Men: Do You Care If Your Wife Makes Less Than You?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a big deal if your wife makes less than you? Do you expect her to take on more household responsibilities because of it?

I make less than my husband but we work the same amount of hours in our careers. Why do you think I should pick up more of the drudgery of housework and do more laundry and dishes just because I went into a less lucrative field than him? Wtf. How patriarchal of you!

Same here. Husband makes 200k, I make 130, but I work a lot more hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dh cares and wants me to change jobs for a more demanding higher paying one. We have 2 kids and i do most of the work. I told him I’d make a change but he needs to fully understand what that means for him. FWIW he already makes about 6-7 times than I do and I’m in low six fig. He thinks all the financial burden is gonna fall on him even though we live so modestly. It’s very frustrating.

I usually roll my eyes when someone says what I'm about to say but... do you think maybe he's thinking of asking for a divorce?? You already make a lot and he makes a LOT a lot. This doesn't make a lot of sense, unless...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dh cares and wants me to change jobs for a more demanding higher paying one. We have 2 kids and i do most of the work. I told him I’d make a change but he needs to fully understand what that means for him. FWIW he already makes about 6-7 times than I do and I’m in low six fig. He thinks all the financial burden is gonna fall on him even though we live so modestly. It’s very frustrating.

I usually roll my eyes when someone says what I'm about to say but... do you think maybe he's thinking of asking for a divorce?? You already make a lot and he makes a LOT a lot. This doesn't make a lot of sense, unless...

Yeah, that sounds really weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dh cares and wants me to change jobs for a more demanding higher paying one. We have 2 kids and i do most of the work. I told him I’d make a change but he needs to fully understand what that means for him. FWIW he already makes about 6-7 times than I do and I’m in low six fig. He thinks all the financial burden is gonna fall on him even though we live so modestly. It’s very frustrating.

I usually roll my eyes when someone says what I'm about to say but... do you think maybe he's thinking of asking for a divorce?? You already make a lot and he makes a LOT a lot. This doesn't make a lot of sense, unless...

Dis tew much.

[Anonymous]

Both DH and I were raised in traditional households where the dads worked and moms were sahms. We planned to both work outside the home and arrange for childcare but having a severely disabled child changed all that. He has never made me feel less than for not bringing in a paycheck after our child was born and I think that is because his parents had shown his that a family could function well on a single paycheck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a big deal if your wife makes less than you? Do you expect her to take on more household responsibilities because of it?

.


It sounds like no and yes. I will add that they also probably expect that their jobs will always be treated as primary whenever there is a scheduling conflict and will be given considerably greater consideration if someone wants to move to another town/city/state/country.

I actually think this is the same when the genders are reversed. The problem is not that women don't respect lower earning men, but that men don't actually take on the additional household responsibilities.

+1 Or, if they do, they are perpetually (and vocally) unhappy about it. There are exceptions, to be sure, but this has been my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a big deal if your wife makes less than you? Do you expect her to take on more household responsibilities because of it?

I make less than my husband but we work the same amount of hours in our careers. Why do you think I should pick up more of the drudgery of housework and do more laundry and dishes just because I went into a less lucrative field than him? Wtf. How patriarchal of you!

Well, what about this scenario: My DH decided he wanted to start various non-profits/businesses and/or write a book. So, he works full time on these projects and makes $0. Is it patriarchal for me to expect he does more around the house? What if he made $10k?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a big deal if your wife makes less than you? Do you expect her to take on more household responsibilities because of it?

.


It sounds like no and yes. I will add that they also probably expect that their jobs will always be treated as primary whenever there is a scheduling conflict and will be given considerably greater consideration if someone wants to move to another town/city/state/country.

I actually think this is the same when the genders are reversed. The problem is not that women don't respect lower earning men, but that men don't actually take on the additional household responsibilities.

+1 Or, if they do, they are perpetually (and vocally) unhappy about it. There are exceptions, to be sure, but this has been my experience.

