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Just as I thought, there is more to the story. And if we heard her side we might be even more enlightened. It's time one or both of them made up their minds on what career path they want to take.
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Originally Posted by dazzleman
Their jobs or the state they live in isn't their problem. They need to grow up and start acting like adults. Until that happens, they won't succeed anywhere.
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Originally Posted by andthentherewere3
They need to realize they have serious responsibilities now, it's not just them anymore, they have a child. And we really have too little information to be wildly insulting either of them.
STEM teachers are in demand not only in CT but everywhere. With your friends education he could be a Science teacher. I have a friend whose husband lost his job in finance on Wall Street in 2009 and he went back to school to be a science teacher. Now he has a stable job and he does not have to travel to NYC.
That is not as easy as the media makes it, I am one of those people who tried that route. If you do do it, try to fully go back to school rather than do an "Accelerated program" as I did to save time and money. Until 2009, it indeed was quite easy to get a math or science teaching job, and while many still do and the STEM teaching market is starting to improve, it is usually people who did the "traditional route" that get the jobs quickly. This is not to say that it is impossible to get a job through an accelerated cert program, some in my group did but most like me ended up pieceing together p/t teaching and tutoring jobs with some long term subbing, or they did get a job and lost it the next year because of budget cuts (due to union rules, in most districts the newer teachers get laid off first in that situation) and are back to the l/t sub, p/t teaching/tutoring situation (which often pays the equivalent of about $15-20/hr).
I had 2 ex-Wall Streeters in my CT alt cert group for teaching math, one did get a job (but only 3 years after the program), lost it, then got another one a year later, the other is in my situation.
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Originally Posted by CTartist&musician
3) Bankruptcy (Avoid at all costs if possible, it is very hard to get new jobs with a bankruptcy on your record.)
Somewhat disagree on this point. Working in the financial industry is almost impossible with one, and there is a lot of controversy about some companies using your credit report to help decide whether to hire you, but if their credit is already shot, bankruptcy would probably improve it over time and make them more likely to get a job in that situation (except perhaps again in the financial industry, for a bank, etc.). Most would prefer they at least did something about their debts and have become responsible since than still be mired in unpaid debt they can virtually never repay. And to some degree, some companies have recognized that people have lived through hard times the last few years......
This woman is your typical affluent background my daddy always took care of me and now I'm looking for a man to do the same.
Tell your friend to drop the dead weight cause she is going to slow him down on his objectives.
No. No. No.......
This woman HAS A YOUNG CHILD that I believe is under 1 YR. Hello men on here, that is a very hard job. BTW, she is trying to bring money into the house by selling Avon so it is not like she just sitting home doing nothing. She has the hard job of trying to bring in extra money and balancing that with motherhood of a young child and in this CT economy that must be a most difficult task.
If I were a mom with a young child to take care of and my husband quit his job and wanted to try a bunch of jobs to be happy I would be freaking out. Thank you OP for making the second post so we can get a better understanding of what is going on.
I remember when my siblings and I were young my dad would work 2 jobs if need be to support us and it mattered not if he was happy or not. My dad was a smart man who went on to own his own successful business but before his business he drove a cab at night and the weekends to make extra money and it was not beneath him even though he was educated. The only thing that mattered was to support his family. My mom did not go back to work until we were all out of elementary school and even still she only worked part time. Not one of my neighbors with children under HS age work full time. BEING A MOM IS HARD.
How can you call a woman who gave him a child (and the child) "dead weight"?
For the record I am a woman in case you didn't guess that.
I grew up in Connecticut, but moved away mostly after high school, and haven't lived there at all for nine years. One of my oldest friends called me up for advice today, as he was having a major life crisis, and I wanted to see what people who are still residents of the state think.
Essentially his life has been falling apart. Both he and his wife have been trading down in jobs for years. He initially had a couple good jobs, and kept trading upward. His career peaked a few years back, but he was commuting all the way to northern New Jersey since he couldn't find anything good in the state, and the commute was killing him. Since then he's worked a raft of temporary jobs, which increasingly haven't even required a college degree. He's desperate for something steady which pays at least $15 per hour. My understanding is his wife is in about the same situation - she used to work for a private equity firm, hated the job, and quit, and now mostly makes money by doing Avon.
