Men: What was your reaction when your wife said she wanted to SAHM?

[Anonymous]

I am A SAHM, not a DH like you were looking for, but my DH makes about $1M so my experience may be relavent to your situation. I was in my late 30's when I had our first, so I worked for many years before SAH. My DH works long hours and travels a lot, so my DH was in favor of my staying at home, although he would have been fine with a nanny if I wanted to keep working. One thing that helped us is that I kept a very part time connection to my previous field and picked up some contract work here and there. The money was pointless given our assets, but it made me (and DH, I think) feel like I had a way to ramp back on if we needed it. I still do a little contract work years later. We also ended up buying a bunch of rental properties and I manage those. Because it is so easy to leverage debt with a high income, we own many of those properties outright now and clear more a month above expenses than I ever made working full time. Don't assume that you will never work again, but realize that you might never work in an office again. Since most people don't know the details of our finances, I'm sure people see me as a SAHM with a little part time job. But, the rental income we make and the value of the real estate itself is a nice part of our net worth. We couldn't have bought that property without my DH's money, but he couldn't manage the logistics without me to make a profit. A flexible combination of our skills and resources allowed us to have our cake and eat it too.

[Anonymous]

My wife stayed home. I made about 175k back then. I was thrilled she wanted to stay home. It works for us. Only drawback, kids are 9 and 6 and she is still home, which is fine by me but she isn't thrilled about it anymore but lacks confidence

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

He makes over half million.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't really matter what his reaction will be. If it is what you want, you have an obligation to yourself to at least bring it up and advocate for it, regardless of what the ultimate decision you guys will agree on will be.

[Anonymous]

Wife not husband, but my husband had very mixed feelings when I raised the idea shortly after going back to work after our first was born, even though we'd talked about it as a possibility before getting married. His concern pretty much boiled down to not wanting to take a big lifestyle hit for it, which I suspect (but never voiced to him because it would have been needlessly antagonistic in the context of our discussions) was because he didn't really see there being much upside for him in that arrangement. I raised the idea as something I was considering and explained why I thought it would be a good idea, both my own emotional difficulty being away from our child and the difficulties I was having doing my job well and doing my share of the childcare (which I ended up doing more of due to things like nursing/pumping). When he resisted the idea, I said I wasn't going to pressure him on it, but asked that he just think about it before making up his mind. In the meantime, I made sure not to take on an unfair share of childcare/housework, I was very direct in asking him to take on his half of everything. It didn't take very long for him to realize how much work it was to juggle both his job and 50% of the homefront and decide he'd be happier overall with less income but more free time for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 6 months pregnant with our first child. I want to tell my husband that I am seriously considering quitting my job for a while to SAHM. I'm nervous about his reaction. We met in college and he's always known me as a hard working, ambitious person. But lately I've felt myself changing and not caring about work and promotions like I used to. I'm curious about what you thought if your wife went through something similar. FWIW, I'm not going to say that money is "no" issue but it's less of an issue. DH out earns me by a lot and makes enough to maintain a nice lifestyle in this area (he makes around $650-750k).

We talked about it once in the past and he said he'd be fine with whatever but back then I used to scorn SAHMs and totally scoffed. So I'm also kind of eating crow here too.

At that income I would be hard pressed to feel that money would be an issue. If so then there are other issues that might need to be addressed.

I will leave the rest to the ladies here who have been pregnant etc., I am a man and would never even tip toe into that mine field, lol, but I will share that I have been down this road as to the decision for my wife to be at home or continue working. After our first she took almost a year off but finances dictated that she needed to return to work for a time. After the birth of our second she briefly went back to work and once she left then she didn't go back to work until our last child was several years into elementary school and then it was part time. We didn't have a lot of money through those years but we managed and we both felt it was the best for us and our children.

[Anonymous]

I would love to SAH for a limited time (3-5 yrs). My husband's main objection is that he would also like to do that. Because we cannot agree on who gets to, we both continue to work. That said, our oldest is in elementary school and we are TTC our second, so we can kick it down the road for a while yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

You can end the relationship and find a man who is okay with the SAHM arrangement. I'm sure your fiancé will have no problems finding another woman who enjoys working and raising a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

Did you respond by asking how he pulled his weight by growing a baby, labor and delivery and breastfeeding??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

Why are you planning to marry him then? He sounds like an ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't say I'd react well, but I also don't make nearly what your husband does (six figures, but not close to his numbers). However, I was pretty upfront that I was not the sort of husband who wanted to be a sole support to my wife, that I wanted a two income household, etc. I'd be pretty annoyed if my wife decided she didn't want to work anymore, without any really good reason, which I haven't seen you give.

I want to spend time with my child? That's not a good enough reason? I've been going through the motions of comparing a nanny vs. daycare (we have our name down for a couple) and I just really feel like I want to do this stuff myself. I want to do the mommy and me classes and take her to the park, etc. I want to spend long afternoons at the splash pad. I don't want to hire someone else to have all the fun with MY daughter when I could do it myself.

Yes you are the only important parent in that household. What if the father had the same responses. He wants to do Daddy and me classes.

Most men don't have this desire.

Second, most children prefer their mother.

Have you asked him or are you making assumptions? You are so important than he is, but he is then one that ensures you have a shelter or the family will be homeless, food or the family will starve and all other basic necessities. So if we are all for equality and women's right a man should be given the same opportunity to stay home as a woman and not work. We should stop with the assumptions. Fathers who want to stay at home to focus on marrying women who earn high income as well. Women shouldn't get priority over men because we are all equals.

[Anonymous]

We my husband and I got married, he knew I wanted to stay at home. When the time came, he just couldn't handle the pressure that being the sole bread winner would entail. Granted, he did not make nearly as much as your spouse, but we would have been able to swing it if he had supported the decision. I ended up continuing to work. And honestly, it really took a toll on our relationship. I didn't change what I wanted. He did. Had he been upfront with me from the beginning it would not have been an issue. But the fact that we went into the marriage.. into having kids... under the assumption that I would be staying at home... it really hurt me and threw me for a loop to change that life plan. I still feel like I missed out.

My point is... there might be some feelings that have to be processed. You have been internally processing your shift. He might need a moment to process his feelings on the subject. I am not sure which way he will fall.. he might be totally supportive. But you have to understand that changing something that was a fundamental belief in the marriage will possibly cause some confusion and hurt if the other person was counting on that truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

Why are you planning to marry him then? He sounds like an ass.

His position doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Whaaattt? We can't afford that!!!" But he only makes 500K.

New Poster. Your husband won't let you SAHM on an income of half a million dollars? How badly do you want to do it?

I know my fiancé never would. He thinks everyone needs to "pull their own weight" and be "self sufficient" and he cannot imagine a husband supporting a wife. I can't stand him so often.

Why are you planning to marry him then? He sounds like an ass.

Add to this that we had many conversations about me staying home when we were dating, but he has since gone back on this