What income makes a man marriage material?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I married my husband when he was making 80k and I 50k. We were deeply in love, with no family money on either side. We got married in 2014. It has now been 8 years since we married. We do not own a home. We do not have children. We almost got a divorce 2 years ago due to stress of not having enough to build a family life in NOVA.

I am stressed out and regretful about my choice most days. Yes, he was hot and nice, but that did not give us an income to build a suitable family life. I watched with envy as each of my friends married men making 200k, 400k and immediately were able to buy homes, have babies, build families and a family life.
I never cared about money. I thought it was silly and materialistic. Because after all, its true love and the insides that matter.

As a bitter, broke, childless mid thirties woman, I regret not caring about my prospective husband's salary.

If I were to do it again I would not date anyone who made less than 300k.

Why don’t you move? Lots of people in this world have babies with an HHI of 80K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I married my husband when he was making 80k and I 50k. We were deeply in love, with no family money on either side. We got married in 2014. It has now been 8 years since we married. We do not own a home. We do not have children. We almost got a divorce 2 years ago due to stress of not having enough to build a family life in NOVA.

I am stressed out and regretful about my choice most days. Yes, he was hot and nice, but that did not give us an income to build a suitable family life. I watched with envy as each of my friends married men making 200k, 400k and immediately were able to buy homes, have babies, build families and a family life.
I never cared about money. I thought it was silly and materialistic. Because after all, its true love and the insides that matter.

As a bitter, broke, childless mid thirties woman, I regret not caring about my prospective husband's salary.

If I were to do it again I would not date anyone who made less than 300k.

As a 26 year old woman... i appreciate your honesty.

+1 This post was refreshing to read because whenever this topic comes up, 95% of the responses are "golly gee I didn't care at all about money and I married my DH when we were young, broke and in love, and now he makes $500k teehee." We don't often hear from the people who married men who didn't make much money and still don't make much money. I think the lesson here is to make your own money and not rely on somebody else to hand you the lifestyle you want. Most high earning men (who also have other desirable qualities one looks for in a spouse) are off the market early, and if they're not, they rule the dating scene and have their pick of women.

The reason that scenario comes up so often is that this board is full of people in our income bracket. Lots of women in other income brackets didn’t marry for money, their husbands never earned a lot, and they somehow manage to still be happy and not bitter.

The statistics don’t bear out your latter points— divorce is more common at lower income brackets. So obviously some unhappiness persists even if they “didn’t marry for money”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I married my husband when he was making 80k and I 50k. We were deeply in love, with no family money on either side. We got married in 2014. It has now been 8 years since we married. We do not own a home. We do not have children. We almost got a divorce 2 years ago due to stress of not having enough to build a family life in NOVA.

I am stressed out and regretful about my choice most days. Yes, he was hot and nice, but that did not give us an income to build a suitable family life. I watched with envy as each of my friends married men making 200k, 400k and immediately were able to buy homes, have babies, build families and a family life.
I never cared about money. I thought it was silly and materialistic. Because after all, its true love and the insides that matter.

As a bitter, broke, childless mid thirties woman, I regret not caring about my prospective husband's salary.

If I were to do it again I would not date anyone who made less than 300k.

As a 26 year old woman... i appreciate your honesty.

+1 This post was refreshing to read because whenever this topic comes up, 95% of the responses are "golly gee I didn't care at all about money and I married my DH when we were young, broke and in love, and now he makes $500k teehee." We don't often hear from the people who married men who didn't make much money and still don't make much money. I think the lesson here is to make your own money and not rely on somebody else to hand you the lifestyle you want. Most high earning men (who also have other desirable qualities one looks for in a spouse) are off the market early, and if they're not, they rule the dating scene and have their pick of women.

The reason that scenario comes up so often is that this board is full of people in our income bracket. Lots of women in other income brackets didn’t marry for money, their husbands never earned a lot, and they somehow manage to still be happy and not bitter.

The statistics don’t bear out your latter points— divorce is more common at lower income brackets. So obviously some unhappiness persists even if they “didn’t marry for money”

That doesn’t make what I said untrue. I know many women like this, maybe because I don’t live in as much of a bubble as you do. Also yes divorce is more common at lower income brackets (which btw means a 30K income, but an 80K income) but there is no way you can say that the cause is the bitterness of women who married low earners.

Marrying somebody who doesn’t seem interested in an equal partner or who is just terrible at managing money is a separate issue. Wanting to marry somebody who knows have to save and invest isn’t the same thing as wanting to marry somebody who makes 300K.