Working partners, do you resent your non-working spouse?

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm sorry you are getting trashed here. I work but I am fine with other people doing what they want.
There is some truth to the saying "Most people work to live but Americans live to work".
Americans are brought up to associate personal self worth with job and career. That is why most of the world considers Americans boring.
All they like to talk about is their work and how many hours they work.
You should move to Europe which is where I am from. People work but they really value leisure time and vacation time. Work is something people do but people don't generally work to feel valued.
There are lots of ways to contribute to society. People who cannot imagine how they would fill up their days without work are showing their own lack of an imagination and probably don't really have much else going on besides work, raising kids, chores. Unfortunately, the general stereotype about Americans has a lot of truth to it and my own family in one of the Northern European countries really pities me for having ended up in the US.

[Anonymous]

OP,
We are legal non-White, non-Christian immigrants and came to this country with PhDs in STEM and Humanities. DH had a job offer in hand and I had to reinvent myself here. I also went into STEM field here and went to work for a number of years. Due to an appalling lack of quality childcare, maternity leave, parental leave, unequal pay and the glass and bamboo ceiling, I found it easy to quit the workplace and raise my kids by being a SAHM (whatever this strange term means in this country).

My DH is not so stupid or misogynistic or ill-bred to think that we are anything but equal partners. This must be an American WOHD (Work Out of Home Dad) syndrome. Unique to this country where lazy and unused gray cells abound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP,
We are legal non-White, non-Christian immigrants and came to this country with PhDs in STEM and Humanities. DH had a job offer in hand and I had to reinvent myself here. I also went into STEM field here and went to work for a number of years. Due to an appalling lack of quality childcare, maternity leave, parental leave, unequal pay and the glass and bamboo ceiling, I found it easy to quit the workplace and raise my kids by being a SAHM (whatever this strange term means in this country).

My DH is not so stupid or misogynistic or ill-bred to think that we are anything but equal partners. This must be an American WOHD (Work Out of Home Dad) syndrome. Unique to this country where lazy and unused gray cells abound.

OP doesn't have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

I don’t understand why my post is being misunderstood. Maybe I was not very clear. If you have kids and stay at home to take care of them, clean, etc that IS a job. If you are OP you do nothing all day. Also, if you don’t have kids how dirty can your house really be? Do you need to clean it everyday multiple hours a day? If OP got a job she would make much more than a cleaning lady that cleans her house 3-5 hours per week

No, the OP does nothing that YOU value because your worth is tied up in your job. The OP has different values and thinks different things are important in life than you do. It's simply incredibly rude to say that just because someone doesn't have a job or kids they do nothing.

If OP had different values, she would not work even before getting married. OP has the sort of values that come up only after someone else subsidizes them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If OP were a man, would you be ok with the situation? I would never be attracted to a man that stays at home without a job and without kids to take care of. I don’t care how Amazing my house looks or how many neighbors he helped

Men and women are not attracted to the same things

If "not working" was a core part of OP's values, she would live them regardless of whether or not her DH found it attractive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you are happy with this life OP good for you. Most people would not be

Which was exactly my point all along. People have different requirements for happiness and fulfillment and people need to be more open-minded when someone else's requirements don't line up with theirs. Instead, people got all aggressive calling the OP lazy and worthless because how dare she have non-conforming values.

Remember, she asked. No one would known anything about OP's situation if she didn't come out and ask people's opinions.

I didn't see anything related to values in her lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP,
We are legal non-White, non-Christian immigrants and came to this country with PhDs in STEM and Humanities. DH had a job offer in hand and I had to reinvent myself here. I also went into STEM field here and went to work for a number of years. Due to an appalling lack of quality childcare, maternity leave, parental leave, unequal pay and the glass and bamboo ceiling, I found it easy to quit the workplace and raise my kids by being a SAHM (whatever this strange term means in this country).

My DH is not so stupid or misogynistic or ill-bred to think that we are anything but equal partners. This must be an American WOHD (Work Out of Home Dad) syndrome. Unique to this country where lazy and unused gray cells abound.

I find you horribly offense, and yet I like you very much meanwhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP,
We are legal non-White, non-Christian immigrants and came to this country with PhDs in STEM and Humanities. DH had a job offer in hand and I had to reinvent myself here. I also went into STEM field here and went to work for a number of years. Due to an appalling lack of quality childcare, maternity leave, parental leave, unequal pay and the glass and bamboo ceiling, I found it easy to quit the workplace and raise my kids by being a SAHM (whatever this strange term means in this country).

My DH is not so stupid or misogynistic or ill-bred to think that we are anything but equal partners. This must be an American WOHD (Work Out of Home Dad) syndrome. Unique to this country where lazy and unused gray cells abound.