They own a house in Stratford. They made the mistake of buying right before the housing bubble burst. They have been steadily underwater since then, which meant despite their desires to move out of the state, they felt trapped. Now they bring in so little money they are in danger of losing the home.
Add to this a recent car issue, which takes money to fix they do not have. Also a newborn baby boy.His wife basically told him she can't deal with the stress any longer, and if something didn't change she was going to leave him and move in with her parents.
I told him that he shouldn't take all of this personally...stress hurts marriages, and Connecticut remains a high-cost area with relatively bad job prospects. I advised him that doing the same thing he has been doing will not have any better results, and if he wanted to save his marriage and his sanity, he needed to declare bankruptcy, ditch the house, and move out-of-state to somewhere with a better job market.
Thoughts?
My Thoughts:
She's going to move in with her parents who will take care of her and her newborn and also file for divorce pronto, this is her plan period and not if it's going to happen as her father the lawyer (doesn't matter what law he practices) has already advised his daughter if she didn't come up with it already of what's going to take place. Almost bank on this! The only thing financially she'll suffer is a negative credit portfolio from the loss of the house as her parents will pick up the financial slack for her till she figures out on how to sought her life, perhaps with another man?
It's what he's going to do as he's going to be left holding the financial bag all around including many years of child support payments and even then doesn't mean she's going to allow him to see his son. Getting a whatever job wherever is the least of his worries sadly. In fact the judge in the divorce proceedings may tell him to "man up" and work several jobs to satisfy the monthly child support awarded to his then ex.
He should have hated to "do it" with his wife that has been planning getting pregnant for that monthly Child Support - you won't convince me otherwise. She's not that innocent wife as by the laws was seeking the easy way out as things haven't been good for quite some time and "stress" by her is a convenient excuse amongst others she'll come up with against him imho.
I heard of this scenario (face to face from others over the years) more times than I can count.
This woman HAS A YOUNG CHILD that I believe is under 1 YR. Hello men on here, that is a very hard job. BTW, she is trying to bring money into the house by selling Avon so it is not like she just sitting home doing nothing. She has the hard job of trying to bring in extra money and balancing that with motherhood of a young child and in this CT economy that must be a most difficult task.
If I were a mom with a young child to take care of and my husband quit his job and wanted to try a bunch of jobs to be happy I would be freaking out. Thank you OP for making the second post so we can get a better understanding of what is going on.
I remember when my siblings and I were young my dad would work 2 jobs if need be to support us and it mattered not if he was happy or not. My dad was a smart man who went on to own his own successful business but before his business he drove a cab at night and the weekends to make extra money and it was not beneath him even though he was educated. The only thing that mattered was to support his family. My mom did not go back to work until we were all out of elementary school and even still she only worked part time. Not one of my neighbors with children under HS age work full time. BEING A MOM IS HARD.
How can you call a woman who gave him a child (and the child) "dead weight"?
For the record I am a woman in case you didn't guess that.
I hear ya, I had jobs I didn't like either, and just like your dad went on to open a business as well. Selling Avon is not a reliable source of income because it's a want based business. I'm in automotive and have been since my military career ended, people need their cars serviced and repaired, people don't need Avon. I'm certified in automotive systems and a licensed vehicle safety inspector, if I lived where this couple lived Id fix there car for free just to help them out.
I was once a young man myself, had a crap job, found out I was gonna have a baby, fell in love with a girl, (stupid thing to do) and I had to make a decision. So old Armyvet1 here went ahead and joined the United States Army. After 8 weeks of basic of training at Fort Knox Kentucky, I went on to to study mechanics at Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland, worked as a military mechanic in Germany, did weapons calibrations, and got to take some leadership courses as well. When I got out of the service I had job opportunities galore, between 18.50 to 25 dollars an hour.
And that girl I fell in love with? 21 years later we're still together, we have 2 boys, our youngest turned 18 today.
It doesn't matter how you start out, it only matters where you're headed. People do face challenges, life is full of bumps in the road, the only people that never succeed are the ones who quit. High speed low drag, Army Strong!
The house is underwater. They would have to short sale the house and most likely have to pay the bank back a substantial amount of money. That is why they are so stressed out, they don't have to many options when to comes to their house. I used to work in a bank doing mortgages so I understand their situation. They are certainly in a difficult situation. They are caught between a rock and a hard place right now as are so many people in this state.
