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.

This was almost me. I almost married someone who didn’t have their finances together and didn’t want kids or anything. Glad I dodged that bullet. I don’t think I need anyone who makes 300k. 100k can be just fine if you are good and smart with your money. But you need to have ambition, at least.

[Anonymous]

It depends on a lot. What type of woman do you want to marry? Do you already have kids? Want kids?

If you childless and are in your late 30s/early 40s and expecting to marry a women 10 yrs younger that will want to be a SAHM, I’d say 300k min.

If you already have kids, marrying someone already with kids and/or don’t want anymore kids, I would say 150k- assuming a woman divorced with her own kids is already working full time and kids are at least school aged and she will continue to work full time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I married my DH 10 years ago, he made 120k and I thought that was a lot.

It sounds like you have a lot of love in your family. Hopefully he makes more now

Why, other than it’s good in general o get raises but can be hard in family friend jobs. If she makes a similar income they have almost $300k income. Maybe she makes more now?

That 120k was 10 years ago. The same spending power would need to be 150k now. Just to maintain the same lifestyle, Never mind the added expense of kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on a lot. What type of woman do you want to marry? Do you already have kids? Want kids?

If you childless and are in your late 30s/early 40s and expecting to marry a women 10 yrs younger that will want to be a SAHM, I’d say 300k min.

If you already have kids, marrying someone already with kids and/or don’t want anymore kids, I would say 150k- assuming a woman divorced with her own kids is already working full time and kids are at least school aged and she will continue to work full time

I’m amazed that people think you need 300k minimum just to be the norm. What are you people spending so much money on? Yea housing here is pricey, but damn. You can’t make a 150-200HHI work?

Some of you really need financial planners in your lives.

[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 didn’t you choose a lucrative career path and work towards promotions? I say this as a female breadwinner. When I met my husband he made $20k as a post-doc. He’s not super ambitious and I didn’t know if he’d ever get a “real” job. I didn’t care because I knew I could support us. He has since become a GS-15 and that has allowed me to step back and stagnate in my career while our kids are young.

[Anonymous]

The number is going to be higher the less confident the woman is that she can support herself/a family on her own.

When we got engaged DH made just under $90k and I made $100k. We were aggressively paying off student loans and living cheaply. Now he makes ~125k and I make ~360k and we live pretty well (cheap tastes, but a wonderful nest egg). But he was always marriage material because he comes from a long line of good, involved dads, he was looking to be in love and build a partnership with someone, and we get along incredibly well. He could make half what he makes now and still have those things and we'd be fine. If he made double what he makes now but you took one of those things off the table, he would not be marriage material.

If I was worried that I could never personally make good money I would put a higher emphasis on his income, but it's a family pot and ours is sufficiently full.

[Anonymous]

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.

Why didn’t you choose a lucrative career path and work towards promotions? I say this as a female breadwinner. When I met my husband he made $20k as a post-doc. He’s not super ambitious and I didn’t know if he’d ever get a “real” job. I didn’t care because I knew I could support us. He has since become a GS-15 and that has allowed me to step back and stagnate in my career while our kids are young.

+1 a man is not a plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, it was more about what degree he had. I married my husband the summer between finishing his master's and heading to a Ph.D. degree in statistics. We're doing well now. I am a stay-at-home mom, and he makes 160k. He finished his Ph.D. three years ago. Not all women are gold diggers.

Degrees are fine. They're an indicator of what they might do or where their interest lie or how their ambitions are. But. But be careful when you marry potential. Not many people live up to their potenial.

It worked out for me, but I understand what you mean. Statistics is a little bit of a niche market. We would have been fine if he went into the private sector after his masters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, he would need to signal that he wants to have kids, that he has strong family values and wants to play an active role in raising and supporting the kids. Since this anonymous, I'll admit that when I was dating, I only took men who were ambitious and high earners seriously, but I was in big law at the time, so I think it was fair to want a partner who matched my ambition and work ethic.

Why is this? Why can’t it be someone who has similar values for family, maybe politics or religion, fun to be with, maybe funny or brave? Like why is income, work, ambition such a stark measure. I know it’s because you expect men to be providers, but it feels sexist.

It might be sexist, but it's what I wanted. My father was a high earner. I'm glad I married someone who's ambitious and hardworking because I am both of those things and I wanted a partner who shared the load in creating the life that I wanted for myself and my family. FWIW, I still make enough money to support a UMC lifestyle for our family on my income alone, but DH makes more.

[Anonymous]

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.

Why didn’t you choose a lucrative career path and work towards promotions? I say this as a female breadwinner. When I met my husband he made $20k as a post-doc. He’s not super ambitious and I didn’t know if he’d ever get a “real” job. I didn’t care because I knew I could support us. He has since become a GS-15 and that has allowed me to step back and stagnate in my career while our kids are young.

