Using this just to think out loud. It’s a beautiful sunny day; rare for Seattle in November. I am grateful for nice weather (in between the shitty, rainy, gray stuff).
I have a lot of work. I am appreciative of all this money flowing in. I’ve been able to pay for my radio show, contribute to the mortgage, and other bills, all after spending 3 weeks in DC and not creating much income.
The work I’m doing is fun and interesting, all self-employed. I’m appreciative of my creation, although I’m experiencing burnout from *too* much communting and no down time.
Everything seems work related.
My big bitch is my relationship.
I doubled (and recently tripled) my work schedule, to create more income, as my husband was laid off in April. He’d had warning, he was cut to part time in November.
In my opinion he’s not doing enough to create new work.
Staying in bed and watching pet stars isn’t job searching.
Building model trains in his little office in the storage shed isn’t job searching.
3 resumes a week for unemployment isn’t job searching.
He’s not even starting his own business, although he had one job from a friend this summer which he enjoyed a lot (BUILD UPON YOUR SUCCESSES).
Currently he’s working 1 day a week or less doing yard work for a friend at a ridiculously low wage for the ridiculously long commute from Vashon Island to North Seattle to do it.
How low do you need to go?
To find work in this economy, you need to be assertive and creative. You need to network. You need to get out there and connect.
If you’re going the route to be employed by a company, you research the companies and look for connections within them, meet folks for coffee and brainstorm.
You find ways to stand out from the crowd.
If you are going the route of being self employed, you get out there with your information, you update your website, you network and word of mouth and there are lots of free resources for advertising.
It takes focus and energy.
Creating income and creating getting a job and creating clients all take focus and energy.
Not effort – that reverses things. But it takes getting up and DOING something.
Am I enabling him by being able to contribute more? He was making 3x what I was making. I think I’ve managed to double my income, but it’s still not making up for the slack.
And besides all that, there was some serious issues in our marriage to start with.
He has an unpredictable temper, and dumps on me when he’s not feeling good.
When we first got married in 2006 and he was working full time, he dumped on me because the commute was too much for him.
When he was unemployed for most of 2008 he stayed in bed watching The Nanny. It was really difficult, because I work from home and the bedroom is the only room in the house that’s a) heated and b) had a door for privacy. I couldn’t book client calls until the afternoon. My work time was cut in half.
And he raged at me for not working.
I’ve hit bottom a couple of times with this.
When he had problems with my son, who was a senior in high school, I stepped in between so he wouldn’t rage at him. He raged at me for being a bad parent.
My son is now in college and when he comes home for summers and Xmas, he stays full time at his dad’s.
In April when I was out of town visiting my 84 year old mother (I am now trying to go 2x a year as she is needing more and more help) my dog came down with what seemed to be an ear infection. He raged at me for being a bad dog owner, when I got him ear drops as soon as I could coming back from DC.
When he turned into a prissy bitch at my elder son’s graduation from college (because we’d spent a week in Southern California, using funds from our tax refund and staying in a timeshare I pay for, and he was now facing coming home to unemployment) that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I started working to create enough income to leave.
In June my dog was diagnosed with cancer. We had to use care credit using my husband’s credit to pay for it ($2400). It will take me a year to pay off.
Do I stay for the entire year?
Do I move to DC to take care of my mom?
Yesterday someone came to me for counseling whose fairly new husband turns out to be alcoholic. It’s been a while since I was regular at AlAnon, so the answers did not come automatically. But I was able to remember enough, gave her a stack of books and recommended local meetings.
Even though my current husband isn’t alcoholic, there were some familiarities (his brother is).
Today someone came to me who’s ex is a sex addict and won’t let her go. She’s frightened of separating from him. I was more up on extracting from an abusive relationship and gave suggestions there and emailed websites.
And why am I still here?
I have two dogs and my vehicle (in my name) is his truck. I don’t have enough regular income to leave and pay rent somewhere. I’d be ‘plunging back into poverty’ (which I did leaving the first marriage). I was just barely stable when I met him, and probably don’t qualify for food stamps etc. now my kids are over 18.
As far as poverty goes, he’s unemployed, we’re in a house worth $200,000 less than it was when we bought it and $100,000 less than the mortgage. We’ll not be able to keep up the payments after this month. It’s an ARM which goes up next summer. Yada yada.
And he’s gotten better behaved (no rages) since I tripled my work schedule and got focused on leaving.
I stay just nice enough to not end things yet.
I don’t want to leave out of fear. I don’t want to stay out of fear, either.