Here are the options for the house:
1) Short Sale
2) Go into the bank, ask to speak with someone in the mortgage department. Toss the house keys on the his/hers desk, tell them you are walking away from the house, start playing hardball and tell them you need to negotiate the terms of the loan. (I would do that right now).
I don't think you realize how many houses in Fairfield County that are still in the pipeline for foreclosure, the banks do not want to take over anymore properties.
3) Bankruptcy (Avoid at all costs if possible, it is very hard to get new jobs with a bankruptcy on your record.)
4) Rent out the house and move in with her parents or a small inexpensive apartment until you can figure things out.
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Originally Posted by eschaton
My friend and his wife are not from poor backgrounds. We grew up middle class in Trumbull. He has a double BS in Geology and Astronomy. He was a pretty good student, but he was the kind of guy who always took 21 credits and had two incompletes at the end of a semester - always biting off more than he could chew. He started a bunch of graduate programs later on, including an MBA, but I'm unsure if he finished any of them.
After college, he ended up sort of backing into quality control testing for food manufacturing companies, which he did for around seven years. I never asked how much he made, but I presumed it was somewhere above $50,000, but under $100,000, because at the time he considered my salary (I work in a nonprofit type job) as being "too small." The last job involved a two-hour commute to Northern New Jersey, and he was slowly being retrained to be a manager, and he decided he hated management. He quit right around when his wife was pregnant, thinking he'd be able to find something better closer to home, which he hasn't.
Honestly, he's always been the kind of guy who changes his mind frequently about what he wants to do. In recent years he's considered joining the Coast Guard, becoming a landscape architect, and being adjunct faculty somewhere (which I explained was an awful job). But he is pretty highly educated.
I don't know the educational background of his wife, but her father was a lawyer and lives in Westchester County, so I'm sure she got a pretty good degree from somewhere. As I said, she had some sort of law-related job at a venture capital firm when they first married, but she hated it and quit. At one point she wanted to go back to school to be a vet, but that didn't work out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andthentherewere3
LOL the wife is not a soldier. And what "objectives" of the husband's are you referring to? The husband can't make up his mind what career path he wants to take. Neither can the wife. They need to realize they have serious responsibilities now, it's not just them anymore, they have a child. And we really have too little information to be wildly insulting either of them.
This is going to keep me laughing all day, thank you.
That's why I'm here, to add humor to your lives..hahaha
I hear ya, I had jobs I didn't like either, and just like your dad went on to open a business as well. Selling Avon is not a reliable source of income because it's a want based business. I'm in automotive and have been since my military career ended, people need their cars serviced and repaired, people don't need Avon. I'm certified in automotive systems and a licensed vehicle safety inspector, if I lived where this couple lived Id fix there car for free just to help them out.
I was once a young man myself, had a crap job, found out I was gonna have a baby, fell in love with a girl, (stupid thing to do) and I had to make a decision. So old Armyvet1 here went ahead and joined the United States Army. After 8 weeks of basic of training at Fort Knox Kentucky, I went on to to study mechanics at Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland, worked as a military mechanic in Germany, did weapons calibrations, and got to take some leadership courses as well. When I got out of the service I had job opportunities galore, between 18.50 to 25 dollars an hour.
And that girl I fell in love with? 21 years later we're still together, we have 2 boys, our youngest turned 18 today.
It doesn't matter how you start out, it only matters where you're headed. People do face challenges, life is full of bumps in the road, the only people that never succeed are the ones who quit. High speed low drag, Army Strong!
I grew up in Connecticut, but moved away mostly after high school, and haven't lived there at all for nine years. One of my oldest friends called me up for advice today, as he was having a major life crisis, and I wanted to see what people who are still residents of the state think.
Essentially his life has been falling apart. Both he and his wife have been trading down in jobs for years. He initially had a couple good jobs, and kept trading upward. His career peaked a few years back, but he was commuting all the way to northern New Jersey since he couldn't find anything good in the state, and the commute was killing him. Since then he's worked a raft of temporary jobs, which increasingly haven't even required a college degree. He's desperate for something steady which pays at least $15 per hour. My understanding is his wife is in about the same situation - she used to work for a private equity firm, hated the job, and quit, and now mostly makes money by doing Avon.
