Weddingbee boards

I wasn't going to post this because I do not like sharing private posts, but I'm driving myself crazy thinking about it! I will say up front that I asked my DH to go to couples counseling, and he said no, so I have an appointment for myself to start going next week. I guess I am too impatient to wait till then.

So DH and I met in undergrad. He got his Master's in Education and was a long term substitute teacher all last year. So for this school year, he was looking for a full time regular job. Except he didn't really look. He'd had the sub position until a few weeks before our wedding when school let out, then teaching was in prime hiring season. He hardly looked. I started searching for jobs for him, and he always had excuses or else he just didn't apply and didn't explain. I've asked him about it so much. He didn't want to move away from either me in grad school or his home area where his parents live. Even though he couldn't find a job in either of those places. He applied for a total of 4 jobs, one he was in the final two but lost out to a person with more experience.

It's been a nightmare trying to drag information out of him.  I've tried finding jobs for him because I am home or on the computer more than he is. I got him a mock interview and did practice questions with him when he did get the interviews. I've done everything I possibly could to support him. He presently works at a car salvage/junkyard to pay the bills, and we've discussed how it's not a future. Well, a few weeks ago he said that he thinks he wants to give up on teaching and just do labor. I don't really understand why he is changing his mind, and I have some theories, but regardless, he seems pretty determined and is looking at mechanic jobs near my grad school.

I feel kind of blindsided. For the last six months, he's hemmed and hawed and dragged me around about this whole job thing, and now he's completely changing our plans for the future without asking or talking to me about it! I want to be supportive, and I want him to be happy in his job, but I am so upset. I feel like he should have been talking to me about it, and I feel like I was not given any room to object. I keep trying to remind myself that he's still the same person I married, but it's like everything I saw for the future is gone. And he tries to say it will be the same and asks me what I want, but it's hard to articulate the change. He says the money will be comparable, but right now, he's not certified or "skilled" in anything beyond just having extensive experience working on machinery. And it's just so disheartening. I'm getting my PhD so we can't settle down now, but we were engaged through his Master's and mine and we'd talked about this whole future and I just feel like we talked about what we wanted for the future, and now he's changing it. Everyone is allowed to change their careers or their opinions; I understand that, but why not tell me while it was going on? Why not consider that it affects me, too? Why not ask what I think about it, rather than just tell me that you're going to do it, too bad. And then I feel like an even worse person for having a problem with it. Not to mention feeling like I've been lied to for months. I don't know what to think. So he had trouble getting a job, we could work through it together, like how I tried to help him find job postings and things. I feel like it's been me v. him, instead of us v. the world. And for what it's worth, he enjoyed teaching when he was doing it. Part of my frustration is that he complains and won't do things, but if I drag him to something, he always enjoys it anyway. I KNOW and truly believe that if he'd have gotten the teaching job he was in the final 2 for, none of this would be an issue, and he'd be fine teaching.

Sorry. It's kind of late. I'm not sure if this is coherent or not. But I just don't know what to think. I don't mean for it to sound like my biggest issue is money, just that I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I'm getting a PhD and education is hugely important to me. My DH and I talk about couples with gaps because his brother, who has a high school diploma is dating a girl in college and they have some issues, and it's why I broke up with my ex (I was in undergrad and he had just a high school diploma). So even though my DH has a Master's, he's going to work in a job that is essentially high school diploma level. I guess I should have explained that earlier, too. Like he talks differently and acts differently depending on who he is around, and he's like a different person between when he's at the yard and when he was teaching. I worry that he acts differently. When he was teaching, he would get home early, go to the gym, want to talk to me in the evening and be more energetic. In a manual labor job, understandable, he is tired. He goes in early and works late. He is quiet and withdrawn, and he is surrounded by people who make racist/sexist comments all the time. Before, being in school tempered that, but he's been making some pretty objectionable comments. I tell him to stop, and he does, but I can't help but think that it's that kind of culture, which just extends my worry to the future. Is that what it's going to be like? Is he going to turn into a blue collar stereotype?

@labluver: Thanks.

@Mollytov: He said that he liked the students and the job. He didn't like how the teachers were clique-ish? He didn't really explain it very well. He said it was the "environment." But I feel like there is good and bad at every job, and he based that off of the ONE school district where he was a long term substitute and didn't really make friends since it was a temporary thing. I think it may be an expectations thing, and I hope that I just need time to adjust. I think the worst is feeling blindsided and worrying that everything we talked about before we got married as the futures we planned isn't going to be possible. But, too, it bothers me that he wouldn't work on it with me, and even now when I'm at the point of going to counseling about it, I'm on my own. 

@Mollytov: Thank you! Part of my problem is that I keep wondering if I'm making a big deal out of something that shouldn't be. People change jobs all the time; that's his prerogative, right? But I feel so crappy about it!