Reply to Long-term unemployment; Mild case of affluenza/Keeping up with the Jonses-itis

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Reply to "Long-term unemployment; Mild case of affluenza/Keeping up with the Jonses-itis"

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[quote=Anonymous]I (husband age 30) was laid off from my salaried professional job a year ago. I did a commission-only sales job in the interim and made a bit of money, but didn't have the network to sell enough to make a living. Wife is a white-collar professional. Unemployment has long since run out. The reality is I'll need to retrain into a more marketable field, which may require about 2 years of part-time schooling. I made the mistake of not looking for part-time work and instead focused on trying to find a new job at my former salary (not an extravagant one by any means).

The issue:
Wife is understandably stressed about my employment (or lack thereof) situation. She had a deadbeat dad who refused to pay alimony or child support, leaving them at the edge of poverty for a few years. What is really bugging me is that she compares our situation to peers who appear to be doing better than us, but are not. They have parents who foot their bills, made exceedingly poor financial decisions and are in a metric shit-ton of debt, or are in high-paying STEM careers. I've pointed out to her people I know who are similar to us in age, education, life situation, and show analytically (she is a numbers-driven person) that we're pretty much on par with them. Yet I still get comments like "they can afford fresh fish" (which I don't think is expensive) or "their parents are rich" (they're middle class people who built a business from scratch), or "not being dead broke is the only thing I wish for".

I'm getting fed up with the fatalism, envy, and poor-mouthing. Our situation needs to be fixed immediately, but we're far from being out on the street. Any analysis or advice?[/quote]

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