in 2000. We went through 4 years of essentially no income, which almost became unbearable. The stress really built up, and I nearly lost all confidence in myself. Our marriage came under enormous pressure, but the experience proved to me that my wife was definitely with me for better or for worse. In 2005, I finally caught traction in my new role, and 2008 was my best year ever. I am in an industry where turmoil and instability can be beneficial to us, and there are many different ways of making money. I have had moments of guilt in the last year. I feel very badly for the many many individuals and families who are struggling through this period, particularly while we have been doing better. We do not live ostentatiously, and have always been pretty good about saving, which helped to keep us afloat during our lean years. I certainly hope that I never have to go through that again, and I also will never work for anyone else if it is in my power to stay self-employed. I simply do not trust any company or entity, and I feel confident that I can provide for our needs better than a company can.
I got a new job last July and we moved from Illinois to California. My wife stopped working a year before that. We're doing fine. The recession is serious and important, but even 10% unemployment means 90% employment. The wailing and gnashing of teeth is sort of expected, but magnifying it only prolongs the downturn.
The biggest stress my husband and I have had so far is when my company went through layoffs in April, for the first time in the history of the company (est 1939). I thought for sure I'd be laid off so we started trying to live off of one salary about two months before D day.
Fortunately I did not lose my job, yet. But still could in another six months so we're trying to be careful. Not eating out as much.
The biggest annoyance is when hubby eats out at work and I get on his case about it...he doesn't like it. He feels like he works hard and should be able to do what he wants with his money.
Thankfully his job is fairly secure and he has opportunities for overtime.
We're expecting our first baby and I'm trying very hard to be optimistic for the future. I try to NOT watch the news and avoid too many depressing online stories.
I think the key is just to be open and honest and talk about everything - no secrets allowed.
@CastoCreations said... The biggest annoyance is when hubby eats out at work and I get on his case about it...he doesn't like it.
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If your biggest annoyance is you husband likes to get out of the office for lunch, then you have a lot to be grateful for. Perhaps leaving helps him cope with a stressful job (I don't know how true that is, just a maybe.)
@CastoCreations said... We're expecting our first baby and I'm trying very hard to be optimistic for the future."
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P.S. Congratulations on expecting your first baby! We just learned yesterday that we may have our first babies, identical twin girls, in July (provided the birth mother goes through with the adoption).
Not being married, I cannot speak to that aspect. But what I am seeing is women who were "self empowered" realizing they have no future, who have blown their prospects, and who are now trying to find another husband. I would not even contemplate these type of women, but it is interesting to see. Most of them have had good husbands but became bored or something (they often do not, exactly, know why they chose to divorce).
Again, those are the women I will have nothing (romantic) to do with. I just assume that as feminists die, they try to correct. I think the only correction for them is manual menial labor and then the nursing home. It is sort of sad.
Stephanie sez: "On that note, I am responsible for supporting the family. ...
We are haveing trouble because the stress is getting to me and we keep sinking further and further down."
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OK, Stephanie, now add in a social expectation that you HAVE TO support him - and that it is perfectly NORMAL that he sits at home watching TV - add in divorce court leverage that you are going to continue giving him money after a divorce BECAUSE you were the provider (which women don't really have on them EVEN IF they were providers - the attitude towards sit-at-home men is "get a job, cowboy") and, finally, add in utter disrespect for "providers" today ...
... and ...
.. you would then be in a position that most men have been in for hundreds of years.
Contratulations.
Most women eventually maneuver into a situation in marriage in which the man does the heavy lifting (he pays the mortgage while the woman spends any money she earns on herself), and they bitch and nag and make his life miserable WHILE taking his money.
Get with the program, Stephanie.
Trust, God bless and keep you! What a wonderful opportunity. You are all in my prayers.
Trey
Cato, my situation is a bit the opposite. My wife works in the business world, I am in mental health. Part of her job is going out to lunch with people while mine has NONE of that. I get a bit jealous at times, but the truth is that the lunch and occasional dinner thing is part of her world and not part of mine. I try to balance her good fortune with my pride and satisfaction with helping people. She does not get that at work.
Her company is laying people off and we will not be able to keep our house if she is let go. But we talked about it and nothing really important to us can be taken away. Our marriage, our family, our friends, these things are above the economy. Thank God.
Trey
That article left me frustrated. About, of all things, elementary financial planning. The seven lean kine ate up the seven fat kine. We all KNOW there are going to be bad times. I raised three kids on my own, and had a couple periods of unemployment in there, for up to 9 months. Now I'm married, and having the right spouse has been a wonderful opportunity for financial strength. We paid off the house in 3 years, and the payments we no longer have to make have gone into investment. Each of us can save 50% of what we make. It makes me want to grab young people and shout at them, "Go easy on yourself. Live on less than you make, and your life will just be so much easier. Not necessarily saying 'rich,' though you can achive that too, but just 'EASIER.'" Fortunately my kids listened.
My husband is the bread winner, and fortunately has job security. Our three sons, however, are having no luck finding jobs so they can leave home and strike out on their own. They're all bright & hardworking and have good college degrees. But the companies just aren't hiring. I worry terribly about their future.
My job seems pretty secure, at least for the moment. I work for a defense contractor and well, that isn't a priority for the Democrats running the government right now.
My wife's company announced earlier this year that everyone should expect layoffs in April. Fortunately, the month has passed without any layoffs at her location so maybe we dodged that bullet. She was pretty stressed out about that, so we held on to our liquid assets just in case.
So far, so good but if everyone cuts back deeply, we're going to prolong and deepen the recession. They say that 2/3rds of the US ecomony is based on consumer spending. As an example, almost 250,000 people here in Colorado make their living working in restaurants. If everyone cuts back on dining out, well, a lot more people will lose their jobs. Magnify that across the economy and we could be in really deep trouble.
Andrea opines: "My husband is the bread winner, and fortunately has job security."
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Yeah, Andrea, I'm with you. My wife is a work horse who will never get fired. I kick back and just contemplate how much stuff I have. My wife better keep up the payments, though - not that I care how she does it (HA HA!).
Life is good, ain't it honey.
Remember for your bright & hardworking sons, though: They will not only have to pay for themselves down the road, but also some women with their feet up who they have the true stupidity to marry. Just like mom, and the world keeps turning, generation after generation.
I've had a pay reduction and watched my company lay off a third of its workforce--we are at bare bones now. However, it is worlds better than in 2002-3 when my software sector crashed bad--I went almost nine months without even an acknowledgment for a resume submission, let along a callback. And it's better than 1998/99 when the company I owned crashed and burned and we were selling our house to pay debt.
At the same time, I think of my parents raising seven children in the early 70s when the economy went to hell worse than now and the town we live in was in economic free fall (though not as bad as Detroit.)
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