Husband Depressed About Job & School

[Plume]

Hello everyone. I’m new here, and it’s very nice to chat with you all!

 

I’ve been trying to help my husband through a tough time, and I keep running into a wall. I’d appreciate any advice you can offer. Here goes…

 

My husband’s job makes him very depressed. He’s a CNA at a nursing home, and works a very understaffed nightshift. He’s always worn out from being short-handed, and the patients are not a treat to work with either. He doesn’t mind the patients who have legitimate conditions fueling their crazyness… It’s the self-entitled ones who are perfectly sane, perfectly mobile, but still demand immediate delivery of their midnight candy craving, pillow fluffing, or whatever, when they’ve been assured it’s on the way, and the staff are trying to address another patient with an actual emergency or other important need first… And according to my husband, that’s the attitude of the majority of patients within his care. He just can’t take it anymore.

 

So, we both agree that he needs a new job… But he also wants to finish school to become an RN. He’d rather not lose all the vacation he’s earned from 8 years of working there, as he wants to utilize that vacation time when it’s time for clinicals. Also, he doesn’t want to take a pay cut as he has a son (doesn’t live with us), and is court-ordered to hold a full-time job and pay child support. So, he’s pretty set on staying with his current employer until he’s an RN.

 

He’s got a long way to go in order to finish his degree. He’s hopped around from school-to-school (on #3 right now), as a slew of bizarre things have come up which have prevented him from signing up for classes. I used to believe his explanations when he’d tell me why he wasn’t going to school on this or that semester, but now this has happened too many times for me to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt. So, I asked to talk about it, and he spills out his realization that he isn’t sure if he wants to stay in the medical field anymore. He wants to study something else.

 

So I tried to brainstorm with him on what he could study. I would rather he stay the course and become and RN, but if something else would make him happier, then choose that. At the end of the day, any employer will be happy to see that he finished his studies in SOMETHING. He had some ideas, but none that would be easy degrees to obtain in our area (won’t consider moving any further away from his son… and I’m not sure how I’d handle a move either), and said he would talk to his academic advisor for input or other options. He said he’d call his advisor to set up an appointment the next day.

 

Tomorrow came and went… I bought him a laptop, as encouragement as I remember him talking about how it would be helpful to have one for school. Then tomorrow became tomorrow’s tomorrow, and that became tomorrow’s tomorrow’s tomorrow… etc…

 

I confronted him again to get a grasp on what was wrong. He no longer wanted to talk to an advisor, and decided it made the most sense to just continue with nursing as he already has some coursework under his belt. Ok, solid decision… He had one week left before he could sign up for Fall semester classes… When opening day arrived I reminded him. Well, that was last week... With nursing being a popular area of study, it doesn’t take long to get stuck in the dreaded waitlists… But he doesn’t seem to care. In the meantime, he complains about work, and is pretty tired and grumpy… all day.

 

I let him know that if he doesn’t want to go to school, then it’s totally OK… He just needs to make a decision, and then a game-plan to get the heck out of the environment he’s in. Then he turns the tables to me… He brought up, “You don’t like your job either!” Right, I have complained about my own job, but recently I’ve become a resume printing-press, trying to get a new job to advance my career. Just this month I’ve sent out 5 applications, got rejected by 2, waiting on results for the final 3. If anything else comes up, I’ll apply for that too… but rest assured I AM trying to get out of my own crumby situation. And even if I’m not successful, the act of trying makes me feel so much better.

 

I keep running into this wall… I can’t be patient with him on this anymore… I’m trying to help him, but he just won’t have it. It makes me so angry now… I come home from work, and he’s either playing games online, or watching netflix. He can’t pull away from these things for 30 minutes to call his academic advisor, or check to see what classes are available, or fill out a job application? And the answer is “I know, I’m sorry. I forgot. I’ll do it tomorrow…”

[Mr. Lucky]

I keep running into this wall… I can’t be patient with him on this anymore… I’m trying to help him, but he just won’t have it. It makes me so angry now… I come home from work, and he’s either playing games online, or watching netflix. He can’t pull away from these things for 30 minutes to call his academic advisor, or check to see what classes are available, or fill out a job application? And the answer is “I know, I’m sorry. I forgot. I’ll do it tomorrow…”

 

Sorry Plume, you only get to be in charge of you. You can threaten, entice, nag and cajole but only he can get his *ss in gear. So you have 3 choices:

 

1). Stay and suffer. Choose this one and any future unhappiness is on you, not him.

 

2). Stay and adapt. There must be good things in the relationship so emphasize those and tune out the other noise. Tell him you don't want to hear the negativity and leave the room if he complains about his job or anything else. Choose to see the glass as half full.

 

3). Take steps to leave. Might be the wake-up call he needs and perhaps the only way he'll take you seriously. Only you know if your situation is untenable to this degree.

 

Sorry you're stuck in this situation...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Gloria25]

I agree with Mr. Lucky...

 

The "wall" is your husband.

 

Unfortunately, it boils down to the person. You can be the greatest cheerleader, but if they don't make up their mind to do this/that - there's nothing you can do.

 

Do you have any children with him yet? Maybe it's time to cut bait. Why? Cuz, he already has a child and instead of sucking it up, staying focused and sacrificing his "happiness" to provide for his child (and bring her back to his care one day), he's busy wimpering and whinning. He can't make up his mind what to study, etc. And, if you wanna start a family with him, you won't be able to depend on him to be there for you and the family.

 

Geesh, I was watching Oxygen and this guy lost his job, sat on the couch and whinned, when wife offered to work and/or go back to live with her parents - he got mad. Well, she got a nursing job and he was Mr. Mom, and he got jealous, etc. and ended up killing her. In other words, he was a "wall" and she was supportive and even offered to go work and instead of him just going with the flow, he was mean, he'd make jokes about her job, etc. - instead of being a man and taking charge to get another job and/or supporting her going to work.

 

I believe it's this Millennial misconception that you must be "happy" in your "dream job" and anything less than that shouldn't be tolerated.

 

Look, unless it's really, really, a toxic environment, he needs to suck it up and charge on. That's what "men" do. He's lucky to have you cheering him on. The only thing I would suggest on top of what you've already done is to make him coming home a chance to "recharge" his batteries. What do I mean? Have a warm bath, massage, and good meal for him. If he has a sanctuary to come home to, he'll be able to decompress and be ready for the poop being flung at him from the world....I mean, that's the whole point of us having a SO - to have someone to make all the crap in this miserable world "worth it". Someone to comfort us and build us up to take on life's challenges.