Honestly, how do you manage dual income marriage with kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that OP has to throw in how "intellectual" they both are, as if that somehow makes this different from many other situations. My oldest is a police officer married to an RN and they have the same difficulties with balancing shift work and kid responsibilities. And somehow they manage to do this on somewhere less than $200K a year in the DMV.

This is OP. I emphasized the ‘intellectual’ part to say that such jobs don’t pay you enough to afford a stay at home parent, and there is a low earning ceiling of such jobs. Long hours do not translate into seven figure salary, ever. Yet such jobs are very addictive because of all the ‘fun’ come with it, making it harder to quit. Hence our struggle to want to ‘have it all’…

Classic dumb DCUM troll with the long convulsed follow up posts and selective Q&A every page.

Lame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m probably a decade ahead of OP’s family timeline. DH and I earned around the same, had demanding jobs and had two kids. I was drowning. I was the default parent. DH helped with household chores but I was alone with all the invisible kid duties whether it was buying diapers, sippy cups, car seats, clothing, shoes, making appointments, going to appointments, making play date plans, RSVPing to birthday parties, buying gifts for birthday parties, buying age appropriate books, puzzles, toys, etc etc etc. DH just did none of this planning or researching. He would help with dishes and bath and would take kids to sports practice or game if he was home. If he wasn’t home, it was on me. If he had a work event, he just went to the work event. It didn’t matter if it strained me.

Eventually I cut down and stopped working when I had the third child. The third child tipped us over. I originally planned to take a break and go back to work but then Covid happened. Now my kids are older but they seem to need me more than ever. Instead of an annual dentist appointment, we have to go to the orthodontist every month. My kid had braces, then a retainer and then Invisalign. My kids used to have one practice and one game for sports per week. Now that they are older, they have sports 5x per week. And now that my baby is no longer a baby, that third child is starting to have afternoon activities.

OP keeps mentioning her husband’s highly intellectual job. At some point, no one cares, especially the wife. My DH now earns seven figures, gets asked to chair conferences, join boards, constantly asked to do random crap for companies. What used to be prestigious now is just a nuisance to me and feels selfish to me as I want to go back to work. It is hard not to be resentful.

Have you ever actually TRIED to reset with your spouse? Have you bothered at all to say "this isn't working for me"? Do you ever make your needs known?

I am sort of appalled by the lack of self-esteem amongst highly motivated, intellectual, high-earning women in this thread.

I do not lack self esteem. I put my kids first above my career and spouse. I used to miss my kid’s bedtime almost daily because I could not get home early enough. When I got a less demanding job when I had two kids, I felt like I was not putting my all at work and felt like I was outsourcing my parenting life out. I am sure DH thought he was doing his part. When he is home, he is helpful. He is will play with kids while I make dinner or he will do dishes while I get kids to bed. He has always been and still is a hands on dad. The problem is he has an unpredictable demanding job. I know most people will not sympathize since Dh earns a few million per year. They will say I should be the default parent. When we first started, we had a similar dynamic as OP. This post brings back a lot of bad memories for me!

You can make choices (particularly with that income level) but instead act like all of these things just happened to you and you had no choice. You made choices and now don't like them. Learn to like them or change the situation. The low self-esteem is that you can't seem to think that you can make this happen.

I made the choice to stay home with my three children. I loved those years with them. I got to spend time with my baby and do many of the things I could not with my older two. When Covid hit, I was able to assist my older kids with virtual school and enrich them and play with my toddler. I am sure it would have been a nightmare for me if I was working then.

I think women get the short end of the stick. This is not just my situation. If I were not career oriented and an “intellectual”, I should be satisfied with my current situation. I have successful female friends who are unhappy in other ways with their marriage. The worse situation seems to be the female breadwinner who is often still stuck being the default parent with a husband who doesn’t pull his weight. The parents who have flexible not so demanding jobs that earn a few hundred grand per year seems like a nice sweet spot. OP and her husband could achieve this easily.