They own a house in Stratford. They made the mistake of buying right before the housing bubble burst. They have been steadily underwater since then, which meant despite their desires to move out of the state, they felt trapped. Now they bring in so little money they are in danger of losing the home.
Add to this a recent car issue, which takes money to fix they do not have. Also a newborn baby boy. His wife basically told him she can't deal with the stress any longer, and if something didn't change she was going to leave him and move in with her parents.
I told him that he shouldn't take all of this personally...stress hurts marriages, and Connecticut remains a high-cost area with relatively bad job prospects. I advised him that doing the same thing he has been doing will not have any better results, and if he wanted to save his marriage and his sanity, he needed to declare bankruptcy, ditch the house, and move out-of-state to somewhere with a better job market.
Thoughts?
I don't understand why the wife would deliver him an ultimatum of leaving with their child to move in with her family as opposed to the couple and their child living with her family. She's the one who quit a good job in trade of selling Avon.
I definitely agree with everyone who says they need to grow up. The fact that she left her job to take some crappy pyramid scheme sales job over a stable full-time gig because she "didn't like it" is just crazy at such a time in their life. "Finding yourself" is what you're supposed to do when you're 16 with some friends on the backyard deck with a beer you stole from your dads fridge while staring up at the stars, not while you have an effing kid, a husband and a house.
As for him, he shouldn't have to drive to NJ to find a 15/hr job. After gas and tolls, a 12/hr gig here in CT would prob result in the same amount of disposable income.
There are plenty of valid reasons to leave CT, it just doesn't sound to me like it's something they truly want and I don't think they've really exhausted all options yet. I'm not a lawyer, real estate agent, or financial adviser, but selling an upside down house when your broke doesn't sound like a good idea. They would lose money, thereby making their situation even worse.
I think most banks have a resident financial adviser that will speak with you for free if you have an account, they should at least seek [free] professional advise to start and work from there.
Good advise is to remind them they are PARENTS now. They need to suck up their pride and do what is best for the child, not their personal desires.If she doesn't like being a corporate slave then TFB. If he cant afford the house on one job then he needs to get a second one. With all the time he was wasting commuting to NJ he could have had an additional part time job within 20 miles of his house--making MORE money, not WASTING money driving and paying tolls.
A buddy of mine knew this old very successful guy, like 70 years old and he had the best inspirational parable ever "If I couldn't find work I'd shovel horse s^%t. in a month I'd be managing the stables and in a year I'd own the place." That guy is more than comfortable in his retirement and boy does he have a great work ethic.
Last edited by Sigequinox; 08-30-2014 at 05:10 PM..
I talked to one of our mutual friends, and found out more details.
First, his wife actually has a law degree herself, and was working as a corporate lawyer in Manhattan for several years. She got burnt out, both because she hated the job and hated the long commute on the train. So she decided to quit her job and sell Mary Kay (not Avon). She's done some paralegal work since then too, but hasn't used her law degree since.
Second, he didn't tell me this, but apparently the car issues he caused were the result of a near miss with a horrible accident - while the baby was in the car. Apparently this happened the other week and was sort of the breaking point which made things go from bad to worse in their relationship.
To be honest, I'm not interested in pointing fingers here. I think they both have made stupid decisions (both regarding career choices and choosing this time to have a kid). I'm the same age as my friend (35), I've been married for as long, and I have two kids. My wife and I went through some trying times ourselves when we had a new baby even though money wasn't involved - enough that I requested marriage counseling. I know enough about what stress does to marriages, and why marriages fail, at this point to realize assigning blame actually makes things worse. The single biggest determinant of marriage failure is high stress. And since they can't get rid of the stress of having a baby, my only thought for a solution was to lessen financial stress by getting out from under their liabilities, reducing their living expenses, and moving somewhere the job market was stronger.
Also, as I intimated, they both wanted to "downsize" into other, lower-pay (but low stress white collar) careers anyway. And they have wanted to leave CT for at least three years and been trapped due to the house value. So I figured it was just showing them a way out of the trap. Admittedly, I'm not sure from her perspective why she'd move out of state with a husband from a failing marriage.
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