Slightly offended DGM announced I 'married well'

Always a risk to fully put your self in the hands of a DH like that. After splitting up with mine, I’d recommend to all women to ensure they have their own career and safety net just in case. That power imbalance can lead to massive issues! Unless you are a hundreds percent sure, but even then things can change.

She’s hardly a DGM then. Sounds like a nasty old bat

It does indeed sound as though you married well, as you say that your husband is fully supportive of you/ your choices and direction.

OMFG. So what you are saying is, if she wasn’t around, and he had sole care of the children, he could simply ‘outsource childcare and cleaning’, keep his career and everything would be hunky dory? What a load of bull.
If that were the case high earning single parents would have no bother at all.
What about if he has to work evenings/weekends/business trips? Which I assume he does because OP describes him as a father who is sometimes absent. Just call on Mary Poppins? What about if he is sick or this magical nanny is?
And do you actually have any idea how much full time childcare costs? And I mean full time as in five days a week, holiday cover, weekends if he needs them? You could easily pay upwards of £2000 a month for a full time private nursery place for one baby. What if there is also a preschooler and two primary aged kids needing afterschool care and holiday clubs? Oh and by the way, they usually start at 7:30 at the earliest (that’s nursery, you’re stuffed if you have primary school aged kids who can’t go any earlier than 8:15 for breakfast club, worse if there is is no breakfast club) but you start work at 8:30.
Come into the real world.

I can’t believe all the people here saying it’s a compliment. The internalised misogyny is astounding. It is absolutely not! It implies a level of calculation in who a person has married and it’s also completely one sided!
It could be argued that he married well, choosing a partner who is so kind and philanthropic, and also can presumably devote most of her time and attention to their children, not to mention saving potentially thousands in childcare.

You've already said she's not a very nice person so why care what she thinks? Know your own worth! And don't worry about what anyone else thinks 🤷‍♀️

Such a rude thing to say when it’s none of her business anyway . As long as you and your husband are happy that’s the main thing.

@letsgoooo many people are perfectly happy to rely on childcare while they work full time. It's not some kind of weird moral failing.

But you can do what you do because of his earnings, presumably.
I personally don't see the big problem. It's just something that someone of her generation would say.
Of course you should remind her that he's lucky too (not that she should need a reminder).

Not if they as a couple want to raise their children without totally relying on nannies etc.

Whatever job she had would have to be flexible enough to work around childcare, pick ups and drop offs, school holidays and illness.
It really is impossible to have a traditional family upbringing if both parents are out working longer than regular hours with lots of periods of over seas travel
It can be done but the family life becomes very different and many people don't want this.
So one person sacrifices their career for the good of the family.
That's what's happened here. He has been enabled by the OP stepping back and doing all the domestic family work. She has been able to do a charity job that allows her to have time for all the domestic family things.

We made the same choice. Either both dh and I were out all the time, barely seeing each other as there is no way our travel schedules would match up and the dc not seeing their parents for days. Leaving before they hit up and getting home after they went to bed.

So I stopped. I created a stable family home life and did various charity volunteering roles. This enabled dh to totally commit himself to his job never having to think twice about if and when he could work or travel. We also moved country for several years for his job. He didn't have to do anything other than get on a plane and fly to the new location. No house hunting. No getting tenants. Ni sorting out house so it was rent ready. No finding schools or doctors or starting and closing down accounts.

That's why he could do what he did.

With a present, actively-supportive spouse, she might have ended up as the CEO of a major charity, and both helped people and made a lot of money, though? The CEO of Barnardos earned £209,999 in 2019, the CEO of MacMillan Cancer Support £200,000 in 2022 (just two grabbed at random from the internet). The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Except that she smuggly says "my life's mission has always been to help others" ,which she wouldn't have been able to do, or would have had to do with a very different lifestyle if it weren't for DH.

Why is the OP ‘indulging’ her crusade though? Isn’t it equally possible to read it as the OP paying heavily for a financially comfortable life by having a usually-absent husband and father to her children, and whose professional life (while she doesn’t need to worry about paying bills) has had to fit around her husband’s absences and her own status as default parent?

She seems to me to have paid a significant price for her position.

Well yes, IMHO you did - you married a man who was rich enough to take care of you, whilst you indulge your crusade

The OP is paying a high price, though — her DH is away a lot. She describes him as a ‘absent father/husband’ who has been so for years. Not only is she the solo day to day parent very often, but, if her DH supports her poorly-paid charity work, it’s not in the day to day sense of doing nursery pick up so the OP can chair an unforeseen crisis meeting just work late. Her career has to fit around his as well as be limited by her being sole parent in practice a lot.

That’s a huge price.

Correct, it is about money.

The others are out of league type scenarios.

Howecer if you marry money but the spouse is much older or unattractive, then you are sniggered at a bit. Not seen as having done so well because you are paying a price/trade off.

Exactly, she is projecting her insecurities. It's her own inner critic.

Not sure where I'm going with this post, perhaps just a rant, but I can't help but feel annoyed that my contribution to society is so overlooked by Salary!

such a privalged entitled viewpoint when your husband pays for it

This comment is from a granny and while you define it differently, i would have thought most British people would interpret it about money and social status @letsgoooo

Someone marrying better looking or better educated I would think is said to be punching or married out of their league.

I mean to be fair she’s right, without him working his well paid job you couldn’t work for pennies could you. So she’s right In a way if it offends you then you know she’s hit a nerve.

@letsgoooo except lots of people work away and work long hours without a partner at home earning pennies while they "follow their passion" 🤷‍♀️

OP can only earn very little in a field she loves because her husband supports her and carries all the financial burden. She couldn't do what she loves if he earned minimum wage.

Whereas most high earners can easily outsource childcare and cleaning if they want, and still keep their careers.

@EdgyCat you associate marrying well purely on financial reasons.

I associate marrying well with a broader outlook

Yes historically it referred to predominantly social class and then secondly with money.

We don't live in those times.

I think marrying well encompasses a much broader reflection of what is considered high value.

Looks
Money
Social status
Education level
Character

Someone with significant disability may be thought to have married well if they married someone who chose a life with them in spite of the added challenges.

Someone very unfortunate looking may be thought to have married well if they married someone stunning

Someone with little education may be thought to have married well if they married someone with a PhD

But she'd still be doing that if she'd married a man doing 2 minimum wage jobs to make ends meet.

But he is also putting up with some form of drudgery and shit at work, too. It's not a competition it's about owning the choices you have and being grateful to be able to choose. Plenty other women don't have the money this husband brings while also doing most of parenting and daily drudgery.

I thought "missing" him also encapsulated missing a person when they are needed to help with something, not just staring out of a window longingly and sighing 🙄

Even if she had a high flying career, it would still be correct to say she married well since he is bringing a lot of money or from a rich background. Whether homemakers are valuable to society m, which i believe they are, is a separate discussion entirely. You and op are taking a very defensive angle at a factual comment 'married well'. It doesn't mean he hasn't also got lucky with op for different reasons, it's just a very common expression that someone married a spouse with money which op did, even more impressive because it changed her fortunes dramatically. It's got nothing to do with her being a charity worker because that is a standalone comment. It's people who are insecure and sensitive about their own lack of career that offence. This is hugely projecting on the granny's comment.

It sounds like you did 'marry well' but also that your husband 'married well'. I don't think that's offensive.

I have always done regular charitable work but have only been able to do it because of my husband's salary. 🤷🏻‍♀️