PP here. I was never particularly ambitious and wanted to be a mom. My husband had a good degree so I assumed he'd make a respectable 150k or so in a few years. Well, that did not happen. He also had 200k graduate school debt which would also swallow our already small salary. We never felt secure enough to have a baby in those years as neither of us had parental help or a safety net to fall back on and meager savings. Between paying rent, his school loans and groceries we would have nothing left over. We could not imagine adding a baby to the mix. I grew increasingly angry and resentful as that wasn't the life I had signed up for. I had hoped to be a mother within 1-2 years of being married.

Well...life had other plans.

My husband became tired of living paycheck to paycheck and started his own consulting business. Last year he made 320k, this year he has made 150k so far. If things keep going this way, I guess we can finally TTC. But I have learned from my smarter friends who weeded out high paid men while dating. They have it all. The house, the children, the relatively stress free life.

Of course, if I was ambitious on my own, I wouldn't have cared as much, but for a family minded woman, prioritizing a man with a well paid income is very important. Interestingly, my friends who make money are not interested in someone who makes less either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a man in his 40’s? I mean, unless you are looking to marry someone much younger than yourself, you aren’t really looking to support a family anymore. I would say that as long as you make more than you spend and aren’t still hustling with seasonal or part time jobs, you are fine.

I often wonder who is reading these boards. A lot of people have first children around age 40. Most of my female friends had their first children at 40 or 41 about eight years ago. Around age 40 a man should expect to be still be raising a family if he hasn’t been married yet for sure. My second child was born eight years ago and my ex-husband was 41. But like I said I know plenty of people that had first children around age 40. This is not the 1990s.

The women I know who are looking to start a family in their forties are pretty career focused and aren’t really looking for a good provider. They wouldn’t care what OP’s income is other than wanting it to match their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think 90k-100k is solid for the DC area. Obviously, not a well off man, but respectable.

^^ Same poster here. OP, let me be your momma for a minute. Don't worry about what you have. You should instead worry about what your fiance brings to the table. Does she have a career, does she have a ton of debt, is she a high maintenance money pit, does she want to become a housewife, and can she cook and clean? Chose wisely.

[Anonymous]

or choose.

[Anonymous]

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.

Why didn’t you choose a lucrative career path and work towards promotions? I say this as a female breadwinner. When I met my husband he made $20k as a post-doc. He’s not super ambitious and I didn’t know if he’d ever get a “real” job. I didn’t care because I knew I could support us. He has since become a GS-15 and that has allowed me to step back and stagnate in my career while our kids are young.

PP here. I was never particularly ambitious and wanted to be a mom. My husband had a good degree so I assumed he'd make a respectable 150k or so in a few years. Well, that did not happen. He also had 200k graduate school debt which would also swallow our already small salary. We never felt secure enough to have a baby in those years as neither of us had parental help or a safety net to fall back on and meager savings. Between paying rent, his school loans and groceries we would have nothing left over. We could not imagine adding a baby to the mix. I grew increasingly angry and resentful as that wasn't the life I had signed up for. I had hoped to be a mother within 1-2 years of being married.

Well...life had other plans.

My husband became tired of living paycheck to paycheck and started his own consulting business. Last year he made 320k, this year he has made 150k so far. If things keep going this way, I guess we can finally TTC. But I have learned from my smarter friends who weeded out high paid men while dating. They have it all. The house, the children, the relatively stress free life.

Of course, if I was ambitious on my own, I wouldn't have cared as much, but for a family minded woman, prioritizing a man with a well paid income is very important. Interestingly, my friends who make money are not interested in someone who makes less either.

I don’t understand what the correlation between him making more money is stopping you from TTC. Why do you have to wait until he makes more money in order to start TTC? You’re not getting any younger…


Sounds like you don’t even like your husband.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This debate is always so fascinating to me.
My husband was making $15k when I met him helping run his family business. He was late thirties. Had multiple income bearing properties. Had zero debt.
I was a lawyer making ten times more than him, but boatloads of school debt.
We went out and borrowed seven figures for a business for us both to run, but mostly him. It brought us about $100k a year in profit.
We sold it after ten years and he started his own business.
I now make more than $500k per year in large part to him owning his own business and being very involved in family stuff. He makes much less with a new biz in a pandemic, but I don’t care what he makes. He might eventually be more successful than me.
But his income has never mattered “that” much because I can support myself.

But, I also 100% believe that money solves problem. We have a kid with profound special needs and the ability to outsource has saved us.

Sounds like he is not (or you both are not) that good with money. No one smart borrows seven figures to buy a business earning $100K per year; you can just build one of those in 2-3 years with zero debt.