Husband Finds Career: The Payoff

 My husband became a military veteran at the tender age of 21.

The cause of his discharge? a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,

which affects a large percentile of our military personnel.

With this discharge came the end of a career. 

He believed this is what his life was meant to be about,

but after just two years serving, 

he was back at home with his parents, trying to sort his future out.

Within just a few months, he was setup with the Department of Veterans Affairs

and awarded a disability compensation check.

He would claim this every month for years to come.

If you aren't familiar with these allowances,

they are about the equivalent of having a 30-hour work week

at a place like Target or Home Depot.

For the first few years, while still living at home,

he was set. This was more than enough to cover expenses

while he set off on the next adventure:

going to college, also paid for by the VA.

After meeting me, later getting married 

and starting out on our life together without help from family,

It was clear that this check would not be quite enough,

Though it would increase slightly over the years.

When he did discover his ideal college major path,

he would need to use that degree right away to enter a field.

College for myself and most all of my peers was a four-year deal.

We graduated from high school, moved hours away from our 

childhood homes, and lived on or off campus at our alma mater of choice.

After the conclusion of senior year, most of us would receive a degree

and go out into the world to find an occupation.

Except that for me, in the year 2009, a recession was in its thickest.

There was no career....and I had not applied myself well enough at school

to get noticed by anyone who was looking for an intern.

The next few years would be spent fumbling around in part-time mall store jobs,

until I found a full-time job as a bank teller.

Banking would become by career path from the year 2011 onward.

My degree in Public Relations would not ever come into play as it was meant to.

For my husband, who was being awarded one allowance every month

(regardless of whether he poured over textbooks and trained at the gym

or sat idle in front of a video game console) 

and another allowance on the months that he attended college classes,

the sense of urgency was not there.

Without that pressing feeling of knowing that a parent's money

was being shelled out for his higher education,

and that said education needed to be completed 

neatly within a four-year box,

He was free.

He was able to switch majors, switch schools,

take semesters off for mental health reasons

and ponder over and over what he really wanted to do

Vs. What was the smart move fiscally for his future.

When I met him, two months after I exited my own alma mater's campus

and into a harsh world with the reality of no readily available employers,

he was just entering community college.

He would complete it in the fall of 2011, 

around the same time as I would discover the possibilities

that opened up to me if I was a bank teller.

It was also the same time that we broke off our relationship

for several months.

With an AA under his belt,

the now 24-year-old veteran would decide to apply for a local university.

Circumstances would later cause him to take a pause.

But he would not return to the university on his next attempt.

Instead, the fall after we were married, he would attend classes at my own

former private college. 

His degrees would be in accounting.

I wish I could say that after just two happy years

(He already had an AA and two years of college credit)

he would walk across the stage and everything would be 

peachy keen, 

but sadly that was not the case.

Over the next six years, we would both face many trials

make mistakes,

and learn from those mistakes.

He would change his direction more than once.

He would take some time off for personal reasons.

I would lose my bank job after nearly six years,

work part-time in retail for six months,

and find another bank job.

We would have a baby.

And now that it is the fall of 2020,

he is finally within weeks of his graduation ceremony.

Despite all of the odds, he is a dean's list student with four majors.

During that low-point a few years ago,

when I was between careers myself

and my husband had taken time off of school 

to deal with personal matters,

I suddenly looked at our rather dire financial situation

and was full of rage.

Rage mostly at myself, but some at him.

At that point, I had known him for nearly nine years

and during that entire course of our relationship,

he had never held a job.

He had spoken of little starter jobs he had before the military,

when he was just 17 or 18.

He told tales of his tenure as a clerk at Blockbuster,

a busboy at Village Inn and later Chilis, 

a receptionist at some medical office.

But since that day in June 2009 when we met,

he had not once gotten up in the morning to don a uniform polo shirt

and rush off to an employer's office.

Of course, when I was just 21 myself, I didn't care.

I was working dodgy part-time hours at some outlet mall store

and he was bringing in a check from being a new veteran

and we were free to party all summer long in a whirlwind season of romance.

