Anonymous wrote:I am a mom with a son here and I get really scared for my son reading all these entitled posts!

No worries. You can land your helicopter and let him out after perusing the country for lazy women of child-bearing age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyway, she admitted it was wrong to just quit, but she sort of had a breakdown and decided she was wasting her life. She wanted a career that is basically incongruent with our life (working in dangerous developing countries overseas instead of writing boring reports). I get it; I don't love my own job, but we have kids and bills and a life and choices we made. Sort of undoing a lot of things including selling the house, we are kind of screwed. I remember the adventure years. They were fun. We lived and traveled and spent 7 years before kids and our mutual decision to settle in DC and raise a family.

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This is a little off topic, but I'm a mom and I don't find working in developing dangerous countries incongruous with my family's life. When you look at the likelihood of an aid worker being killed or kidnapped while on a work trip, it is really low. The likelihood of getting in a fatal car accident on the Beltway is higher. Taking 3 or 4 2-week trips a year is also not incompatible with my family's life. Add those things together...I can do the work I trained for and I really like. Sure, your wife might need to decide to work in Jordan rather than Syria, or Nigeria rather than South Sudan...but I bet she can still find a job with some of the things that turn her on about working in really fragile places. I have, and all the moms I work with (basically my entire organization) have, too. All the best to you both.

You are not OP's wife, and your risk tolerance for your family is not the same as theirs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. She announced her notice. They actually want her to stay but she's not budging.

I am sorry your wife is so selfish and doesn't think such major decisions should be made together. This sounds like the result of too many Oprah Winfrey shows where "I" come first and "I" have to do what makes me happy. Quite frankly I think the problem is that so many people lack gratitude for what they have and what is good in their lives and just want more of something, in your wife's case, more of me, me, me and the hell with the rest. Well, she is going to find out that the world just isn't sunshine and flowers no matter in which job or situation she ends.

Good grief, your soapbox is just annoying. I was harassed for over a year at a job. I quit with my husband's permission, but I could not have held out any longer. Sometimes work places become unbearably toxic.

+1 I quit a job when I was harrassed, too. I gave my DH another excuse because he would have gone in there and beat the crap out of the guy. It was a terrible environment to work in for a woman.

How I perceived this situation is that assuming the DW has been a responsible adult all along, it sounds extremely serious to get to a point where someone quits on the spot. It would take an awful lot to drive me there. I am reacting to the DW's "breakdown," as a PP said, as a much more serious thing than just having a bad day and impulsively quitting like a teenager might. Health care plans are important, but in this situation, they aren't completely without options, and the DW was probably aware of that. A spouse's mental health is also critical to the well-being of the family, and should be at the top of list of priorities, with as much importance as the finances.

As much as it is a crisis for a family when a job loss happens, if my spouse was at an emotional breaking point, I would have a hard time insisting they keep going back to that job. It would have to be the spouse's "unilateral" choice to stay or go. People experience job losses all the time for all sorts of reasons. It's a difficult but not insurmountable issue.

If you have an impulsive and irresponsible spouse, that's a problem you'll need to see a therapist about.

I am a mom with a son here and I get really scared for my son reading all these entitled posts!

Anonymous wrote:Anyway, she admitted it was wrong to just quit, but she sort of had a breakdown and decided she was wasting her life. She wanted a career that is basically incongruent with our life (working in dangerous developing countries overseas instead of writing boring reports). I get it; I don't love my own job, but we have kids and bills and a life and choices we made. Sort of undoing a lot of things including selling the house, we are kind of screwed. I remember the adventure years. They were fun. We lived and traveled and spent 7 years before kids and our mutual decision to settle in DC and raise a family.

.

