Can never feel proud of myself as DH salary dwarfs mine

[user263758910]

I made £116,319 in 2024. Mid-30s, busy job, two primary aged DC.

DH earned 5x that. His success will always be greater than mine, and even as a high earner I feel like I am not good enough. I will never earn what he is earning.

Because of the large difference in salaries, he treats me like a part-timer, expecting me to do far more of the mental load and traditional gendered role at home.

My achievements are seldom recognised, because his are much greater.

Anyone else feel like this when they work full-time like their spouses but are the lower earner?

I earn approx same as you WFH and to be honest my life is way less stressful than DH's who earns about 4x as much.

I do allll the mental load of the kids, although we have a nanny. BUT he does all the cooking and shopping! And he is deeply antisocial so I would have got to go to dinner. So you can definitely feel you can ask him to cook. And babysit if you want to go out!

Don't be a martyr, appreciate you have a great life and you wfh and see your kids. Tbh women tend to prioritise this much more anyway, so you should be damn proud you've managed to make a life for yourself where you get to 'have it all' to the extent that's really possible.

AND, even though he earns more, you'll be ok if he ups and leaves you. That is a massive achievement and one that very few women manage whilst also having young children.

But as an example to my OP when DH thinks I'm "lesser than", we had dinner plans on Saturday with group of friends. Our weekend sitter called in sick last minute and we couldn't find a replacement in time so DH automatically assumed it would be me staying at home with DC and he'd go to the dinner, like forgetting I worked hard all week too and would like a bit of a social life!

This is shitty and has nothing to do with your respective earnings.

He doesn’t see you as an equal and I suspect this would be the same whatever you earned.

I am guessing that in his job he has lots of juniors/support staff doing all the dull bits and he is automatically assuming you will do the same at home. He has Big Job syndrome. Time for a long hard discussion about this.

I agree with everyone else I don’t think it’s the money but more that he’s quite sexist. I doubt he’d be doing more housework if your salaries were reversed. My dh earns more than me now (didn’t always) but still does half the housework and we outsource everything we can. Salary has never been something we weighed up in deciding who does what.

Like others have said, your measures are not based on what you earn but your qualities as a human being and how you treat those around you. This is why I hate when people ask 'what you do' as a form of small chat. It's so irrelevant to who you are as a person. X

Stealth boast.

you earn a lot, presumably because you have some level of intelligence and people skills. Use them to recognise the ridiculousness you have presented here.

If you measure your worth in salary you will always be miserable and ‘not good enough’. I agree with the ‘my diamond shoes are too tight’ comparison. You are rich. If you are miserable being rich, you at least have the money to change your circumstances. Work out what would make you happy and do that.

Gosh I feel so sorry for the OP how do they manage on only £600,000 a year. I'm sure that a typical Mumsnet family needs at least £1 million. Could we all contribute to a whip-round to assist the poor OP to pay the gas bill!

From a practical pov...
I'd leverage his salary to enable me to progress my career.
With combined 650k I'd get rid of the cleaner and hire a proper housekeeper.
Cooking, washing, ironing, food shopping, organising repairs etc all goes away and you have the nanny and housekeeper to hold the fort.

Separately, your DHs attitude does suck but if everything else was okay I'd be finding ways to work around it rather than making it the hill i choose to die on

OP, you earn nearly 5x what I do and I am flipping brilliant. You must be amazingly brilliant doing that along with running a home, and your achievements make my head spin. You are awesome.

What a strange OP, to know your annual salary to within £20 like that. I actually can’t remember my exact figure to within £2k off the top of my head, I know roughly what it is but I can’t remember the exact pounds at the end. That says a lot to me tbh.

I think the figures are irrelevant. It’s about how you both pull together (or don’t) to make your family and life work. That’s nothing to do with finance; it’s relationship skills, emotional maturity, communication and commitment.

This has got to be one of the most tone deaf OPs I have ever seen on mumsnet.

Although your husband is still an arse.

We earn a fraction of what you do (DH earns more than I do, but isn't a git), but we are comfortable, are mortgage free and have a much better life balance than you do.

