Dear Therapist: I Had to Leave My Job and Now I Feel Like a Failure

The Letter

Dear Therapist,

I had to leave my job because of a health issue, and now I stay home with our kids while my wife is the main breadwinner.

Financially, we're okay, and my wife has never made me feel bad about it. I know caring for our kids is important, but I still feel embarrassed when people ask what I do. I compare myself to friends advancing in their careers and feel like I'm not contributing enough.

I don't resent my wife's success, and I don't want my kids believing a man's value comes from his paycheck. But apparently, part of me still believes that about myself.

How do I stop feeling like I've failed when I know I haven't?

My Response

It sounds like you're getting stuck on the question of contribution. Work gave you a sense of meaning and a way to measure your value, so losing that role may naturally bring up bigger questions.

Loss in your context may be asking: Who am I when I'm not working? What am I contributing now?

When people ask what you do, your mind seems to start comparing. You see friends advancing in their careers, while being at home can begin to feel like you're "not doing anything."

But that may be more about how you are understanding contribution than whether you are actually contributing.

Taking care of your children is another form of labor. Perhaps because it is unpaid and less publicly recognized, it doesn't give you the same visible evidence that you are contributing. You may intellectually know that what you do matters while still struggling to feel or experience that as a man, given the expectations around masculinity.

There may be two directions worth exploring. One may be looking at contribution from a different perspective: recognizing the value of what you are already doing.

The other is asking whether there are additional sources of meaning you want in your life, perhaps a project, community, part-time work when possible, or connecting with others in a similar situation.

You don't necessarily have to convince yourself that staying home should be enough or similar to the meaning work gave you.

You might want to consider being curious about what you miss about working and what it gave you. That may help you build new sources of meaning without dismissing the contribution you are already making to your family.