This is a little off topic, but I'm a mom and I don't find working in developing dangerous countries incongruous with my family's life. When you look at the likelihood of an aid worker being killed or kidnapped while on a work trip, it is really low. The likelihood of getting in a fatal car accident on the Beltway is higher. Taking 3 or 4 2-week trips a year is also not incompatible with my family's life. Add those things together...I can do the work I trained for and I really like. Sure, your wife might need to decide to work in Jordan rather than Syria, or Nigeria rather than South Sudan...but I bet she can still find a job with some of the things that turn her on about working in really fragile places. I have, and all the moms I work with (basically my entire organization) have, too. All the best to you both.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hypocrisy of women on this threat is astounding. Seems like they had a deal. If his wife no longer felt that the deal was something she could live with, then they need to renegotiate it. She doesn't get to unilaterally decide not to honor the deal they made. Maybe it was a shitty deal, maybe it wasn't. Either way it's selfish and immature of her to just put her family in jeopardy like that. I'm glad they had a productive discussion and they are working it out. We all make mistakes, and his wife is human. But to blame him for feeling the way he does is just extremely hypocritical.

Signed,

A wife who would never allow my family to go uninsured like this.

Husband can get insurance through his job. Stop being so dramatic.

This and people should have enough savings to cover them for these kinds of things. People are living above their means in many cases. Find a smaller home or get a lower mortgage. Instead of paying outrageous public daycare for 2 kids, find a sitter. Cut your cable and don't go out to eat so much.

They very well might have enough savings. But those savings should be used in case of emergency - someone losing a job involuntarily, medical crisis, etc.

But to eat through those savings because wife decided this morning that she doesn't feel like working anymore???

Please, shut it - you're full of shit if you think that is okay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Glad you are not my husband. He would have been fine with me quitting, taking some time off and then applying for something more interesting.

Sounds like OP is fine with it too, as long as it is planned. You dont spring that on someone if you cover the health care. Also, I'm guessing that you're in a financial position where if you quit your job and didn't have another one for a while, it would not make a signficant dent in your abilty to pay mortgae, healthcare, daily life stuff.

I did quit with a quick decision but my husband suggested it. It did make a dent, and my husband ended up getting a higher paying job to make up for the needed difference as he wanted me happier. They can get health insurance through his job. We live within our means in a smaller house than we can afford so it was a non-issue. If you cannot you are overspending.

You have a reading comprehension problem.

Your husband suggested that you quit your job - which means that you actually talked to him about it.

The purpose of this post is NOT that OP's DW quit her job. It's the fact that she quit her job without even discussing it with her husband.

If you actually read the post - DW had a breakdown and just up and quit her job on the spot.

Anyone, with half a brain, would be upset by this.

Imagine if you came home one day and your husband just said, "Hey honey, had a bad day at work, so I quit."

Anonymous wrote:Op, you wrote:

"My wife's job isn't something she loves, but she's good at it and is paid decently and part of the agreement for me to take my job and leave the feds (where we had excellent benefits)."

So you left a job with great benefits.....why? And now your wife is shouldering all the responsibility for benefits while you insist she stays in a crappy job situation which she finds intolerable. SMH.

You also owe it to your family to be looking for a job with better benefits.

I am assuming that DH got a job offer for more money, but worse benefits. He talked to his DW and they agreed that he would take the new job because she could pick up the slack with the benefits. Then, she just up and quit her job, and screwed the family on the benefits.

Anonymous wrote:Op, you wrote:

"My wife's job isn't something she loves, but she's good at it and is paid decently and part of the agreement for me to take my job and leave the feds (where we had excellent benefits)."

So you left a job with great benefits.....why? And now your wife is shouldering all the responsibility for benefits while you insist she stays in a crappy job situation which she finds intolerable. SMH.

You also owe it to your family to be looking for a job with better benefits.

Did you not read the part where he states that she is staying put until she finds a job more to her liking. Something that most mature adults would do under the circumstances.

Anonymous wrote:Glad you are not my husband. He would have been fine with me quitting, taking some time off and then applying for something more interesting.

NP.