The problem is your husband. My husband always out earned me by a considerable amount. We work in the same career but chose different paths. Despite the earning disparity, mine was considered the more academically 'prestigious' career for want of a better word, and he was always telling people how proud of me he was, asking me about my work, recommending me to colleagues etc and was happy to pick up the slack at home.

It's not about earnings. It's about your husband being a dick and you letting him treat you that way.

I think some of this may be in your head some of this is like others said assuming you are the default parent based on gender not on value .

however you need to sit down and work through this stuff . You can live very comfortably without him . You earn 5 times what I do and can still be proud of what I do . I do my low paid job well

your DH sounds like a complete twat. I expect this is not the only issue in your marriage!!

With that income you should be outsourcing a lot of the mental load and gendered role stuff.

I remember having dinner with a senior exec type, who had an even more senior wife and he told me they employed a fixer to do all that for them.

I suggest you stop comparing yourself to your husband, and utilise some of his megabucks to even the load.

If you're only earning £116,319 then yes, you should pick up the slack around the house or earn more money like your husband.

Maybe go full time and you'll get more respect from your DH. You need to work hard to earn the big bucks.

So the two of you have your weeks consumed by work only to snatch a few hours of fun at the weekend such as the gym or dinner rather than with the children you went to the trouble of having? What's the point though? All these hours at work, gym or dinner for "fun", a husband who doesn't respect you and kids you outsource. Sounds like you're on a hamster wheel. Maybe you truly love it all but it sounds so mundane and busy with little real fun or affection.

In the nicest way possible op you need to get a grip. If you only view achievements through making money you will be unhappy, it will never be enough. Personally I’d give up my job and fuck about doing something less stressful but more meaningful.

OP, Do you really only value someone on the amount of money they make?
Do you believe that you are of less value than him?
The value you place on yourself is more important than that of others.
The amount of money you earn does not necessarily reflect your worth as a person.

This is a joke, right?

Sorry OP. Your DH sounds like a prize clown. My Dh would never dream of treating me like you’ve described (nor I him!). Perhaps couples counselling could help?

I know a couple like this, why is it bullshit? He may well be a banker or magic circle lawyer used to being top dog, OP is clearly not as important (IHO) as he forgets that not everyone manages 100k. He's surrounded by people earning waaaaay more. He therefore sees her as lesser and their life revolves around his salary so therefore it takes priority.

OP, you need to buy in even more help. Get a chef in to batch cook your meals (I also know a family that do that for the bullshit brigade).

Drop £100,000 off your 2024 earnings and have a wonder how many other people feel that they will never earn more than £16,000.

Why? So in your opinion it's perfectly fine for low or medium earners to talk about their problems on this forum, but high earners aren't allowed to?
Being a high earner doesn't mean you never have any problems in your life, or that your problems are somehow less important than those of lower earners.
Being a low earner doesn't make you a better person more worthy of sympathy, like so many seem to think.
What salary do you set the bar at in order for it to be acceptable to you for people to talk about their problems? £40k, £70k?
As you've said, the OP has a husband problem, not a financial one.
There's so much pure jealousy on here about high salaries and ignorance about how people can be high earners. Often, if you're a high earner by your mid thirties, you have a very ambitious, driven mindset, worked very hard at school and university, deliberately chose a career where high earning is possible, gone for promotions and career moves at the best time, and worked very hard at it. It doesn't just happen by magic. I know lots of people who earn what the OP does and a couple who earn what her husband does, it obviously depends on the circles you move in whether you find it unusual or not.

Vastly disparate salaries in relationships can exist, but they are easier to manage if you don't have kids together or even live together. Dialled down a lot, my boyfriend earns four times what I do, but because we don't live together it doesn't matter as much. Also I don't have children, and he is not flash with his money. It evens things out a bit.

I would say that doing a job which earns your salary with small children is an amazing achievement. It's enough to support the children on your own, if you wanted to. It's your husband and his twatty attitude that is the problem.