Yikes. Uh, even people who are less "intellectual" than you can be unsatisfied with an unequal work/life balance between spouses. Yes, it's true that women do the brunt of the housework. Women also take steps to work on this and correct it. Sometimes that means divorce. Have YOU asked your spouse to try and change the situation? You keep avoiding this question, so I'm betting no.

Of course I have had this conversation with my spouse hundreds of times. He is currently at the peak of his career while I am trying to re enter the workforce. He will likely make $3m this year and has other projects that he would potentially make millions. If he could work half as much and still earn $1m while I go back to work, that would be my best case scenario. Financially, Dh going from $3m+ to $1m so his wife could go back to work and earn 100-200k obviously doesn’t make financial sense. The more likely scenario will be that I will have to handle everything I do now and Dh continues to work and help out when he can when he is home.

[Anonymous]

I think OP just made this post to underscore how intellectual, funny, and sexy she is and how sexy her husband finds her.

[Anonymous]

Meant the more likely scenario is that I would still have to handle everything I do now after I go back to work and Dh will continue to work and only help out when he can when he is home.

Problem is this was hard enough when I had 2 kids. Now I have 3 kids with many more activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that OP has to throw in how "intellectual" they both are, as if that somehow makes this different from many other situations. My oldest is a police officer married to an RN and they have the same difficulties with balancing shift work and kid responsibilities. And somehow they manage to do this on somewhere less than $200K a year in the DMV.

I just wrote that I am about a decade ahead of OP’s family timeline. I have two masters, including one from Harvard. OP is probably trying to say she also has an impressive career. I was very ambitious and career oriented. DH and I were similar when we became parents. It is hard for both parents to stay in the same pace with children.

Thanks PP. This is OP. I totally get it. It IS a gender issue. Women do all the invisible work, despite all the helps you can hire. The thinking, planning, scheduling, researching…. It takes us away from what we should focus on, and NO is acknowledging that.[/quote

People have been complaining about this on DCUM since it started 20 years ago. You haven't discovered anything new and lots of people (mainly women) on this thread have given their own stories are acknowledging that there is an imbalance in the amount of work that men and women are "expected" to do involving the home and childrearing. There is no magic answer here. Write down everything you do and assign your husband some of these tasks. Be prepared that he won't take care of them in the way you would like. Also acknowledge what your husband does do already. He likely feels similarly stretched. Use your large combined income to outsource as much as you can. Only have 1 kid.

[Anonymous]

Is one of you in World Bank? Divorce rate is so high there, so many single Moms. That’s just what you sign up for. You are trying to be the exceptional. You just need to make some exceptional efforts, with no guarantee of success. Life is an adventure, isn’t it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meant the more likely scenario is that I would still have to handle everything I do now after I go back to work and Dh will continue to work and only help out when he can when he is home.

Problem is this was hard enough when I had 2 kids. Now I have 3 kids with many more activities.

You didn't even start the thread, but here you are, dominating it. You are revealing a lot about yourself here. And it's not good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m probably a decade ahead of OP’s family timeline. DH and I earned around the same, had demanding jobs and had two kids. I was drowning. I was the default parent. DH helped with household chores but I was alone with all the invisible kid duties whether it was buying diapers, sippy cups, car seats, clothing, shoes, making appointments, going to appointments, making play date plans, RSVPing to birthday parties, buying gifts for birthday parties, buying age appropriate books, puzzles, toys, etc etc etc. DH just did none of this planning or researching. He would help with dishes and bath and would take kids to sports practice or game if he was home. If he wasn’t home, it was on me. If he had a work event, he just went to the work event. It didn’t matter if it strained me.

Eventually I cut down and stopped working when I had the third child. The third child tipped us over. I originally planned to take a break and go back to work but then Covid happened. Now my kids are older but they seem to need me more than ever. Instead of an annual dentist appointment, we have to go to the orthodontist every month. My kid had braces, then a retainer and then Invisalign. My kids used to have one practice and one game for sports per week. Now that they are older, they have sports 5x per week. And now that my baby is no longer a baby, that third child is starting to have afternoon activities.

