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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think we should encourage our daughters to marry men who earn AT LEAST as much as them?

347 replies

StripeyBear · 27/01/2013 12:35

Quarter of a century ago, starting university, I would have furiously disagreed with this. Women should make their own money, and marry who they like!

Now, looking back, I'm not so sure. Nearly all my female friends, however successful in their careers prior to children, have compromised work success to raise their children. (I do have one friend who has a house husband, but that is the exception rather than the rule). Consequently, the lifestyle of my friends has been largely dictated by how much their husbands earn. So the nurse who married the mechanic is run ragged with extra shifts, juggling small kids in a tiny house with a large mortgage, indifferent schools and holidays in Haven or not at all - whilst my midwife girlfriend who married a consultant, is living in a huge detached house, with kids at private schools and just does a few shifts to keep her registration and to keep out of the way of her cleaner.

So AIBU, should we tell our daughters to marry someone who can provide the material stuff, or in another quarter of a century, will the world have moved on again, and fathers will be equal parents, and none of this will matter a stuff?

OP posts:
Windsocks · 27/01/2013 21:34

It's foolish to pretend that money has no impact on your quality of life. I was never wildly materialistic (ironically something which my DH probably found attractive as he had a lot more financial assets than me before we married and wouldn't have wanted a gold-digger!) BUT if I'm honest I can see that my life is much more easy and comfortable than some of my friends. For example I have choices that they don't have around taking time out from work. (Again this is partly because we don't have a flashy lifestyle.)

That is not the same as saying 'marry for money' but I would be telling my DD honestly that money makes life easier and gives you more choices and freedom. I would encourage her to earn her own money (as I have) but to be aware that she may want time out of work to raise a family / pursue other ambitions - and a DH who has a decent income can make this easier.

Most of all though I would tell her to marry the person who makes her happy, who encourages her and stimulates her as my DH does for me and I for him. I think happiness AND prosperity tends to flow from that kind of mutual support.

LouiseD29 · 27/01/2013 21:42

I find this idea of 'choosing a husband' rather curious. I married my husband (who incidentally earns considerably less than I do) because he was the only man I've ever met that I could imagine spending my whole life with. He's unique, incredible and I completely adore him.

By the way some people on this thread are describing it, it sounds as though you went to a shop or chose your husband from a line up. That's why this question from OP makes no sense to me. Of course it's nice to have enough money not to have to worry, but how many people can honestly say they had a choice of two identical men they wanted to marry, the only difference being that one was minted? Erm...

We are expecting our first baby and yes, having to face some choices about income, maternity leave and lifestyle, but I would rather do this with him than laze about in my mansion with any other man in the world.

exoticfruits · 27/01/2013 22:11

I agree Louise- I also don't think it is anything to do with your parents! The last thing I would have wanted from my mother was cosy little chats about what I should want from life! She chose for herself and I chose for myself- money was unimportant. I think that you need someone who sees it in a similar way, e.g a thrifty person is going to have a problem with person who throws it around, but beyond that other things are far more important.

GeorginaWorsley · 27/01/2013 22:12

Someone upthread questioned if mechanics could possibly earn less than nurses.
As a nurse if I worked full time I would earn more than £30 K so it is indeed very possible that mechanic would earn less.

StripeyBear · 27/01/2013 22:49

amillionyears essay writing - gosh no! Just a SAHM with too much thinking time on my hands whilst kneading all that bread and ironing sheets and stuff Shock

OP posts:
Permanentlyexhausted · 27/01/2013 23:07

I will suggest to my DD that she marries (or not) whomever she wishes to marry regardless of his (her?) potential pay packet. After all, money can't buy you happiness. Better to just be happy.

Besides which there are some major advantages to being the higher earner in a household.

SomeKindOfDeliciousBiscuit · 27/01/2013 23:15

I think Jane Austen had it right - turn down the fabulously wealthy dickhead for being a dickhead. But once he's shown he isn't a dickhead really, and he adores you and is (presumably) well fit, well, it doesn't hurt that he's fabulously wealthy.

Seriously though, you can't bank on anything. Your daughters need to be able to support themselves and their children/husbands should life nor go to plan. And you can't tell when you snog a gorgeous young man at a party if he's going to be a sound engineer like he says or will turn out to be a company director before he's 30 so you can be a jammy sahm.

andtheycalleditbunnylove · 27/01/2013 23:32

there's no harm in trying. but daughters choose where they will and you'd be lucky if yours chose as well as mine!

PigletJohn · 27/01/2013 23:37

Surely no woman should contemplate marriage if she is not in a position to maintain her future husband in proper style?

Anyway, how do you know Mr Moneybags will not lose his job? Whether you're a commodities trader or a horse-shoe forger, you can't know what the future holds. Same goes for him.