Or they don't do it well, or they outsource it. DH took on laundry as an area of the household for him to deal with the actual and mental labor of. Couple months later, he'd found a laundry service at a good price. Couple months after that, nagging him to deal with the laundry service company was on my plate. And of course he didn't take on some other area of household management since he'd gotten out of actually doing the work by outsourcing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dh cares and wants me to change jobs for a more demanding higher paying one. We have 2 kids and i do most of the work. I told him I’d make a change but he needs to fully understand what that means for him. FWIW he already makes about 6-7 times than I do and I’m in low six fig. He thinks all the financial burden is gonna fall on him even though we live so modestly. It’s very frustrating.

NP, my DH is like this too. He makes WAY more than I do and definitely has been the breadwinner. However, I've left jobs to move states with him multiple times, and cut off my salary at the knees as a result while he has pursued his aspirations in his own career. I've been the one over time to handle all the household and childcare duties outside of work and have had to go part-time for some years to handle it all. All this was fine with him and he considered this collateral damage for him making a bunch of money and moving up in his field.

He wants me to "lean in" and find a higher-paying job with more responsibility/prestige, but he's got complete cognitive dissonance when it comes to the time it takes to do my non-professional responsibilities in our house. As if I wouldn't want to be the Director of something or make a rewarding career for myself. I've told him before that what he wants for me would be very difficult to commit to under the current division of duties. He mostly brushes it off but will later suggest I am not reaching my "full potential." Meanwhile when I approached him a couple months ago about a potentially new job (making about the same but better professionally for where I want to go), he said something like "make sure it's flexible like your job now" with the implication of course that things will still fall to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dh cares and wants me to change jobs for a more demanding higher paying one. We have 2 kids and i do most of the work. I told him I’d make a change but he needs to fully understand what that means for him. FWIW he already makes about 6-7 times than I do and I’m in low six fig. He thinks all the financial burden is gonna fall on him even though we live so modestly. It’s very frustrating.

I usually roll my eyes when someone says what I'm about to say but... do you think maybe he's thinking of asking for a divorce?? You already make a lot and he makes a LOT a lot. This doesn't make a lot of sense, unless...

Dis tew much.

Yep I already thought of that. It has to be what it is.

[Anonymous]

No, I don't mind.

[Anonymous]

My wife makes 1/3 of what I make. It’s good

[Anonymous]

I make $130K and my husband makes $300K. We split tasks evenly. I do amazon (diapers, stuff to make our house run, etc.), groceries, meal planning, schedule doctors visits and vets, and meal prep. My husband and I split cooking, childcare (we have a nanny M-F, because we both work full-time), and dog duties, but he does the laundry, unloads the dishes, schedules our cleaning woman, electrician, plumber, etc. No resentment. We love each other and we're partners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow. I am TOTALLY SHOCKED at the answers. This is EXACTLY DIFFERENT from how people answered in the last 364 questions about this.

Look, OP: Guys don't care about how much money you make. They are generally fine with you being a nurse, or a nanny, or a cosmetologist or beautician. You know this.

You also know that they are NOT generally okay if you are excessively needy, socially awkward, sexually very inexperienced at a later stage in life (not all, but we discussed how this can sometimes be a red flag), fat, unable to share in their interests at all, or start 364 thread with the title "Men: ..." (They hate that last one. Red flags all over it.)

Eh, I know men that would marry a nurse, but not the other three professions. I don’t know anyone college educated married to someone non college educated. They want their future kids to be well educated.

Really?

Ha‼️
I bet ya that if the Nanny was slim and attractive but the nurse was just average in looks that any man would choose the Nanny.

Look at all the celebrities who got romantically involved w/their children’s Nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow. I am TOTALLY SHOCKED at the answers. This is EXACTLY DIFFERENT from how people answered in the last 364 questions about this.

Look, OP: Guys don't care about how much money you make. They are generally fine with you being a nurse, or a nanny, or a cosmetologist or beautician. You know this.

You also know that they are NOT generally okay if you are excessively needy, socially awkward, sexually very inexperienced at a later stage in life (not all, but we discussed how this can sometimes be a red flag), fat, unable to share in their interests at all, or start 364 thread with the title "Men: ..." (They hate that last one. Red flags all over it.)

Eh, I know men that would marry a nurse, but not the other three professions. I don’t know anyone college educated married to someone non college educated. They want their future kids to be well educated.

I know a couple. What is bizarre is that they leave all of the child rearing and decisions about school to the non college educated spouse.