Relationship Advice - Tips for Dealing with Your Spouse's Job Loss

Partner's Unemployment

Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Advice Seeker: Dear April Masini,

My husband was laid off from his job last week.

The news is just starting to sink in, and I'm starting to think about the consequences, both the obvious (income) and the non-obvious (his health and our relationship). My husband was raised in a traditional family and I'm concerned that his self-esteem is going to take a knock by my being the breadwinner (temporarily, at least).

Do you have any advice or tips for how I can minimize these issues and help encourage him to look for a new, fulfilling job, while keeping our relationship healthy?

Signed,

Worried Wife

April Masini's advice:

Dear Worried Wife,

When a partner loses a job, the effects on both members of a couple can be challenging. Here are some tips to get through that time:

1. Don’t panic. You didn’t lose the job. Your partner did. Stay steady. Keep doing what you were doing. Your panic will fuel derivative issues between you and your partner and within yourselves.

2. Accept that these lows happen in careers. Your partner isn’t special for getting let go, or losing a job some other way. It happens to just about everyone. It’s normal.

3. Ask what you can do to help. Be supportive without blaming. If you do number 2, you won’t blame, because you’ll understand it wasn’t anyone’s fault. These things happen. If, however, your partner was fired because of an issue like theft, addiction or something else that was a clear problem (illegal, etc.), then you have to insist that he or she get help before re-entering the work force.

4. Be prepared to make adjustments as a result of the transition — and this means accepting the transition. Funds have to be preserved; budgets adjusted; etc.

Focus on being a loving and supportive partner to your husband while encouraging him to find a new job that he loves and that is stable.

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April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.