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Love in the Time of Layoff: Take This Heart and Shove It
It’s been a month since my husband Marco’s ex-firm broke up with him. And, like a romantic breakup, it takes time to heal—for us both.
I was on the road to such healing, eating ice cream in the middle of the day, when the doorbell rang. I finished a work call and opened the door. It was Marco’s ex-coworker, dropping off seven cardboard boxes filled with the remnants of Marco’s life with Ex-Firm. I felt a rush of betrayal. The ex-coworker is chipper and sweet, a decade or two my husband’s junior. The break-up is not his fault, but still, like a mama bear, I felt the intense desire to snarl.
“Tell Marco we all miss him a ton,” said junior coworker. The kid was sincere. I could tell he felt bad.
“I will,” I said, suppressing the urge to give him poison apples to bring back to the office. “And thanks, really,” I managed. I smiled and closed the door.
Anger swelled. Not only were our closets and storage unit packed (Where is this all going to fit?), the boxes were filled with gadgets, gizmos, photos, and books—rosy momentos from the past life. They triggered sadness. Marco and his team had been pals. We’d invited the partners to our wedding. I enjoyed his co-workers’ company. They were a crew of creatives who understood that “freelance writer” was actually a job. I really hoped we’d stay friends.
“That’s the last time I treat an office like it’s home,” said Marco when he came home that night from his freelance gig and surveyed the carnage.
Layoffs at small firms are hard not to take personally. But it was surprising to discover just how frustrating they can be when it happens to your partner and there’s nowhere to vent your rage. I knew it wasn’t personal, when the ax falls on you or your loved one, but I couldn’t help wonder: why us? The difference between this breakup and a love affair, of course, is that in January 2009 “us” meant 598,000 Americans whose jobs divorced them. There is dark comfort in knowing your pain is shared.
When a romantic relationship ends, if you’re like me you gather your girlfriends, eat chocolate, and kick into self-nurture mode. I find myself doing that now. Part of being in a relationship is that what happens to your partner happens to you. In these times of layoff, it’s not just the laid off but their spouses and partners who feel emotionally bruised.
The day after Marco’s Ex-Firm dumped him, I signed myself up for a surprisingly affordable Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Training course at my local JCC. Since Marco and I are trying to start a family, I suddenly needed a new arsenal for trying to keep calm. Every weekend since the layoff, I’ve made cookies. I spent a night at a nearby Ashram. Though I haven’t been able to splurge and replace my expensive lavender shower gel, I’m taking lots of baths.
Marco is further along in dealing with the pain of the breakup than I am at this point. The man’s had closure. On his last day of work, his colleagues took him for drinks. They toasted him. He’s since had cocktails with his ex-boss. In short, he said goodbyes.
But for me, the wound remains open. There’s so rarely an appropriate vehicle through which partners and spouses can give those who axed our beloveds a piece of our mind.
So on behalf of all the hearts broken by proxy, on behalf of all partners and spouses of the newly un- and underemployed, I say this:
Take this heart and shove it.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Deborah Siegel is the author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild and creator of the group blog Girl w/Pen.
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10 comments for “Love in the Time of Layoff: Take This Heart and Shove It”
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[...] I’m excited to bring you my new column over at Recessionwire.com: LOVE IN THE TIME OF LAYOFF: Take This Heart and Shove It. It’s a Valentine’s Day special in which I give my husbands ex-employers a lil piece [...]
We continue to dodge the lay off bullets here, and Canadians are surprisingly willing to buy into the idea that nothing like what is happening in the States could happen here. But, I see many of the same economic signs in the air as I did when I was in Iowa just two short years ago. I am not as sure.
Keep seeking your zen like center.
Awesome post, Deborah–it totally expresses the feeling of that perilous ex-co-worker existence. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Ellacec Publishing has released “Surviving a Layoff” by author Theresa Banks. Readers across the States should pick up a copy for themselves and their family, to learn additional strategies on how to survive a layoff. Books are available at amazon.com.
email – mail2banks@aol.com
web – http://www.myspace.com/ellacec
Oh wow. SPOT ON. someone once told me “you can’t understand what it’s like to be laid off until you’ve gone through it.” i nodded and rolled my eyes. then i got laid off. NOW i get it. it’s getting broken up with. it’s the “sorry, it’s me not you,” breakup, too, which is even more infuriating. BRAVO for this writing you’re doing.
Deep, thoughtful, progressive story of the pain of the layoff on the person and the family. Yes, it is that painful, being jilted. You feel alone, you need to heal, and worse, in this economy, you feel afraid. Excellent post, and thank you for sharing your feelings.
Just discovered this column, which couldn’t be more needed at this moment. Looking forward to future installments!
This is so foreign to me. If you will consider that statement thoughtfully and without bias to myself I will be grateful. I do not know this experience of personality. Deborah, you exhibit here and in the Slate linked article a personality so bountiful with beauty and grace of maturity and personal insight. That I in 25 years of marriage and 27 years in this relationship have not known what you have described in both posts. Is my wife’s need to exclaim disdain (never ending) so immature? She says she has the right to make it known that I have not made enough money. I am self employed, a general contractor and have not had jobs like I used to. With the fear of having little money, and it’s happened before to me with the same response from her, I let her have her disdain. It grates me sometimes and we argue. Is she unlike those you know, and how did you decide it wasn’t disdainful?
Thank you Annie, Kristen, Laura, Jon, Marci, and nelson46 for your feedback! You keep me going
And to nelson46: your comment touched and saddened me, inspiring my column today, which will be posted here soon. I hope that your situation eases and that you can find solace in each other, too.
Just reading this one, though I know you wrote it a while back, Deb. Mike was laid off from his job of 19 years, 11 months and a couple of weeks without a cent of severance pay and nary a happy hour or kind word from those (admittedly few) who remained. As an Editorial Cartoonist, the few jobs in the field have dwindled to almost none, what with newspapers suffering so in this world of “new media” . It’s been a while, and he’s moved on, but the sting of his treatment still hurts me. When they broke up with him, it killed me they could do that to him. Awful. Just awful.