When your Spouse is Unemployed
So you are both used to steady joint income. Your plans included two incomes. One person not working is not an option. Not at this time. There are other projects to consider that has MONEY written all over it. There are few things you want in the future that require money. Two salaries. You also have not sufficiently saved funds for a financial crisis such as long term employment. It would be a disaster if one of you was out of work….
Then it happens. Your spouse comes home. Letter in hand, he or she tells you that the company which he or she works is not doing well. In fact, the company has made some last minute decisions in order to save the whole ship from going down. And one of the decisions includes tossing your spouse out of the ship. After 5, 10, 15 years or whatever, he or she leaves with just a letter? And a ‘good luck!’
Who needs luck when they have been shown the door anyway? I personally do not subscribe to luck, good or bad. I am too blessed to start considering some life game called chance. And I don’t mean that arrogantly because I have been in exactly these shoes. I have walked in those shoes as the spouse who had to read the letter from her husband that said ‘thanks but no thanks’.
Chuck had been very happy at work. Our pastor had even advised he looked for another job. But pay was good. Everyone aspired to work in said company. There was also the comfort zone of being familiar with who he had just spent the last several years with. Now, there was no choice. The employers were good to offer Chuck some redundancy pay out. It was decent. But no matter how decent such a pay out is, it would never last a lifetime.
Like Job, what we had feared the most had now come on us. What would we do now?
Well, the redundancy money meant life pretty much continued for the next three or four months as usual. Life as in there was financial squeeze choking us. We were very conscious with each passing day, that Chuck had better find something pretty quick or else…
Chuck was making application letters every day. The phone calls were on the hour. The interviews came. And so did the rejection phone calls and emails…
Then as the months started counting up, the phone calls came once a day. Then one every couple of days. Then one a week. The interview offers were not so frequent either. Chuck’s full time job was spending hours scouring the internet looking and looking. His optimism encouraged me greatly. In the 10 years I have known my Chuck, he has never ever spoke a negative word, even under pressure. And hand on heart, not one such negative word came during those days. All Chuck would say with every rejection was I’ll get the next one.
Financial planning
Soon the months were pretty counting up. A year went by, then 18 months. Still nothing. A qualified man with vast experience and highly intelligent did not seem to be getting anywhere. Miraculously, we were still doing well financially. The Casio calculator…well the phone calculator, ha, (I got you there) was devising formulae to see what we could do. Our biggest pay out was the mortgage.
Chuck and I both being Mathematical whizz kids, did some calculations that worked out if we paid some money into the capital, we could be better off long term as the interest payment would be less. Chuck had an endowment that he had been paying money into that had a few more years to mature. We did our sums. If we cashed in on the endowment now we would be better off as the money we were paying towards the endowment meant less return compared to how much we were paying towards the mortgage interest. We cashed the endowment and reduced the mortgage. The belt was less tight now.
At the same time we reduced unnecessary spending. Chuck took odd jobs, offered private tuition classes, something that would make a contribution while at the same time paying our tithes and offerings in church which we vowed not to cut back on. We were sailing along. Wise financial planning meant that we were as comfortable on the one salary as we had been on two. By the end of the Chuck’s long spell of unemployment of four years, we were even better off financially! Supernaturally, we were getting a harvest and that was keeping us buoyant. We even went on holidays, bought a new car!
Supporting your spouse
The emotional support played a big part. I have to say Chuck’s positivity and faith went a long way in helping me to be relaxed. Because we were both optimistic and our faith helped us a great deal, I never felt the pressure of what Chuck not being in work meant. It was easy for me to encourage him too should there be thoughts that he was not letting out.
In a situation such as unemployment, and Chuck’s medical history, could have easily affected his mental health. But this was not to be so. We practised what we preached. We prayed together. We did not waiver over our duties at church. The spiritual support played a great key role too.
Although there was a rough patch where Chuck developed a habit that could have been very detrimental to our marriage, which he or I will share one day, this period was a time of growth and progress in the midst of adversity. By the time Chuck was to start work, we had matured greatly in our faith, in dealing with life’s curved balls and the word ‘unemployment’ or ‘redundancy’ no longer had a grip on us. In fact, during that time, where I worked was going through some reorganisation that affected me! I was handed a letter stating that my job could be on the line.
But we had pretty much seen the providence of God’s Hand on us when we felt that we would not be able to cope with just one. And because we had, even when doubt tried to strike, we were both never worried or fearful because we knew somehow in the same way we would make it.
And we did…because I was offered a better role in my same company. Had I been negative or had I not developed an attitude of gratefulness for even what I had learnt during our so called hard times when Chuck’s job lost him, ha, perhaps I may not have attracted such favour. But that’s a story for another time!
About The Author
Our family went through something similar when my husband lost his job. Because of my mental illness I could not work. We were scared and unsure during this time, but God is faithful. After many months in prayer and believing God to answer, my husband was hired at the company he is at now. He is making far more than he was at his previous job and he is much happier. We learned we can depend on a God for all things. Thanks for your article. It was inspiring!