Hi, MishMash--so sorry to hear that you're going through all that crap at work.
A question for you: you mentioned in another thread that you had a good quantity of side-hustle work. I'm wondering: what if you re-cast your understanding of "working" from working a full-time job to going totally freelance? You would not reach your FIRE number as quickly, but you would be adding SOMETHING to the pile every time you bring in a check.
An example from my own life might help explain what I mean. I was working at a job that was killing me--figuatively, I mean, mostly, but in some sense literally, too; toward the end of my time at that company, for example, I gained 40+ pounds in just over a year due to lack of focus on diet and exercise, lots of stress-based eating (I do love me some pizza when I get stressed!), and a small host of medical issues which I firmly believe were also stress-related. To make a long story short (too late?), I quit--but only after a LOT of soul-searching and soul-baring conversations with my then-fiancé-now-husband.
I too felt guilty about not bringing in any money to the household, even though we were well on our way to a FIRE-able stash even without me making any money, and he was in a job that he loved and would keep doing even if we were suddenly FI--it would just take us LONGER to get there without my being employed. It took at least a year for me to pull the trigger--I had one-more-month syndrome really bad (can't quite call it OMY since we weren't truly FI, I guess!).
What I've found was that after I quit (almost a year ago now), I've been doing contracting gigs pretty much continuously, and will likely continue to do so until the end of this year. So right now, I'm still bringing in money--less money, sure, but with WAY less stress and WAY less nonsense. The contracting life means you have to buy your own health insurance (which I do through DH's employer), and pay attention to tax implications (I'm lucky enough to be a W2 employee, but if you're on a 1099 basis you have to plan for that).
So my guilt feelings were at least partially addressed--and my question to myself now is how much longer do I need/want to do it? (We have some goals that we can reach more quickly if I do continue to contract for a while, but the end-game is for me to stop at some point--back to OMM/OMY syndrome, I guess--but that's a matter for another post.)
So what I'm saying boils down to this, really: if you have some side hustles that you're doing now, maybe quitting and amping up the contracting could be a good best-of-both-worlds sitaution for you. You'd still have the flexiblity that you need to support the household while your husband is deployed, you could still keep your skills sharp, you could still make progress (albeit more slowly) toward your FIRE number, and most importantly, you could do it in peace, away from the toxic environment that is taking such a profound toll on you.
It sounds like you have a self-imposed deadline to reach your FIRE number. Since it IS self-imposed, why not just change it? You created it--you get to destroy it, too, if it no longer meshes with reality. My experience taught me that that financial goals and gainful employment are not black-or-white dichotomies: there are more options than a full-time soul-sucking job on one hand, and a total lack of employment on the other. It's not even that there are shades of gray--there's purple, and rose, and vermillion, and even gold. All you have to do (get to do!) is create it.
Good luck--keep us posted on how it turns out! We're all rooting for you.
