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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/soverylucky on 2023-09-07 18:13:30.

I was unemployed for about a year, four years ago. When it came up that I wasn’t immediately looking for work (I’d left a high stress job and needed time off to recover), no one batted an eye. The most common response was “I don’t blame you- I’d do the same if I could!” If it came up in conversation, the general assumption was that I was lucky. Near the end of my time off, we moved to a small town when my husband switched jobs. No one questioned this at all- it seemed perfectly natural. I was worried for a while about finding a comparable job for me there, but there seemed to be this unspoken understanding by our respective families and friend groups that his salary increase justified a potential loss of career for me. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that- I lucked out and found a local employer who first hired me in an office admin role but who later transitioned it to a role that fit my background. When I told people I’d gone back to work, most were surprised. Why would I work if my husband’s salary was enough to support us?

Fast forward a few years, and my husband’s job disappears (owner sold the business). Between his severance and my salary, we’re doing fine, and we decide he can take some time off before looking for a new job. However, when anyone is told, the response is immediate sympathy and surprise. Sympathy, because it’s such a tragedy that he lost his job, and because we must be hurting financially now, and therefore clearly need support. Shock when it’s announced that he isn’t looking for a new job.

Are we going to be ok? How are we going to cover expenses? What is he going to do with his free time? How is he coping? I’ve had multiple (older) people tell me in confidence that I need to be extra supportive right now, since men can be so fragile when they lose the status of provider.

Then there are the awkward pauses when we tell them that he’s loving unemployment, and that he’s taken on all the housekeeping chores and finally learned to cook*. He tells people that he’d love to permanently be the house-husband if I’d “let” him. Very few people know how to respond to that. I don’t think they believe him.

It’s been a couple of months now, and it’s not calming down. His parents said if we needed to sell our house, we could move in with them**. I’m frequently asked how we’re doing, and just get sympathetic looms when I say everything is fine.

Lately, the new question is if we’ll move back to the city to help with his job search. The assumption is there that of course I’d quit my job if he gets hired elsewhere. It’s just a given. I could kind of get it if the question was "what would you do if he gets a job offer back in (city), but it’s not even asked. It’s just assumed that of course I’d derail my career again and uproot and move, just for the possibility of helping him get a better job than what is offered locally.

I get that people are genuinely concerned for us, and I feel bad griping that we have such a loving, supportive network. I also know that we have never broadcast my salary, and that we live more frugally than a lot of people, and that we are very fortunate to be able to afford to live on either of our salaries.

Still, it is really starting to bug me that there is a general assumption that his job is more important than mine, that his salary is more important than mine, that his job is more important to his mental health, that I would love being the homemaker and he would hate it, and that, in general, my career is so easily replaceable compared to his. In short, I think it took him losing his job to make me realize how disposable mine is, in the eyes of most people around us.

*I previously did 100% of the cooking, which I didn’t mind because I enjoy it, and because he did 100% of the dishes afterwards.

*The horror I felt at this suggestion can’t be easily conveyed.