So seeing the in-laws went better than expected. They acknowledged my existence by saying hello (but not much else). But leading up seeing them made me absolutely sick. And way to make the acid in my stomach churn even louder, Dan lost his job. O-M-G.
I can't say that I'm terribly shocked Dan is in the financial industry and he's been predicting the current economic climate for over a year now. He mentally prepared me for the fact that his job might be in trouble. But I rationalized to him and in my head why his job would be safe. Why would they get rid of Dan?I thought to myself. Oh we'll be fine. Cross that bridge when we come to it.Alas, we've come to it.
Dan called me the day he got laid off and told me he was let go. Thankfully, he received a severance. But he came home that day, crying. "I let you down," he said to me as we hugged.
"No you didn't. They're assholes," I said back.
I made some dinner and we split a bottle of wine. He got on the phone and talked to some friends and his sister. Then we got into bed, both of us with knots in our stomach. We were reading as we do every night and Dan suddenly projectile vomited all over the place. Double O-M-G. On the sheets, the bed skirt, the wall, the floor. He ran to the bathroom and puked all over. Then he shivered and cried and I tucked him into the guest bed. And I proceeded to clean up all the barf. (Just an aside: I've never cleaned up anyone's puke in my life. The fact that I did it for Dan without saying a word to him about it while I gagged at the stench is proof that I love that man with all my heart!) And after the towels and sheets were in the washing machine, I aired out our room, and got back into bed, I didn't sleep a wink, thinking about:
a) My salary doesn't cover our mortgage. TRIPLE O-M-G.
b) My husband is so stressed out that he puked his guts out everywhere. Holy crap. This is bad. This is really bad.
We've got savings, so we're okay for a while. But it seems like EVERY SINGLE COMPANY is laying people off. Will Dan ever get a new job? Will he have to reinvent himself? Will we ultimately have to downsize? It's scary, for sure, but here's the optimist in me: I believe that every challenge that Dan and I face together including his job loss and even his dumb parents only make our marriage stronger. And as we move forward in our relationship, I've developed a huge amount of admiration for couples who hit those major anniversaries together 25 years, 30 years, or 40 years (which my parents are celebrating this year). Wow. In that amount of time, a couple has been through a lot together. I think of my grandparents, getting married during the Great Depression and having my mother on the brink of WWII, watching the atomic bomb on Japan. I think of my parents and how they got married while Vietnam was going on and then had children while they were lined up waiting for gas. And all the job losses that they endured over the years. And I say to myself, heck, if they can get through all that, then Dan and I can make it through this economic fiasco.
Posted by Jane
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