And you sound like a royal, raging, weak biatch. And your husband sounds like a wimp who would allow his family to go into financial ruin because of your weakness.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, you wrote:

"My wife's job isn't something she loves, but she's good at it and is paid decently and part of the agreement for me to take my job and leave the feds (where we had excellent benefits)."

So you left a job with great benefits.....why? And now your wife is shouldering all the responsibility for benefits while you insist she stays in a crappy job situation which she finds intolerable. SMH.

You also owe it to your family to be looking for a job with better benefits.

Most likely he quit the job with the feds for a private sector position with a higher salary. Makes sense if his wife has good benefits at her job.

From the comments OP has made, it sounds like they made a decision as a couple that he would switch from a lower paying fed job to a higher paying private job with weaker benefits. They made a decision that her job provided decent enough benefits for the family and provided them the extra cushion to afford the move. With the higher salary, they could afford to move to a more expensive neighborhood, perhaps closer in, an since he mentions kids (plural) in daycare, probably higher daycare costs as well. The equation to move to a more expensive home, pay higher daycare and still be able to fund retirement, college savings, emergency savings and extras (vacations, luxuries) was based on having both incomes.

The issue is that she made a unilateral decision without discussion to immediately quit, cutting off their health insurance, and eating into their savings at least in the short term. There's no way he can change retirement and college savings which are all automatically deducted or transferred without at least a couple of weeks notice (retirement savings change on the 1st of every month and only if your company uses on-line updates. If you have to use paper forms, then it can take 2 months to change). He was upset that she made a unilateral decision without discussing.

In the followup discussion, he agreed that she needs to look for a new job and was very supportive of that, but he thought she should continue working, and have the healthcare and income coverage for the family, until she came up with an alternative. Another point is that her old job tried to ask her not to resign. If she can still go back, she can use this incident as a discussion point with her manager to discuss the issues that made her job so unbearable she would quit abruptly. Perhaps some changes can be made to make the job more tolerable until she can find a better job and relieve some of the pressure to leave with no notice to either employer or family.

Anonymous wrote:Good conversation! At very least she should start looking now. It's much easier to get another job when you are still employed. Quitting is pretty much the Scarlet Letter equivalent for job seekers; it scares off potential employers. Good luck to both of you.

Not always possible, but probably best for this couple. She can also put a later start date and take some time off. That might help too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hypocrisy of women on this threat is astounding. Seems like they had a deal. If his wife no longer felt that the deal was something she could live with, then they need to renegotiate it. She doesn't get to unilaterally decide not to honor the deal they made. Maybe it was a shitty deal, maybe it wasn't. Either way it's selfish and immature of her to just put her family in jeopardy like that. I'm glad they had a productive discussion and they are working it out. We all make mistakes, and his wife is human. But to blame him for feeling the way he does is just extremely hypocritical.

Signed,

A wife who would never allow my family to go uninsured like this.

Husband can get insurance through his job. Stop being so dramatic.

This and people should have enough savings to cover them for these kinds of things. People are living above their means in many cases. Find a smaller home or get a lower mortgage. Instead of paying outrageous public daycare for 2 kids, find a sitter. Cut your cable and don't go out to eat so much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hypocrisy of women on this threat is astounding. Seems like they had a deal. If his wife no longer felt that the deal was something she could live with, then they need to renegotiate it. She doesn't get to unilaterally decide not to honor the deal they made. Maybe it was a shitty deal, maybe it wasn't. Either way it's selfish and immature of her to just put her family in jeopardy like that. I'm glad they had a productive discussion and they are working it out. We all make mistakes, and his wife is human. But to blame him for feeling the way he does is just extremely hypocritical.

Signed,

A wife who would never allow my family to go uninsured like this.

Husband can get insurance through his job. Stop being so dramatic.

You realize it's not about the insurance, don't you?

Correct. OP's wife was/is responsible for insurance. But the real issue is unless something crazy happening, you just don't quit a job without talking it over with spouse. I am a wife responsible for my family's health insurance and every time I think about quitting my job, I remember that. Definitely some hypocrisy going on here.