short answer: yes.
Long answer: I had no intention of quitting for FIRE. But ... like you, I had personal circumstances and the job was sucking my soul. I quit and called it "pretiring" ... meaning I planned on not looking for a job for 6months to a year.
Result: well, I'd say it mostly worked out ok. I moved from large city to small city... which made tech jobs difficult to find. It took me 3 years to find a reasonable job and my initial pay was at about 60% of my original pay. But it seems like that's "how it is" in the smaller market. The 3 years off were, quite possibly, some of the most memorable years of my life. I had a really good time with wife and family and spent time with 2 aging relatives that are both essentially gone now. (1 passed away, 1 no longer can identify family due to dementia.)
Had I stayed: I'd be well beyond FIRE now and retired. But... I'm still very close and the time I got with family was irreplaceable.
That said: I was relatively close to FIRE and had *significant* FU money. When we jumped, we moved to a tiny, tiny place we owned free and clear and we hunkered down into very low spending mode.* I think I could have made 10-15 years easily at the rate we were going, and probably much longer.
*well, for the most part we did. We did make a few exceptions.
