I think the ideal woman, upon hearing that her husband is laid off, would offer words of encouragement, insist everything will be ok, cook up a roast beef, and bake an apple pie. I ain’t no June Cleaver and certainly no ideal woman. My uncontrollable sobs were probably the last thing Dean wanted to deal with. I couldn’t help it. The emotions just poured out.
Recently we had gotten into a fight about the timeframe on when to have kids. I was a late bloomer. I don’t want kids until I’m in my late thirties and please don’t comment on the risk I’ll be taking. If I can’t have ’em, I can’t have ’em. There’s this process called adoption, ever heard of it? So Dean was on my case about having kids fairly soon after we get married. We really did get into a bit of a row over it.
Then I come home to the news of a layoff. I was laughing and crying at the same time. “So you want to have kids on one salary with all of us living in a studio? What a joke! And you have the nerve to yell at me about having babies right away?” It was a tense conversation and I have to say Dean took the verbal lashing in stride.
But I had to plead with him to sign up for unemployment. He shrugged, “Unemployment’s the last resort. I’ll find a job in no time.” I had to sit him down in front of my laptop and insist he fill out the forms.
“How are you going to pay for rent without an income coming in?” I was thoroughly exasperated. “Get your ass on the dole!”
Since day one, Dean has been up every morning, working on leads, interviewing, following-up. The other day he didn’t feel well. I told him he should sleep in, but he persevered. “Nope, I gotta work.”
I truly believe you get a job through your network so I’ve been posting it online, writing about it in my blog. I let anyone and everyone know. A friend of mine asked yesterday, “Does Dean like it that you make his job search public? It would bother me (guys like to pretend to be strong and do not need help).” You know what? I don’t care. No, Dean doesn’t like it. But he better like the fact that I’ve given him several solid leads. Yeah, through me!
Maybe the way that I stand up for my man isn’t what’s acceptable, but neither is being unemployed and whatever I can do to help, I’ll do it—whether he likes it or not.
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