After that, life set in heavy like a wet blanket with rocks on top.

and we both struggled, together as a couple and independently as two new adults,

to navigate finding a "real" job for me and 

managing PTSD while attending community college classes for him.

It was brutal at times.

We broke up for awhile.

We got back together.

I found my bank job.

He moved 30 miles away with his family,

and his clunker car couldn't carry him back to town very often.

He found a way to come back to me and we got married.

He started classes at a full-time college.

So much was happening all at once that I leant little thought 

to the fact that he did not go sit at a desk from 9-to-5 every day

or even stand behind a checkout counter somewhere.

Between the VA, my paycheck and some credit lines,

I didn't worry much at all.

Until our finances collapsed during said low point in 2017 and 2018.

I could only find a part-time job for six months and I urged him to do the same.

I had come from a cushy 9-to-5 myself, complete with weekends off,

and had been thrown headlong into late nights, 

being on my feet, and no freedom on Saturday or even Sunday.

I didn't think it was fair that he was at home,

taking a mental breather from his life,

While I couldn't find enough rhythm anywhere in my week

to catch my breath myself.

I urged him to join me in this less-than-desirable hustle of retail

....and he refused.

He had many reasons, none of which I could understand at the time.

Later, it would turn out to work in our favor.

But at the time, my rage was fueled by so much fear.

What if he doesn't think he can handle a workplace, a boss, coworkers,

being told what to do, not being "free" to do what he pleases with his time?

No job that I had heard about, that he could obtain with little background, appealed to him.

He would find a reason to decline applying for everything I could come up with.

Later, I would get to leave the retail store and return to banking.

And I would realize that I don't wish the unreliable hours 

and lack of opportunity for advancement on anyone.

Then, I would give birth to our son and my husband would become a stay-at-home dad.

He would return to classes but still be home far more than I was.

Now it was like the VA was paying him to babysit.

And if he had a part-time-retail paycheck, it would have been eaten up

by daycare tuition.

But let's return to the topic of my rage and fear for a moment.

I never would have had that, had it not been for underlying doubt

planted in my mind by nay-sayers over time.

When I chose a PTSD veteran for a boyfriend in 2009,

people didn't look twice at first.

When the PTSD rared up and became much more apparent

in 2010, no one wanted to see us be together.

Family and friends alike always had the same feedback:

"You're still young (I was 22), why not find a stable man with a good job

and a nice house?" 

And at 22 the only logical comeback I had for that was 

"The heart wants what it wants".

I was confused and unstable myself at the time,

but I genuinely felt that God had sent him to me and that

I was to stay by him in one form or another.

We had a few short break-ups before our longest one in 2011.

During those times, I tried to heed advice from friends

and go on a few dates with some so-and-so that someone knew.

The result was always the same:

I encountered a nice guy who had a better plan for his future

and no fits of anxiety or erratic behavior,

but I felt no chemistry.

I wasn't going to settle for someone whom I had no connection with.

My husband and I had a great connection at first,

and the still-young-still-willing-to-do-anything-in-the-name-of-love 

early 20's version of me was on a campaign to prove to the world

that I knew the real him underneath the PTSD.

Demons and damaged exterior aside, 

a man with a golden heart and strong values lie beneath.

I would reveal him, like the superhero that I was.

The next several years would deconstruct that part of my 

girl-ego.

But I would press on and fight for him,

even after a long break up in which we went 

totally at odds for a few months.

In 2014, when we were heading for the altar,

some people had learned to share my optimism about him

and others reluctantly agreed to give it a chance.

As he and I would face an incredible number of challenges

over the next several years,

naysayers would still come out of the woodworks.

Some were easy to shut down,

but others were my own girlfriends and to shun them

would be to lose a friendship.

I walked away from four of these friendships.

One was friend that I'd had since middle school,

and she died less than a year after I blocked her number.

In fact, one of the reasons I lost my bank job was because

I was trying to get away from an office full of naysayers-

but the other job I was to go to fell through at the last second.

During the low point with no money,

the naysayers were still at my back like vultures.

My own father, who had quietly let us make our mistakes,

was now reminding me "This is the life I chose".

It was all starting to make me crack.

If I could convince my husband to get a job,

Even if it was just a clerk at a pack-and-ship depot or a bartender, 

it would show everyone around us that 

"he was fine.

