Surviving a Spouse’s Layoff

Layoffs can happen, and these days it’s increasingly likely that they will happen. What becomes difficult to predict, then, is how long the limbo will last and how well a marriage can weather the storm.

By Millicent Skiles

One of the biggest challenges a marriage can face is when a spouse is laid off from his or her job. Framed by a backdrop of financial insecurity, the situation can summon a host of emotions: humiliation, despair, suspicion and bruised egos.

But layoffs can happen, and these days it’s increasingly likely that they will happen. What becomes difficult to predict, then, is how long the limbo will last and how well a marriage can weather the storm. Experts agree on one thing: keep the entire family involved in learning to live a little bit differently for a while.

For Claire,* a mother of two, her husband’s layoff from his job at an investment bank was initially "fun." But the ensuing 18 months brought about a host of challenges: A panicked move across the country, a nine-month stint living with Claire’s parents, a second pregnancy and the discovery that their eldest child had speech problems. Keeping upbeat became very difficult.

"I was in the role of trying to be supportive and he was sinking deeper and deeper into despair," Claire recalls. "He was so desperate to provide for us that he was building up the frustration and he wasn’t appreciating us."

If faced with a similar situation again, the first thing Claire said she would do is encourage her husband to join a basketball team or take a trip – anything to puncture the monotonous chore of looking for a job or spending yet another 24 hours with the family.

"He was suffocating," she says.

While the support of a spouse is essential in bridging the emotional gap of a layoff, it can sometimes be tedious for those who are tasked with being endlessly cheery. In fact, that’s one reason why Susan Urquhart-Brown, who was bending her husband’s ear with complaints about difficult bosses and thoughts of changing professions, became a career counselor.

Look Outside the Family for Help

"My husband said, ‘I can’t listen to this anymore. Go talk to someone else,’" says Urquhart-Brown, author of The Accidental Entrepreneur: Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About