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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have you talked with DH about downsizing? What he say? That sounds like the best option here because you are unlikely to be financially better off or better for your kids divorced as long as he is pulling his weight enough financially that there is not a net loss (or gambling away, addictions). But my guess is that you are not attracted to this less ambitious version of DH any more  - so why move the kids, give up the nice house, and still be married to someone you aren't attracted to anymore? If that rings true for you, explore that more in therapy. What else attracts(ed) you to DH and can you rekindle that? Would you be ok leaving just because you aren't attracted to him anymore?[/quote]

op - this is the crux of it. 
it's actually even less about the money than part of attraction being that someone is somewhat ambitious. doesn't even have to be so financially driven - but just - driven to do something more. 
when we met he had a million things he did and wanted to do and now it's like they're just... gone. [/quote]

Same, OP. When we met, DH was a military officer. I already out-earned him, but he was ambitious and loved his job and between his pay, BAH etc, made a more than solid income. After four years of marriage he decided to retire from the military. Since he put in more than 20 years, he gets a full pension, but it's only about half of his pre-retirement earnings. I assumed he would get another full-time job, since he was only in his mid forties, and he said that was his plan, but... he never did. He had various plans: he was going to go back to school, he was going to start a company, and so on. Started some things, never finished them. He eventually picked up a little consulting work, but even with that, he makes a lot less than he would be making if he had stayed in the military, and much less than if he had a full-time civilian income combined with his military pension. [b]What bugs me most is not that he is making less money, but that he doesn't seem to notice or care that I am still busting my butt at work[/b]. So my income pays for 3/4 of our joint expenses, and he sits around most days doing God knows what.

Yes, considering divorce. There are other issues as well. If he was working full time in a low-paid non-profit job and loved it, and was otherwise happy and engaged, I'd by fine earning most of the money. But a man who sits around with nothing much to do? No thanks.[/quote]

THIS. 
this is the mystifying thing. 
Like, if any spouse watched the other spouse struggle to carry a heavy box from the car to the house and didn't go outside to help them, it would seem bizarre. But yet this daily equivalent is somehow ok. 
then the other spouse feels resentful and wants to feel taken care of.

[/quote]

And now do you strongly sympathize with every guy with  SAHM who never gets a job even after all her child-raising days are over?[/quote]

I don't understand how anyone can seriously think these are equivalent. Women bear the entire physical burden of having the kids and 98% of the time are taking care of more child and home-related tasks even after the kids are in school. Plus after raising the kids all those years your career often takes a major hit... that your family has signficantly benefitted from through all of your work in the home. This is not at all the same as a man randomly stepping back from work. [/quote]

+1.  The reality is that men do not do as much domestic labor and they are not wired to do caretaking as competently as women. Even if they try, the average man is not and cannot competently fill the role of the at-home spouse. So when a man works less, that time tends to be taken up with idle activities at best, and expensive hobbies at worst.

I'm from the generation that was raised by starry-eyed feminists to believe that women can have everything and that if you out earn your husband, you're a boss babe with an enviable life. This is not what I'm teaching my teen daughter. There are very real gender dynamics that you ignore at your own peril.  I was/am an ambitious high earner and my husband has always been as well. When I sought a totally egalitarian marriage in which we did about the same at home and earn about the same at work, I wasnt as happy and my marriage wasn't as strong as when I let that go. Since letting it go, our income has skyrocketed. We both do a lot more work now. I do more housework and parenting and he works his a$$ off at work.[b] In seeking to make things even, I was holding us down. [/b]

OP, tell your husband. I doubt he likes this dynamic either. I bet he's able to really go hard at work but he doesn't have the impetus. He probably knows this is an unnatural arrangement, from the standpoint of thousands of years of evolution.  [/quote]

Nah, you just married a loser.

My husband and I are equal in all respects except that I carried our kids. (They were twins and formula-fed so yes, he even fed them as much as I did).

Since we're true partners who can do everything the other can, our income has skyrocketed because we're both able to support each other. Also, bonus, our kids think of us as equal parents versus a parent and an ATM. [/quote]

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