I weep for your daily tragedy of staying in the country you so obviously despise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is south Asian and he actually encouraged me to stay home before we had children. I tried it for a few months but got bored to death. Working makes me feel happier. I honestly don't think my husband is resentful but he's also from a very traditional culture. I think the majority of American men would not be supportive of this arrangement.

I think the majority of American men wouldn't mind this arrangement at all, they just have to act like they do. If being a stay at home wife with no kids were more socially acceptable men would be more openly vocal about not caring about women needing to have a career for them to be attracted to the woman. If the Trump era has taught us anything, isn't it that there are more men wanting a "traditional" 1950s setup in life than we all suspected were still out there?

My husband and I work occasionally together and he much prefers when we don't. He loves when he can come home from a difficult day and b*tch and moan about the workplace and find someone who will listen instead of someone who has her own issues to vent about. I'm relaxed and unstressed when not working. How is that not a win win for him? And nope, it doesn't make me feel like a 1950's housewife at all when he expresses this. He values me in ways not related to my skills as a professional woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If "not working" was a core part of OP's values, she would live them regardless of whether or not her DH found it attractive.

The value in question is not "not working." It's "not needing to work in order to feel complete and find inner happiness."

[Anonymous]

So OP what is your typical day like? What time do you wake up and what do you do?

I'm curious because I was home briefly when my kids were all elementary school aged and I was bored out of my skull. I think is partly because I don't actually enjoy exercising, so I dutifully went to the pool and swam for 45 minutes every day, but couldn't imagine making a day or even a morning of that. I looked things up on the internet and that took a while. Made dinner, that's good for an hour.
I ended up spending money we didn't have with online shopping and overkill decorating projects because I had so many hours to fill.
I volunteered at my kid's school once a week, walked the dog, and went to the library once a week but I was sad and lonely sitting in my house reading books by myself.
I have a neighbor who is a SAHM but her kids are in college and she watches a lot of soap operas and keeps up on the movie star gossip. I think she has too much time on her hands too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is south Asian and he actually encouraged me to stay home before we had children. I tried it for a few months but got bored to death. Working makes me feel happier. I honestly don't think my husband is resentful but he's also from a very traditional culture. I think the majority of American men would not be supportive of this arrangement.

I think the majority of American men wouldn't mind this arrangement at all, they just have to act like they do. If being a stay at home wife with no kids were more socially acceptable men would be more openly vocal about not caring about women needing to have a career for them to be attracted to the woman. If the Trump era has taught us anything, isn't it that there are more men wanting a "traditional" 1950s setup in life than we all suspected were still out there?

My husband and I work occasionally together and he much prefers when we don't. He loves when he can come home from a difficult day and b*tch and moan about the workplace and find someone who will listen instead of someone who has her own issues to vent about. I'm relaxed and unstressed when not working. How is that not a win win for him? And nope, it doesn't make me feel like a 1950's housewife at all when he expresses this. He values me in ways not related to my skills as a professional woman.

I agree with this. I actually do work, but would say approximately zero percent of my husband's attraction to or interest in me has to do with my job or the fact that I work. If anything, i'd probably be more pleasant to be around if I weren't working full time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is south Asian and he actually encouraged me to stay home before we had children. I tried it for a few months but got bored to death. Working makes me feel happier. I honestly don't think my husband is resentful but he's also from a very traditional culture. I think the majority of American men would not be supportive of this arrangement.

I think the majority of American men wouldn't mind this arrangement at all, they just have to act like they do. If being a stay at home wife with no kids were more socially acceptable men would be more openly vocal about not caring about women needing to have a career for them to be attracted to the woman. If the Trump era has taught us anything, isn't it that there are more men wanting a "traditional" 1950s setup in life than we all suspected were still out there?

My husband and I work occasionally together and he much prefers when we don't. He loves when he can come home from a difficult day and b*tch and moan about the workplace and find someone who will listen instead of someone who has her own issues to vent about. I'm relaxed and unstressed when not working. How is that not a win win for him? And nope, it doesn't make me feel like a 1950's housewife at all when he expresses this. He values me in ways not related to my skills as a professional woman.

By losing half the family income. That's how.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If "not working" was a core part of OP's values, she would live them regardless of whether or not her DH found it attractive.

The value in question is not "not working." It's "not needing to work in order to feel complete and find inner happiness."

I'm all for everyone finding inner happiness, but why does it have to be subsidized by someone else? You mean that OP will never find inner happiness if she's forced to self-support?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

By losing half the family income. That's how.

But that's not relevant in this discussion. The entire dialogue is about choosing to not work when the second income isn't needed.