My husband will be officially unemployed as of June 28. This is not a huge hairy deal in and of itself; he has a good severance package and he doesn’t want to work for the people who bought out his company anyway. He does, however, need to find a new job. He’s had resumes out all over the place, but his training and experience are kind of specialized (basically, he’s in finance, but his actual job was in one specific area thereof) and there really aren’t a lot of positions he can fill. So he gets a call from a headhunter - there’s a major financial company looking for someone with EXACTLY Hubby’s background, and they’ve already fired the guy who was doing this job, and there’s not that many people who have that kind of background out there - in other words, they’re slightly desperate to fill this job and Hubby would be perfect for it.
However - it’s about 400 miles from where we live, which means IF he gets a job offer from these people, we would have to sell our house, move away from friends, family, schools, EVERYTHING. Neither of us has ever lived more than 50 miles from where we were born, and we have some pretty serious roots here. Besides which, we only bought the particular house we live in three years ago, after ten years of waiting to be financially able to afford what we wanted. Plus his parents are elderly and beginning to need looking after, and there’s not really anyone else in the family who is willing/able to help there.
I am freaked. Mind, he hasn’t gotten an offer yet - he’s interviewing tomorrow - but I am freaked. I want to be a supportive spouse, and I want him to have a job he enjoys and is good at. But I do not want to pull up almost 40 years of good solid roots and move away! I know lots of people have done it, and as far as I know no one has died of readjustment, but I do not want to even contemplate this. Yes, I am begging for reassurance, sympathy and commiseration. Also, advice if anyone has any that’s useful.
Is there a possibility that he could work from home, and give one or two days a week on site?
I did that for a while - Worked from home Tuesday through Friday and went in on Mondays for the weekly meeting. I had all sorts of nifty technology at home to help with telecommuting.
They wanted me so badly that they let me work from home. Some weeks, in crunch/release time, I’d go in Monday and Wednesday. If I had to stay overnight (it happened a couple of times) they paid for the hotel.
Let me preface this by saying it’s not a dig at you. I honestly don’t understand why people willingly spend their entire lives in one small geographic area. Yeah, change can be unnerving, but, dang, some change can be very good.
I can understand the concern about elderly parents, but to me, roots lead to stagnation. My husband worked with some people who live in the county just west of Jacksonville. They’d never seen the ocean, and they were damned proud of that! It was a point of pride to have never crossed the county line.
Personally, I’d say look upon it as an adventure and enjoy the change. Life is too short to spend it tethered to any one place. And 400 miles isn’t all that far… My husband is about to start a new job 800 miles from here, and I won’t be able to join him for 2 years! (Believe me, if my kid wasn’t in her junior year of high school and well on her way to a scholarship paid by the Florida Lottery, we’d all be leaving next week.)
Incidentally, I’ve lived in eight different states and two European countries since leaving home 29 years ago.
Wry, Yikes!! Is there no chance he would find something in the area if he stuck around for a while? Althoug Elenfair makes an excellent suggestion, and at 400 miles away, it might be doable.
A house, the family and all that taken together is a lot. Let me give you this sage advice: if hubby does get the job, negotiate full relo, make sure someone comes in and packs everything up. It really is the only way to go, and with all the other stuff going on, you don’t want to be worried about packing up your silver ware or gramma’s dishes.
Keep us posted on what happens. I’ll be thinking of you
FCM, I didn’t take that as a dig, but there’s info about my roots I didn’t share in the OP, and probably should have because it could be relevant to this. As a child I moved around a LOT – locally, but I still went to nine grade schools and three high schools, and was shuttled between parents and step-parents (the proverbial broken home). My husband lived in the same home from age 4 to age 17, and stayed in the area since then. In my case, it’s that I FINALLY have roots, and don’t want to dig them up. In his case it’s (again) the elderly parents.
Thanks all, for advice and comfort so far. I dunno if working from home or semi-commuting is an option, but I suppose I can ask.
LOW - well, that’s why I feel just the opposite of you - my childhood was just the opposite - same house from age 2 till age 19, same classmates, same everything, so I was ready to get out into the world. I don’t envy you this decision - we struggled a long time discussing whether he should even interview for certain jobs. (We did turn down Venezuela, Texas, Wisconsin, and California, but we want to retire in Maryland…)
Still, I wish you the best of luck and I’ll send some good vibes your way. We were fretting about him not getting one job when another appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Just goes to show, ya never know! I hope everything works out for you!
