Reply to SAHMs and marriage dynamics?

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[quote=Anonymous]Depends on the relationship and financial dynamics.

When I was a SAHM, my DH was totally supportive, continued to contribute at home and split childcare/cooking/houswork with me pretty evenly when we were both home (nights and weekends). He also viewed his income as our joint income and absolutely didn't second guess the way I spent money or make me feel guilty for spending money on myself.

However, I struggled with it. I had never been without an income before and it made me feel really insecure, I hated feeling like I was spending "his" money (even though he never viewed it that way or made me feel that way), and I sometimes felt intense pressure to get all the housework done and never leave any childcare for him because, after all, he was working and wasn't (again, entirely my own instinctive framing, not his).

My life got way better when I got some childcare and started working part-time. I'm actually still part-time several years later and it's a good balance for us. I like being home and available for DC after school, and I find it fairly easy to balance work and motherhood with a part-time job. It's a contract job in my field that pays well, so I also feel like I'm keeping my skills sharp and not wasting my education or experience. But the biggest thing is just that mentally, it's easier for me to expect a equal share of childcare/housework from my DH when I'm also contributing financially. Plus it means I'm contributing to my retirement funds and our kid's 529.

So much of this is mental. My DH used to make all the good feminist arguments about why I didn't need to feel less than for not working (my labor was essential to the family functioning, I was entitled to his income because without my labor at home he could not have worked, etc.) but I just couldn't get past the fact that I was not earning a paycheck and it made me feel bad. After returning to work, every paycheck feels so good.

I did not realize how much of my self-worth was caught up in being financially independent until I was completely dependent on him for money. I hated it. Now, I'm not actually financially independent now either -- we couldn't live off my salary as it is and I make less than he does. But he's not really financially independent either because if I weren't providing most of our needed childcare outside of school plus doing more housework and household management outside my work hours, he'd have to outsource a lot of that and it would cost a lot. We're financially interdependent which make sense because we're a family unit.[/quote]

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