I was fine.

It was all fine.

Everything was fine."

Instead, I had to get on my knees before God

and swallow the jagged pill that was the reality that 

I would go back into a full-time workforce

but he was not ready to launch.

In fact, it may very well have been God's plan

for me to get promoted and work my way up

while he stayed home with the kids.

This was something getting more common in today's society,

but it was the polar opposite of the structure of the family life

of both sets of our parents.

And when one chooses something that is nothing like 

how the parents pictured it would go for their child,

one bears the weight of their disappointment.

I swallowed it, and I trudged on into 2019 and 2020.

Finally, we come to the home stretch.

My husband is wrapping up his spring 2020 semester

and earning two of the four degrees, 

with only one more semester to go-

and the Covid-19 pandemic happens.

UH-OH.

From the middle of march until the end of the semester,

he is reverted to classes online at home.

The VA states that they only pay for the veteran to attend

physical classes.... but this is a new and scary worldwide event.

So they acquiesce and his pay is unaffected.

This means that babysitters are not needed.

We save money.

When the pandemic doesn't end after a month and is drawn out

into the summertime, 

The only way for him to complete some of the classes

is to do summer school online.

He is paid for this too.

He was never paid in the summer before.

When fall approaches, and covid cases are still mounting,

the school offers him the chance to take all of the remaining classes online.

The VA continues to cover them.

We now do not have to pay for childcare in the fall either.

We also receive our stimulus check like the rest of America.

I am an essential worker, so my tenure is unaffected.

It is as he is going into his online fall classes that something occurs to him:

He does not have to sit in a classroom for most of the day 

so he is now free to consider looking for his new accounting job early.

Originally, he would walk the stage in mid-December and then 

most likely would have to wait for the holidays to be over

before he could find opportunities. 

This would make it January 2021 before he could apply.   

With a pandemic raging in the world outside, 

more fearful thoughts raced through my head.

What if all of the jobs were cancelled, since offices had been forced to close?

What if the ones that are still hiring are only hiring candidates with experience?

What if they look at his resume and see that he hasn't worked in 11 years?

I remembered my own shattered dreams as I left college in 2009,

during a recession.

My husband, unlike me, has held a 4.0 GPA

and has aspired for four degrees instead of one.

He is far more intelligent than I am.

I knew this would shorten the time it would take him to find something,

but the pandemic and the lack of recent experience would still go against him.

Realistically, it could be no earlier than March 

but as late as summer before he could land something.

I was happy to be proven wrong.

He put in dozens of applications in just a few short weeks,

receiving three or four interviews at the end of September,

and by the beginning of October he was hired to be an intern at a CPA firm

with potential to most likely become permanent there by spring.

He landed this in October.

When he thought it would be January and I thought it would be more like April.

The VA still has to pay him for school on top of all of this.

I went into this year with so much worry about how we would pay our bills.

He was set to run out of VA allowance for school before the fall semester,

which would make paying for childcare hard in those final months.

There was no telling how rough the career front would be for him to navigate.

But month-by-month, I watched God build a financial "bridge" to the next months.

This "bridge" covered the entire year and will extend into 2021.

Damage from 2017 and 2018 is healed.

Forgiveness is granted.

The main point of this story: MY HUSBAND FOUND A JOB.

It didn't take years.

It didn't take working his way up from a blue-collar situation over time.

He found it, and he found it a few months early.

And he likes it. A lot.

I worried that if you took him out of his home with his freedom to 

do what he pleases with his spare time

and placed him into an office where he had tasks delegated to him

by someone else all day,

he would be miserable.

But I failed to take into account that he can be a workaholic,

one that won't stop until the job is done.

This means he keeps asking his new boss for more to do.

And his boss likes his focus and how quickly he learns the processes.

God delivered this aspect of the situation too.

And now that it's on the resume, he will have his foot in the door-

so to speak.

Accountant jobs are abundant and literally found in every city.

So to all the naysayers, who doubted me when I chose to love 

an unemployed PTSD Veteran....

I told you that if I stuck by him, one day he would rise above it all

and the long wait would pay off.