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Kinda angry... partner is getting me down :( - (Mar/02/2009 )

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Sorry if this isnt the place for this but I feel like I need to rant at someone. My partner has been unemployed now for four months and today refused to go to the job centre so they can help him look for work. He says its like admitting defeat but surely if he gets there help and finds a job then people will get off his back for being unemployed! I dont think hes looking as hard as he says he is but I cant tell him that because it would hurt him... Im so angry with him because he just wont ask for help. I go to uni for about 50 hours a week exclusive of the 45 mins commute each way and yet he moans that he has to do house work, clean the lizards etc. I am sick to the back teeth of it...

How do I help him without hurting him?

-Kami23-

Kami23 on Mar 2 2009, 01:01 PM said:

Sorry if this isnt the place for this but I feel like I need to rant at someone. My partner has been unemployed now for four months and today refused to go to the job centre so they can help him look for work. He says its like admitting defeat but surely if he gets there help and finds a job then people will get off his back for being unemployed! I dont think hes looking as hard as he says he is but I cant tell him that because it would hurt him... Im so angry with him because he just wont ask for help. I go to uni for about 50 hours a week exclusive of the 45 mins commute each way and yet he moans that he has to do house work, clean the lizards etc. I am sick to the back teeth of it...

How do I help him without hurting him?

Hi darl,

Sorry to hear this - I know how tough it is, especially in the UK! When I first moved over here my husband could not find work for ages and ended up doing a bar job which he hated. It was really tough on our relationship. But it's all good now

Does it really matter if you tell him how you feel and he gets hurt? Honesty is the best policy (sorry to use such a cliche). I know you don't want to hurt him but perhaps he needs the brutal truth??? What doesn't kill your relationship will only make it stronger in the long run

xClare

-Clare-

Clare on Mar 2 2009, 02:08 PM said:

Kami23 on Mar 2 2009, 01:01 PM said:

Sorry if this isnt the place for this but I feel like I need to rant at someone. My partner has been unemployed now for four months and today refused to go to the job centre so they can help him look for work. He says its like admitting defeat but surely if he gets there help and finds a job then people will get off his back for being unemployed! I dont think hes looking as hard as he says he is but I cant tell him that because it would hurt him... Im so angry with him because he just wont ask for help. I go to uni for about 50 hours a week exclusive of the 45 mins commute each way and yet he moans that he has to do house work, clean the lizards etc. I am sick to the back teeth of it...

How do I help him without hurting him?

Hi darl,

Sorry to hear this - I know how tough it is, especially in the UK! When I first moved over here my husband could not find work for ages and ended up doing a bar job which he hated. It was really tough on our relationship. But it's all good now

Does it really matter if you tell him how you feel and he gets hurt? Honesty is the best policy (sorry to use such a cliche). I know you don't want to hurt him but perhaps he needs the brutal truth??? What doesn't kill your relationship will only make it stronger in the long run

xClare

Hes led a very sheltered life bless him and I asked him before he moved in with me if he would be willing to take anything as a job. Now hes being snobbish about it and wont take anything that he thinks is below him (for example he wouldnt take a job being a lolipop man even though it was ten pounds an hour and got him out of the house)

I should be brutally honest with him but he says he feels like evryone is against him and I dont want him to feel like that. Im doing my best but tbh Im knackered and I just want to come home to a clean house thats very selfish of me i know but he could pull his weight without all the moaning.

-Kami23-

Hes led a very sheltered life bless him and I asked him before he moved in with me if he would be willing to take anything as a job. Now hes being snobbish about it and wont take anything that he thinks is below him (for example he wouldnt take a job being a lolipop man even though it was ten pounds an hour and got him out of the house)

I should be brutally honest with him but he says he feels like evryone is against him and I dont want him to feel like that. Im doing my best but tbh Im knackered and I just want to come home to a clean house thats very selfish of me i know but he could pull his weight without all the moaning.

Clare on Mar 2 2009, 03:03 PM said:

Hes led a very sheltered life bless him and I asked him before he moved in with me if he would be willing to take anything as a job. Now hes being snobbish about it and wont take anything that he thinks is below him (for example he wouldnt take a job being a lolipop man even though it was ten pounds an hour and got him out of the house)

I should be brutally honest with him but he says he feels like evryone is against him and I dont want him to feel like that. Im doing my best but tbh Im knackered and I just want to come home to a clean house thats very selfish of me i know but he could pull his weight without all the moaning.

Sounds like someone I know! Perhaps tell him how you feel about the house situation instead of hassling him for being unemployed? And it's not selfish of you at all. If he's at home all day and you're working your butt off at uni, then by all means he should be cleaning!!! Tell him you're exhausted and ask him would he mind cleaning the house a bit during the day? What do you think he would say to that?

Clare

Dump the guy.
If he doesn't even clean, he's not worth it.
Mine dropped out of uni, but still he'll take odd jobs, share housework, try once again with his studies, and won't moan about it. He's a man. Sorry to say that, but yours is a sponge that drains you.

He is probably having depression.
He may be lack of motivation after losing his job.

It may be better to tell him how lucky he is to have a roof.
There are some unemployed people now homeless and live in the street.

There are practical realities to be thought about here:

<*>The longer he is out of work, the harder it will be to convince someone that he is employable (after all in the 4 months he could have applied for lots of jobs and gotten none of them - which implies that he is not very good, rather than just selective about his work).
<*>With the current "economic crisis" less jobs are being advertised and more people are being made redundant/losing their jobs, so it is a very competitive market at the moment. Meaning that unless he works really hard at it, he is unlikely to be employed
<*>Working any job that is available implies a readiness to work and versatility, qualities that any employer wants.

Regarding the housework: I would tell him that you are not his mother, and that if he expects you to cook and clean for him while he is at home all day while you work, he can go back to his mother.

Kami -as nice as you're being, you're not helping him. As bob said, he's becoming a permanent unemployable.


Do him a favor - give him a choice to work or leave.

I'm sure he's depressed, but the way you describe it, he doesn't have a depression, as a sickness.
I admit I don't quite get it. As far as I know, a job does not define a person and it's perfectly ok to take anything that drops by as long as it brings money home, and then look for a better thing. Most people I know did that. A loss of job is a normal thing and can happen to anyone, especially in hard times. It's not anybody's fault and it's silly to make an ego thing out of it.