OP keeps mentioning her husband’s highly intellectual job. At some point, no one cares, especially the wife. My DH now earns seven figures, gets asked to chair conferences, join boards, constantly asked to do random crap for companies. What used to be prestigious now is just a nuisance to me and feels selfish to me as I want to go back to work. It is hard not to be resentful.

Have you ever actually TRIED to reset with your spouse? Have you bothered at all to say "this isn't working for me"? Do you ever make your needs known?

I am sort of appalled by the lack of self-esteem amongst highly motivated, intellectual, high-earning women in this thread.

I do not lack self esteem. I put my kids first above my career and spouse. I used to miss my kid’s bedtime almost daily because I could not get home early enough. When I got a less demanding job when I had two kids, I felt like I was not putting my all at work and felt like I was outsourcing my parenting life out. I am sure DH thought he was doing his part. When he is home, he is helpful. He is will play with kids while I make dinner or he will do dishes while I get kids to bed. He has always been and still is a hands on dad. The problem is he has an unpredictable demanding job. I know most people will not sympathize since Dh earns a few million per year. They will say I should be the default parent. When we first started, we had a similar dynamic as OP. This post brings back a lot of bad memories for me!

You can make choices (particularly with that income level) but instead act like all of these things just happened to you and you had no choice. You made choices and now don't like them. Learn to like them or change the situation. The low self-esteem is that you can't seem to think that you can make this happen.

I made the choice to stay home with my three children. I loved those years with them. I got to spend time with my baby and do many of the things I could not with my older two. When Covid hit, I was able to assist my older kids with virtual school and enrich them and play with my toddler. I am sure it would have been a nightmare for me if I was working then.

I think women get the short end of the stick. This is not just my situation. If I were not career oriented and an “intellectual”, I should be satisfied with my current situation. I have successful female friends who are unhappy in other ways with their marriage. The worse situation seems to be the female breadwinner who is often still stuck being the default parent with a husband who doesn’t pull his weight. The parents who have flexible not so demanding jobs that earn a few hundred grand per year seems like a nice sweet spot. OP and her husband could achieve this easily.

Yikes. Uh, even people who are less "intellectual" than you can be unsatisfied with an unequal work/life balance between spouses. Yes, it's true that women do the brunt of the housework. Women also take steps to work on this and correct it. Sometimes that means divorce. Have YOU asked your spouse to try and change the situation? You keep avoiding this question, so I'm betting no.

Of course I have had this conversation with my spouse hundreds of times. He is currently at the peak of his career while I am trying to re enter the workforce. He will likely make $3m this year and has other projects that he would potentially make millions. If he could work half as much and still earn $1m while I go back to work, that would be my best case scenario. Financially, Dh going from $3m+ to $1m so his wife could go back to work and earn 100-200k obviously doesn’t make financial sense. The more likely scenario will be that I will have to handle everything I do now and Dh continues to work and help out when he can when he is home.

you are....COMPLAINING about this? Oh christ. Just hire someone and go back to work.

Seriously I can't understand how people who cannot figure out one iota of the issues in their relationship can make this much money. I have to go with family connections or inheritance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m probably a decade ahead of OP’s family timeline. DH and I earned around the same, had demanding jobs and had two kids. I was drowning. I was the default parent. DH helped with household chores but I was alone with all the invisible kid duties whether it was buying diapers, sippy cups, car seats, clothing, shoes, making appointments, going to appointments, making play date plans, RSVPing to birthday parties, buying gifts for birthday parties, buying age appropriate books, puzzles, toys, etc etc etc. DH just did none of this planning or researching. He would help with dishes and bath and would take kids to sports practice or game if he was home. If he wasn’t home, it was on me. If he had a work event, he just went to the work event. It didn’t matter if it strained me.

Eventually I cut down and stopped working when I had the third child. The third child tipped us over. I originally planned to take a break and go back to work but then Covid happened. Now my kids are older but they seem to need me more than ever. Instead of an annual dentist appointment, we have to go to the orthodontist every month. My kid had braces, then a retainer and then Invisalign. My kids used to have one practice and one game for sports per week. Now that they are older, they have sports 5x per week. And now that my baby is no longer a baby, that third child is starting to have afternoon activities.

