Recently, Varina Jameson, a woman with a decade's worth of experience in private care facility management, applied for a part-time job as a care home manager. However, the financial advice she received discouraged her from taking the job, even though it would have allowed her to balance her responsibilities as a spouse and a mother of three young children. She opted to stay at home and care for her husband Pete, who was left incapacitated after a cycling accident.
Recently, I came across an advert for a part-time job as a care home manager. With my background in healthcare – I worked in private care facility management for over a decade – it seemed perfect for me, the hours allowing me to juggle my teenage children and my responsibilities as a wife.
Rather than jumping at the chance, I trudged home, where a mind-numbing day of scrubbing, washing and caring awaited me. The Jobcentre adviser had told me that in financial terms, it wouldn’t be worth me taking on the role. Because, for the past ten years, after a fulfilling and successful career, my family and I have been living off benefits after my husband was left incapacitated by a cycling accident.
And while I dream of having a life outside the four walls of our home, he doesn’t see any point in not taking full advantage of what the Government will give us. The irony is Pete and I first met at work 15 years ago, when I was 27 and he was 25. He was a geriatric nurse and I was managing a care home that fell under his patch.
We soon became a couple and within six months I was pregnant with our daughter. We married a year to the day after we met, and my parents helped us to buy a lovely three-bedroom house in a Yorkshire village. Our son arrived a year later. It was when I was pregnant with my third child a year later in 2011 that everything changed.
Pete, then 29, was cycling home from work when he was knocked over by someone using their phone while driving. The accident was catastrophic and he flatlined on arrival at A&E. He had suffered a head injury and trauma to his torso including cracked ribs and a collapsed lung. I raced to the hospital to find he’d been put into an induced coma, which he stayed in for three weeks.
Varina Jameson's husband Pete was in a catastrophic cycling accident that left him incapacitated. They now live on benefits after Varina quit her job to look after him On seeing him I vomited next to his bed. The feeling of dread was indescribable. I was convinced he was going to die.
He stayed in hospital for six months, before being transferred to a rehabilitation centre where he stayed for a year, relearning how to walk and some other motor skills. I was told he would never be able to live without assistance and that I’d be lucky if he ever walked unaided again. I had time off work on compassionate grounds for six months, yet it was gently made clear to me I had to return in some capacity or leave.
I dropped down to part-time but life with three children under five was chaotic. Mum would help two days a week but other than that I was on my own. Pete’s job continued to pay him for the first year. After that, it was down to us.
When Pete was finally discharged 18 months after his accident, I was relieved, but still terrified of how we – I – would cope. I was given a lot of financial support in adapting our home: a walk-in shower, handrails everywhere and a downstairs bedroom. Pete’s needs were vast: he’d lost most of his sight, suffered with memory loss and nerve damage down the right side of his body and gets regular oedema – swelling – in his legs.
I was naively optimistic at the time about caring for him; I hadn’t thought about the impact this would have on ‘us’ and hoped Pete would make a miracle recovery. So it was something of a shock when Pete arrived home. He’d accepted his condition would never improve and he would never be able to leave the house alone again, let alone return to work.
He was thrilled to be back with us as a family, but his life as he knew it was over. We had nurses and physiotherapists in and out constantly, while I continued to work part-time. Pete found it hard to tolerate them. Yes, some didn’t speak perfect English, and others kept their earphones in, but they were a great help.
I couldn’t look after the children, run a home, work and look after him, but there was no telling him. What could we do? The NHS was paying, and we couldn’t afford to be choosy. The children adjusted better than I did, although Pete had limited patience to watch cartoons or play games with them.
If he snapped I’d have his and the children’s emotions to mop up. Working three days a week was the only thing keeping me sane. I’d walk out of my home filled with guilt, but the normalcy of the office was a welcome distraction. Soon my loving, outgoing husband had turned into my fourth child.
By now three years had passed since the accident and I was running on empty, getting by on five hours of sleep each night. Pete repeatedly said life would be better for us if I gave up work. He chipped away at me. There was not an iota of guilt on his part; he made it clear he wanted me by his side.
Wearily, I agreed. After handing in my notice, I sat in the car and cried. My career, which I worked so hard for, was over. I told myself I was doing this for my family, but it didn’t make things any easier.
Before I handed in my notice I spoke to our GP and our local benefits office. We didn’t have a rainy-day fund, so money needed to come from somewhere. The judgment and lack of empathy has meant that there are days when I have genuinely cried myself to sleep.
It's not as if we sit watching TV 24/7, Varina writes It turned out we were eligible for £1,800 a month and another £300 a month in Disability Living Allowance because two of our children have been diagnosed with autism. And then there was £238 a month Child Benefit. As a family of five we live on approximately £2,338 a month.
It’s a drop from the £35,000 I was earning working full-time and Pete’s salary of £28,000 but we’re grateful. I told myself it was a temporary solution, that I’d go back to work once the children were older and needed me less. I grew up in a middle-class home, my dad working as an accountant and my mum a care-home manager like me. My sister is a lawyer, for goodness’ sake – and here was I scraping together benefits.
I’ve always been anti so-called ‘benefits culture’, but I suppose we are the minority in genuine need. That doesn’t stop people judging, though. I’ve heard snide comments like ‘aren’t you lucky with your freebie car’ and ‘I can’t believe my taxes support you going on holiday again! ’ when I mention to my neighbours that I’m taking the children away.
But why should my children suffer? It’s a whole production when we do go away – Pete’s sister moves in and I spend hours finding the cheapest travel options. The judgment and lack of empathy has meant that there are days when I have genuinely cried myself to sleep. And it’s not as if we sit like the Royle Family watching TV 24/7.
My average day involves getting the kids up, breakfasted and off to school. Then I’m straight back to Pete, getting him washed and dressed . Read More VANESSA FELTZ: I've been fat-shamed for decades. After failed yo-yo diets, how I got to size 10 There’s at least one hospital or physio appointment every week, as well as surgeries and pain medication reviews.
I have to manage his cocktail of pain drugs, too, administering them multiple times a day. Then it’s pick the kids up, start dinner – it’s endless. But while I know we deserve the help we get, that’s not to say I enjoy having my identity revolving around the needs of others.
Two years ago, after 13 years on benefits, I tried to go back to work, figuring that now Pete was more used to his life we could look into carers again and because I’d just turned 40, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. But Pete was ardently against it.
I understand that he’s scared and he needs me, but to be frank, I think he’s quite comfortable living on handouts and doesn’t see why I should graft when we could have it handed to us. But I miss the camaraderie in the office, feeling important and needed outside of being a mother and a carer. There are times when I resent Pete for how he has reduced my world to fit with his.
The children are growing up, too – the eldest is 15 and the youngest is 13 – and I’ve noticed that he’s not interested in instilling any ambition in them at all. Just because we live this way, doesn’t mean they should. My relationship with Pete is still close and intimate, and of course I’m grateful he’s still alive. But I hate living like this.
Unfortunately, whenever I tell him this, he always circles back to the fact that we’re lucky he’s here. There are those bitter moments when I think to myself who, exactly, is the lucky one here – because it sure isn’t me. I feel completely stuck. I don’t want to spend my life on benefits.
But right now, I can’t see a way out without everything else falling apart. Varina Jameson is a pseudonym. Names and identifying details have been changed
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