The summer before last, we holidayed at a friend’s South of France estate. There were around 20 of us in total, a group of successful, middle-class couples and their kids. I went with my daughters, Rosie, then 17, and Bella, 14.

We were given a gorgeous, three-bedroom cottage for our stay and spent long days lounging by our friend’s beautiful pool. But though it was lovely, there was something – someone – missing.

I wished my husband Matt had come with us, but he had been made redundant from a six-figure job in advertising. He felt humiliated and bruised and couldn’t face the inevitable work chat that would come with the holiday.

He knew the couple who own the French estate as well as I do and they are kind and generous people. Rosie and their son were babies when we met and we’d holidayed several times at their home in South Africa too.

Yet, Matt no longer felt comfortable with people who were (in his mind) rich and successful, even if they were old friends. It was the first real sign of how much our life was changing. And continues to change: he hasn’t had a ‘proper’ job since.

Matt, 55, has never been a pessimistic guy but I’ve learned that if you take away a man’s job, you remove his identity, his joie de vivre, and he becomes a shadow of his former self.

For 18 months, he’s slogged away applying for more than 50 jobs, with no success. With life getting more and more precarious, for the past three months he’s been working as a driver, earning less than £12.50 an hour.

To anyone not privy to our finances, life on the surface still looks glossy. Matt and I have been together for 22 years and married for 16 of those. We have a lovely home in Sydenham, south-east London, which we own outright. Rosie, now 19, is at Bournemouth University studying for a media degree and Bella, 16, is thriving at the BRIT School for performing arts.

We’ve got a three-bedroom seaside cottage on the Kent coast for weekend escapes, too. We’re in good health and as a family are rock-solid – or, at least, we were.

Matt losing his job is having a catastrophic impact on everything: our relationship, his wellbeing, my bank balance and our future retirement.

We’re not alone. The latest Office for National Statistics data shows UK job vacancies have fallen steadily over the past 36 months, breaking the previous record of 16 months set during the 2008 global financial crisis.

A recent Bank of England survey found that UK businesses have cut jobs at the fastest pace in more than four years this summer.

‘We’re heading for a jobs crisis like the 1980s,’ according to James Reed, chairman and chief executive of Reed recruitment agency.

‘Lots of people are going to be left behind as a result,’ he said. ‘If we see the hollowing-out of white-collar work it will affect millions of people, their living standards and the Government’s tax take.’

Our own living standard has certainly taken a hit. Posh vacations are a thing of the past.

Before Matt lost his job, we’d holiday three times a year in the likes of Morocco, South Africa, Portugal, the Greek islands, Turkey or the Canaries.

We’re trying to keep up appearances – having takeaways delivered as a treat at the weekend – but I’d never before realised quite how much the basics of running two homes add up. We’re draining our savings and we’ve had to massively readjust our future plans.

We take heart in knowing that our home is worth more than £1.2million and the other one is worth £375,000. But we never expected to be forced to use this capital to support us later in life.

Matt has paid 40 per cent tax for the bulk of his working life and yet he is not eligible for state support as I’m working, even though I’m self-employed and my income fluctuates year to year.

I could never have imagined this when we met. I was 34, he was 32. He was confident in his own skin and I loved that about him. After chatting online for a few weeks, we met up for dinner and he came back to my flat. We had such a good night together I knew that even if I didn’t hear from him again, I wouldn’t have regretted our paths crossing.

But I did hear from him. Matt isn’t one to play games, so within a year we were living together. We were both in the media and I knew Matt was a bit of a guru in the advertising world.

He would get flown out to Tokyo or New York to pitch to potential clients, enjoyed lavish lunches and was frequently invited to gentlemen’s pamper days and team-bonding weekends away.

We both knew advertising was even more turbulent than PR and television – my world – and he’d switched jobs at least four times over the decades. But when he was made redundant in January 2023, he was shocked because he didn’t see it coming.

He received a month’s salary and that was it – he was on his own.

As naive as it sounds, I wasn’t worried at first; I just assumed he’d get another job straight away. He was constantly on LinkedIn, he spoke to recruitment consultants, he networked with friends and professional contacts.

Yet more often than not he was ghosted. I’d say 80 per cent of the time he just never heard back. It wasn’t just Matt that was surprised, I was too.

He even began applying for junior jobs that he was overqualified for, spinning it to them that they were getting value for money – but nobody wanted to know.

