Is it me or the pandemic?

The past 2 years have been so hard on my marriage. I’m a gay man, my husband and I moved from our small hometown in 2019 to the Bay Area for a job opportunity. We had wanted to move to a larger city for sometime and this just seemed like such a great opportunity.

When the pandemic hit my husband‘s job at a start up became untenable for him and he ended up quitting. I understood why and because I work in HR I knew much of what they were doing were not legal employment practices. He ended up going on unemployment which was OK because the expended benefits were decent so it wasn’t too much loss of money. But time went on and he just stopped looking for work in part because I think he was over the rat race and corporate America and I didn’t know what to do with himself. Eventually he used up all his benefits and we were out of the unemployment and he still was not making efforts to look for employment. And his spending went up. He would compulsively buy things and not consult me. Small things and large. He went all of the rest of 2020 without working and finally started again in September of 2021. Summer of 2021 was the hardest on us and we nearly split up. He went on 5 trips in 4 weeks in July and added thousands of dollars to our credit card debt. It was some kind of aweful midlife crisis and breakdown for him. We navigated through it barely.

he started working again in September in a new industry which he likes so much more. I thought it would finally break through his depression over not working and not contributing financially but he’ll have a hard day and it will just destroy our week because he’ll be so sensitive that the smallest hiccup with send him spiraling and we’ll end up having a huge fight. We’ve had a rough Fall with him in this state and I’ve told him I really need him to go see a therapist. He says he realizes he does too but he hasn’t taken any action on it. I myself am not a perfect person and struggle with being emotionally supportive. In a very structured and action-oriented person so being more empathic is something I’m working on. he says I don’t make him feel heard and acknowledged.

He says working and career will never be a priority for him. He says the pandemic taught him he’s not going to sacrifice his mental health for a company and chase a salary. I get it. That makes a certain sense but I’m frustrated that he doesn’t recognize the financial impact and doesn’t change his spending behavior. I make a good salary and if push came to shove could support us on my own but not without significant change to our lifestyle that I don’t see him making. If we can work harder on fixing our current financial situation it’s likely eventually I’ll land a higher paying job and he wouldn’t have to work and maybe go back to school like he’s been thinking of.

im frustrated and loosing my ability to be a supportive partner because I feel I’m at my wits end. I may seek therapy myself, and maybe once we both work on each other we can do some marriage counseling.

I told him back in November I wanted him to be making progress finding a therapist by the end of January and he hasn’t. He is however currently on a vacation in Mexico with friends probably on unpaid time of. He used his holiday bonus to pay for the flight and hotel so that’s fine it just chaps me a bit because I can’t understand his priorities.