OP keeps mentioning her husband’s highly intellectual job. At some point, no one cares, especially the wife. My DH now earns seven figures, gets asked to chair conferences, join boards, constantly asked to do random crap for companies. What used to be prestigious now is just a nuisance to me and feels selfish to me as I want to go back to work. It is hard not to be resentful.

Have you ever actually TRIED to reset with your spouse? Have you bothered at all to say "this isn't working for me"? Do you ever make your needs known?

I am sort of appalled by the lack of self-esteem amongst highly motivated, intellectual, high-earning women in this thread.

I do not lack self esteem. I put my kids first above my career and spouse. I used to miss my kid’s bedtime almost daily because I could not get home early enough. When I got a less demanding job when I had two kids, I felt like I was not putting my all at work and felt like I was outsourcing my parenting life out. I am sure DH thought he was doing his part. When he is home, he is helpful. He is will play with kids while I make dinner or he will do dishes while I get kids to bed. He has always been and still is a hands on dad. The problem is he has an unpredictable demanding job. I know most people will not sympathize since Dh earns a few million per year. They will say I should be the default parent. When we first started, we had a similar dynamic as OP. This post brings back a lot of bad memories for me!

You can make choices (particularly with that income level) but instead act like all of these things just happened to you and you had no choice. You made choices and now don't like them. Learn to like them or change the situation. The low self-esteem is that you can't seem to think that you can make this happen.

I made the choice to stay home with my three children. I loved those years with them. I got to spend time with my baby and do many of the things I could not with my older two. When Covid hit, I was able to assist my older kids with virtual school and enrich them and play with my toddler. I am sure it would have been a nightmare for me if I was working then.

I think women get the short end of the stick. This is not just my situation. If I were not career oriented and an “intellectual”, I should be satisfied with my current situation. I have successful female friends who are unhappy in other ways with their marriage. The worse situation seems to be the female breadwinner who is often still stuck being the default parent with a husband who doesn’t pull his weight. The parents who have flexible not so demanding jobs that earn a few hundred grand per year seems like a nice sweet spot. OP and her husband could achieve this easily.

Yikes. Uh, even people who are less "intellectual" than you can be unsatisfied with an unequal work/life balance between spouses. Yes, it's true that women do the brunt of the housework. Women also take steps to work on this and correct it. Sometimes that means divorce. Have YOU asked your spouse to try and change the situation? You keep avoiding this question, so I'm betting no.

Of course I have had this conversation with my spouse hundreds of times. He is currently at the peak of his career while I am trying to re enter the workforce. He will likely make $3m this year and has other projects that he would potentially make millions. If he could work half as much and still earn $1m while I go back to work, that would be my best case scenario. Financially, Dh going from $3m+ to $1m so his wife could go back to work and earn 100-200k obviously doesn’t make financial sense. The more likely scenario will be that I will have to handle everything I do now and Dh continues to work and help out when he can when he is home.

OP, I can empathize with your situation although our household income is a fraction of yours. I have a research degree in an underfunded field so working in my field is several multiples below DH’s current income. At one point when I was working, an employer offered him a salary increase that was equal to my total salary at the time but required a move, so I had to leave my job. I’ve never been able to get back into it full time because of that situation. It’s not a remote-friendly job.

I don’t hear bragging in your post- just coping and juggling. I feel frustrated with that reality and wish almost daily that I had used my intelligence to study something more valued by American industry so that finding opportunities was not so limited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is one of you in World Bank? Divorce rate is so high there, so many single Moms. That’s just what you sign up for. You are trying to be the exceptional. You just need to make some exceptional efforts, with no guarantee of success. Life is an adventure, isn’t it?

It's some sort of special myopia of the G&T kids that grew up thinking they were so special that they'd never have to deal with the issues of THEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meant the more likely scenario is that I would still have to handle everything I do now after I go back to work and Dh will continue to work and only help out when he can when he is home.

