How We Dealt with My Husband's Job Loss

Tysdaddy's post on the topic last week was totally awesome and hit so close to home that I've decided to write another one coming in from the spouse's viewpoint.

The first time my hubby lost his job was about a couple of months after the 9-11 incident, heck it was just a few days short of Thanksgiving. His reaction to that job loss was mostly on the shocked side. My reaction was completely on the denial side. I remember the day he walked into our door in the middle of the day (because he worked five minutes away from our house, he would come home for lunch everyday) and was not his usual self. He usually walked in with a little humor, either a joke that he was dying to tell me or tease me a little. That particular day he was quieter than usual. Before he sat down on the couch, he blurted out that his company has laid off a bunch of people and he was one of them. At first I thought he was joking, after a few minutes of silence again on his part, he confirmed it again.

"But I thought you said your job is set for life and that company you work for doesn't lay people off, that once a person got a job there, they're in it for life. You're joking, right?" I blurted out.

"Why would I joke about something like this? And yes, I thought that my job was set, but I guess I was wrong. For all these years I've worked for that company, I've never so much as a take a pen home from the office and then today, not only did my boss say, 'I'm sorry but we can't afford to have all the employees working here, we're letting you go', he had me escorted out of the building like I was some common criminal". (Talk about harsh, that really ticked me off right there picturing him escorted out the building like that.)

I think the next few weeks kinda went by in a blur. I kinda gave up the nightmarish thought that one day we'll wake up and it was just all a dream, you know. Yes, I still wasn't fully convinced that he's lost his job. After he started attending to unfinished projects we started on the house, the roof for example, I had to come to terms with the reality of it all. Of course, our family pulled together. For the first month or so after he lost his job, after I've come to terms with him losing his job, I started enjoying having him home. We kept busy, he had resumes sent in wherever there are jobs opening, put in a new floor in our upstairs kitchen, re-roof our house and hung out at the beach. He even took our kids (there were four of them at the time) to visit family on the mainland.

The second time he lost his job...he called me on his cell to tell me that he up and quit his job. That time was not as hard or surprising as the first one. I knew the day would come, either he would quit or they would let him go. He wasn't happy with the next job...it wasn't the job he was unhappy about, it was the people he worked with that he was unhappy about, especially his supervisor. {Veronica mentioned in her post last week about never disagreeing with the boss's wife...let me add on that it is absolutely not a good idea to disagree with the boss's pet employee.} Anyways, when he called to tell me he quit his job, I was upset. I was so tempted to call him an idiot but I could hear in his voice that he regretted what he did so I just told him to come home. At that time I was pregnant with child number seven (yes we had two kids after he lost his first job, one adopted and the other surprised baby).

There was one more job after the job he quit that he also called me from his phone in Honolulu to tell me about. Again, same thought but never did I voice it. It seemed like we were a lot closer than before, he was coming to me for my advice and I've joined him full force on the job search. Whenever he got an interview, he would call me as soon as he finished to tell me about and then asked about how I feel about this job or that job. Yes, I think I've prayed more in those times than I've prayed before...not just that he got a job, but one that he would get along with his co-workers and please dear God, make it a job close to home. All those times he commute to town to work, he would leave 5 in the morning and come at 7 at night, I felt like I was a single mom...a lot of the times I have to be two places at once for the kids. Oh yes, money was really tight...but I can honestly say that even with all that not knowing if my hub would get a job and stick with it, the only big bill that worried us was our mortgage.

We were so used to living within our means that him going from job to job didn't really devastated us as much. A real cool plus...if you haven't started or ever heard of it, besides having savings to fall back on, have a food storage. That cut down on the grocery bill worry. Yes, you have to get creative on eating canned foods but at least, it beats starving to dead or it reduced the amount of money spent on grocery, especially at a time like that.

Now that my hub has gotten a job working for his Alma Mater, about five minutes away from our house, I look back on those hard years and can only conclude that everything happens for a reason. My hub is happier with his current job and I am not as naive as I used to be and have learned to not take things for granted. Those years were hard, yet in some ways it had brought our family much closer.

Thanks Shelle for letting me post this today. I know you have to rearrange some of the scheduled post to accomodate me...You are BEST!! Mahalo!