There are a few reasons why I didn't agree regarding places that I've turned down. First, if the family situation continues to require on-going financial resour

There are a few reasons why I didn't agree regarding places that I've turned down. First, if the family situation continues to require on-going financial resources from me (likely), then it's literally not sustainable for me to accept an offer where the compensation/benefits are substantially worse than what I earned previously. Yes, if the situation becomes dire enough, I may have to, but until it does become dire, I would be setting myself up right away to struggle to make ends meet in that new job, and I don't feel comfortable doing that. Secondly, taking a job doesn't fully solve the problems that you claim it does. For one, because I have a short stint on my resume followed by a long gap, that makes employers skeptical. If I just take the first job I can get and it turns out to be mind-trashingly horrible to the point of literally, physically not being sustainable to live with it, then I'll have to quit again, making another short stint and gap on my resume. Most people think that about the 1-year mark is the shortest reasonable stint, so whatever job I take next, I have to believe at least that it is live-with-able for 1 year (my last job emphatically was not) before I am at the point where I could send my resume out and look again. Based on the experiences I've had, this is a fairly significant risk. Not to mention that my earnest, true goal is to find a place where I actually fit in and can focus on investing time in a real career for a long time frame. Finally, I know reasonably well what I am worth based on past jobs, offers I got in prior years when I was already working. I suspect in at least one case that a company was intentionally trying to use my situation as leverage to low-ball me, and that just won't work. It communicates up front that they aren't excited about me, don't plan to treat me in a minimally healthy way, etc., and is just a massive red flag that I should avoid them for the sake of protecting myself and by extension also my family from what could happen if I take the job and end up being treated very badly.