Problem is this was hard enough when I had 2 kids. Now I have 3 kids with many more activities.

You didn't even start the thread, but here you are, dominating it. You are revealing a lot about yourself here. And it's not good.

I am responding to someone responding to me.

I already wrote upthread that the sweet spot seems to be two flexible jobs earning a few hundred per year and OP and her husband should be able to obtain that easily. I went first getting the lateral 9-5 job and eventually stopped working but Dh never followed to a more flexible job. Instead his work got more demanding and higher paying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I are in highly intellectual jobs that come with a lot of intellectual stimulations, prestige, fun and stress, but don't pay that much. Think of academics, economist at international organizations, etc. We make about 400k in total, evenly distributed. So we are comfortable, but neither of us can afford to quit - we can't afford the same lifestyle with single salary, the sunk cost of PhDs, and all the fun and meaning come with our jobs.

The problem is, we work long hours and travel a lot for work. With two kids, despite a lot of help around the house, we still find ourselves increasingly arguing about who should take the kids, do the chores, etc. We complain about not spending enough time together, but we just can't make it because one of us is either traveling or recovering from the travel...

I'm afraid we are growing apart... I'm the woman and feel like that I already sacrifice a lot of my own time to support him. He just wants me to be the funny sexy available girlfriend whenever he has time. I often just want to take a nap, recover, catch up with work, because I just took the lion share of everything while he was away...

How do you manage dual income marriage? If either of us give up our job, are we destined to separate at some point? It is just so stressful...

WTF talks like this? You’re claiming your married PhD economist husband working at a multilateral bank or Fed job, and who has a couple kids, thinks like this?!?

Bizarre.

Trollishly bizarre Op. r u even married?

This is OP. Yes my brilliant husband who’s always serious in front of colleagues playing authority just wants sex with me whenever he has time. That’s not too often ( maybe once a week), but it’s always inconvenient for me because I’m so stressed and tired! I can’t keep up with his sexual desires in this life! It only adds to my stress level…

This sounds very normal. You are describing my spouse too, except he expects a bit more. I think this is just marriage when your spouse likes you.

If her spouse liked her he would listen to her needs and help out more around the house.

No, some men need to be told exactly what to do to help. This doesn’t mean they don’t like you. If they want sex with you, then they are showing how they feel that way.

I’m not a huge fan of every idea in this book, but read Love Languages for more on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is one of you in World Bank? Divorce rate is so high there, so many single Moms. That’s just what you sign up for. You are trying to be the exceptional. You just need to make some exceptional efforts, with no guarantee of success. Life is an adventure, isn’t it?

We know a lot of world bank, foreign service, state department and diplomatic families. There are also professors and think tank guys who would fit into this category. I’m sure each of these people think they are solving world problems and doing something very important and “intellectual”. They are but they are also a dime a dozen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is one of you in World Bank? Divorce rate is so high there, so many single Moms. That’s just what you sign up for. You are trying to be the exceptional. You just need to make some exceptional efforts, with no guarantee of success. Life is an adventure, isn’t it?

We know a lot of world bank, foreign service, state department and diplomatic families. There are also professors and think tank guys who would fit into this category. I’m sure each of these people think they are solving world problems and doing something very important and “intellectual”. They are but they are also a dime a dozen.

Exactly. I know scores of these people based on my job and social circles, and many have outsized egos for what they are actually contributing to the world. They are paid in part in ego, as generally the actual income is capped around $200 (although the business and econ profs can make more).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is one of you in World Bank? Divorce rate is so high there, so many single Moms. That’s just what you sign up for. You are trying to be the exceptional. You just need to make some exceptional efforts, with no guarantee of success. Life is an adventure, isn’t it?

We know a lot of world bank, foreign service, state department and diplomatic families. There are also professors and think tank guys who would fit into this category. I’m sure each of these people think they are solving world problems and doing something very important and “intellectual”. They are but they are also a dime a dozen.

That doesn’t make them non-intellectual, PP.