Brother Laid-Off and Wife Won’t Work to Help

Reader’s Question

I have a brother whose wife refuses to work and she is in the medical field. She could get a job in a day. My brother has been laid off and they need the income. What should he say to her to motivate her?

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

In these situations, some likely causes for low motivation are stress, resentment, and marital issues. When a member of a family is laid off, income drops and stress increases. Everyone in the family feels the severe stress, including the spouse. A high level of stress can immobilize us, creating a sense that nothing will help us get out of this hole or problem.

Resentment also plays a role. You didn’t say how long your brother has been laid off. The longer he has been without work, the more resentment develops in the spouse. Is he aggressively looking for work? Is he contributing/working at the house? The stress of being laid-off often reduces the individual to a state of low-energy, television-watching inactivity. If this is true, motivation for the spouse to seek employment decreases.

Marital issues also play a role. If the spouse refuses to work, and has already developed a career, there is often something else going on that we may not be aware of in the marriage.

Overall, he can’t “say” anything to motivate her. He can “do” some things that might help. He can:

1. Discuss with her the need to develop a team strategy to approach the unemployment and finances.
2. Agree that employed or not — both need to “work”. If she obtains employment, he needs to work on the house or do something productive.
3. He needs to show an effort to fix the situation — not depend upon her to fix it. Again, this is where resentment comes in.
4. If the couple is nonmotivated as a team, you can volunteer to help them come up with a return to work plan.

There are some jobs where a lay-off is part of the job — as in seasonal construction or specific-project employment. If your brother has been laid-off after many years of stable employment, I’d consider that he might be depressed, stressed, demoralized, and discouraged. That mood is contagious and may have also spread to his wife.