Hello all! For reference I am F21 and my husband is M22.
My husband is a worrier when it comes to money. He has always wanted to be making more money and have more wiggle room within our budget. Since being with him, i’ve help him apply and go through 3 different jobs. Each one was a pay raise from the last, but none have quite made him happy. They are tolerable (some more than others..) but nothing that makes him feel like he’s doing anything worthwhile or make him feel as if the money matches the energy. He’s by no means lazy, he is willing to do hard work and currently works a labor intensive job.
Now, each job he’s gone through, i’ve helped by pushing him to search for a new job or to get him to even try for a new one. He lacks the confidence to go out and try new jobs/feel like he would be good at it. Once he’s in a new job, he finds his rhythm and gets it down and feels like he can do the job. But after a while he wants more/better. Now I know this is a totally normal feeling to have. Most people want to make more money or have a better job or etc. I just can’t tell if i’m pushing too much. This leads me into what happened tonight.
I sat him down and told him that I think he should go back to school to help him with career prospects within a job he will actually like and that will pay him the wage he’s seeking. I expressed were young enough to do a lot of trial and error before settling down with a career. I emphasized how he deserves to try as many things as he wants to find what he deserves from his job. During conversations such as these, I try my hardest to emphasize how he deserves better and how I know he can do and have better. I try to be as supportive as possible during these conversations. And every other time, it has helped and he’s been receptive to the conversation. But tonight, it didn’t go that way..
He was pretty much immediately uninterested and unwilling to accept it was a possibility to try for something better. He asked me what the point was, and expressed it makes no sense to do it when everything was not a guarantee. I tried to explain nothing in life was and that sometimes we just have to try things and see if they work for us. But he was pretty much just against the whole idea. I pushed a little more and kept trying to talk it through and figure it out, but as the conversation progressed, he just became extremely blank. He had no facial expression and just kept saying okay to everything or that he didn’t see a need. Almost like I was boring him or that he was waiting for me to be done so he could move on.
We didn’t argue, and neither of us said anything hurtful, i’m just confused on how to proceed. I can’t tell if i’m pushing too hard, not helping enough, or it was just bad timing. He’s never been this unreceptive to anything we have talked about. And in the past, he’s moved up jobs plenty of times when having conversations such as these. I want to be supportive as his wife, i’m just not sure if i’m doing it the right way or wrong way. I’d truly love some perspective and advice on what to do or if I was in the wrong and should apologize.
Thank you in advance!