He put hours of preparation into a Zoom presentation for one American firm, and they seemed really impressed, but that didn’t lead to an actual job offer either.

Matt is solutions-focused, so, during those first six months, he decided he would become a chauffeur in the high-net-worth sector. He invested in a Mercedes E-Class that I wasn’t allowed to drive, then failed his Public Carriage Office licence exam. He was told he needed a medical but he wasn’t in great shape and he failed that too.

That was a low point for him, yet he’s nothing if not determined. After giving himself a medical MOT – cutting back on booze and losing 3st – he passed the driving exam at a second attempt.

Unfortunately, for reasons we can’t fathom, there is a hold-up in the issuing of the licence and Matt has been waiting more than a year to receive it.

In the meantime, he has sold the Mercedes – and anything else of value, including his watches.

Of course, the past two years have been like a battering ram to our marriage. I try to be supportive, but I can only do so much because of Matt’s pride. Pity is a passion-killer and, at times, I have been guilty of being insensitive.

When I heard how much the window cleaner at our holiday home earns (£50 an hour!), I jokingly said to Matt all you need is a mop and bucket – no website or posh car required – and off you go. Predictably, he went mad.

If it was me, I’d have grasped the chance even of a low-paid job in retail or a restaurant, anything to get out of the house.

My girlfriends have a lot to say, too. For example, they tell me I shouldn’t have to pay £70 a week for a cleaner when Matt’s ‘available’ and that he should do it.

This isn’t as crazy as it sounds: at a friend’s party I got chatting to someone who used to be a wealthy banker, who told me that since he’d lost his job, he worked as a delivery driver before retraining as a probation officer and really enjoyed himself.

This gave me hope – perhaps a change of career for Matt would work out for the best.

This man mentioned a delivery firm which was on the lookout for drivers. It was the sign I needed.

After almost 18 months without work, Matt was willing to give it a go. And, for once, he got the job. At first, he was out the door at 6.30am, delivering frozen fish – which was as dismal as it sounds. Then he was delivering replacement mobility scooters. It was a real eye-opener, seeing how free equipment was treated by people, some of it covered in urine or vomit and reeking of cigarette smoke.

He’s still driving for the same company, but now delivers supplies to butchers’ shops around Kent and Sussex. He has a routine, working from 7.30am to 3.30pm, then meets friends some evenings or goes to the pub for a couple of pints on his own. Even though this episode has bruised us individually and as a couple, I’m proud of how we’ve come through it.

Matt will probably say I didn’t think he tried hard enough to get a job, but at least all this has taught me that we are too defined by our careers.

All I care about is the husband I love very much. It pains me to see how Matt’s mental health has been impacted, and I know he feels ‘less than’ because he isn’t a high-flyer any more.

I’m just thankful we don’t have any debt and have a plan for the future.

It isn’t how we intended to enjoy retirement, but at least we have each other.

Matt says

My life is not very rock ’n’ roll now. I worked in advertising for just under three decades, running teams of up to 50 people and here I am today, earning £12.50 an hour.

I have experienced real anxiety over the past few years and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked myself if I am a failure and a loser.

For the first time in 25 years, I’ve been overdrawn at the bank. There have been many sleepless nights when I wondered, ‘Can I drag myself out of this?’ The impact on my mental health has been more onerous than I had ever thought it could be.

I also worried that Julia secretly thought I wasn’t doing enough to find work and that she resented having to pay for all the shopping and holidays.

My social life has been effectively cancelled. I couldn’t face meeting up with friends and having to formulate an answer to, ‘What are you doing now?’

Rightly or wrongly, our jobs define us. For me, it’s been hard to tell someone: ‘I’m a van driver.’

It’s all been a big shock for me. I was used to knowing how the world works; people reported to me. Now here I am, very much no longer in control.

I take solace in knowing I’m not alone, which is why I’ve set up a WhatsApp support group for friends in the same situation.

Julia isn’t in it. While she appreciates life is tough for all of us, actually she can’t possibly know what it’s like emotionally and mentally to no longer feel wanted in the workforce.

Ten years ago, I’d never have checked in on someone else. But I’m so glad that I have changed in that respect. I do it because I do care about others in the same boat as me.

I now work with a bunch of blokes, all over 55, who drive around South-east England. The upside is there is no executive stress. But the reality is I’ll probably never earn six figures again.

• As told to Samantha Brick