HannahsSister40 · 28/01/2013 01:16

Well, what I've learned from this thread is that high warn

HannahsSister40 · 28/01/2013 01:23

what I've learned from this thread is that high earning men are arrogant pricks who don't do anything domestic and low earning men are caring souls who'll be much better at the childcare. No generalisations there then?
I suppose it makes you fee better if you're married to a low earner, to imagine that you may have less money and less freedom to spend time with your kids growing up, (and no option to be sahm whatsoever) but at least you're not with a controlling prick on a 6 figure salary who doesn't change nappies? Because obviously the choice is love or money. Impossible to have both.

SomeKindOfDeliciousBiscuit · 28/01/2013 02:45

hannahssister I don't think anyone has been so pointlessly simplistic. I made the point that if you marry young you have no clear indicator of how your lives will turn out, so you should just go for a partner you like.

Pennybubbly · 28/01/2013 05:03

But OP, it seems that the fundamental flaw in your thinking is that you are equating money with happiness.
While the majority of people would agree it would be nice to have a pretty penny in the bank, it in no way follows that just because you do, you'll be happy. By the same token, you could quite easily be as poor as a church mouse but startingly happy with your lot. Or you could be rich and happy, or poor and unhappy. Or start off rich, and end up poor, start off happy, end up unhappy. And all the other combinations in between.
It's not quite as easy as saying 'marry someone in your own income bracket daughter, and you'll be onto a winner'.

HollyBerryBush · 28/01/2013 06:20

I would say intellectual parity was more a guide to a happy relationship - it rarely works out if the woman is brighter than her partner, whereas men are often pictured with 'eye-candy' (who may or may not be dim, but they certainly get traded in fora younger model which may not happen if they were intellectually equal).

Common values and goals is another 'keeper'. Lovely having a romance with a wandering minstrel, but frankly, if he's still in his 40's strumming a guitar thinking he's going to make the big time by playing in pubs and doing hte odd stint as a session musiscian, then he's not going to be providing a roof for the family.

As 70% of relationships start at work, it would be fair to assume the OP has sunconciously stumbled up on the fact that usually like-marries-like.

cory · 28/01/2013 07:53

"Cory I see what you're getting at - but I think the difference is that women have children, and hugely want to be the parent who cares for them. OK, that is a little bit of a generalisation, and I know there are some women who find looking after babies and small children very boring, and they can't wait to return back to work full-time - but they do tend to be the exception - and most mothers limit their work when their children are born. And it's not because they can't afford childcare - really, it isn't. Women want to be with their little babies (even if they dont' breastfeed). And they want to be with them when they are sick too usually - it is a matter of biology."

Speak for yourself. In my and dh's family, the men have tended to feel the same. FIL and db were SAHDs; dh and I shared the childcare in the first year. It's not because the women in our family are bored with babies- just that the men aren't either! Grin

I think it is very much about how involved the father is from the moment of birth. Dh changed ds's nappies and washed him before I did, so bonded with him just as quickly. Db was more hands-on than SIL.

I have noticed that more Swedish men seem involved in intimate baby care than British ones, and that it is very rare to hear a Swedish woman say you can't trust her husband with a baby. Which suggests it is not entirely about biology...

cory · 28/01/2013 07:57

I don't think anyone is suggesting that money has no impact on life.

Just that the impact will matter from person to person and that you can't make predictions about how much is necessary for anybody else's happiness.

amillionyears · 28/01/2013 08:03

I would have to agree about encouraging dads to be very hands on, right from the off.
Not going to explain the circumstances of my first pregnancy, but my DH and others could see that I needed help. So they did. Which means he has always joked that he did as much as I did, including breast feeding!

Molehillmountain · 28/01/2013 08:05

The thing is, by giving rules about who to fall in love with or not, our dc might end up missing the people who are best for them. If you are with the wrong person, you won't appreciate money if you have it and of you're with the wrong person and between you you have very little money, you'll resent that too. Of course, some people apparently hit the jackpot by having a happy partnership with wads of cash! Ah well.

Bonsoir · 28/01/2013 08:13

OP - you are absolutely right about women's standard of living. The surest way by far for women to have a nice lifestyle is to marry well. That may be unpalatable to some, but it doesn't make it untrue Smile

SPBInDisguise · 28/01/2013 08:17

Have you factored into this "nice lifestyle" the women whose husbands leave them, or have endless affairs, or are physically or financially abusive?

cory · 28/01/2013 08:17

My mother only ever gave me one piece of Life Advice. Which I promptly ignored. It was: Never marry an Englishman, they have such ugly children.

For the record, dd and ds are stunning.

Mothers don't know everything. Smile

Bonsoir · 28/01/2013 08:19

The women who I know who have a nice lifestyle nearly all have kind, reasonable partners. The very few who are divorced from seemingly nice men get loads of maintenance and had a large settlement - their lives are not a struggle.

There are lots of train crash couples and train crash divorces, but the lifestyle was never nice...

SPBInDisguise · 28/01/2013 08:25

And it depends on your definition of nice lifestyle". I don't want to be a SAHM.

Bonsoir · 28/01/2013 08:27

Nice lifestyle doesn't equate to SAHM.

SPBInDisguise · 28/01/2013 08:28

Completely agree. i thought that was what you were saying - that a nice lifestyle was SAHM, lots of children etc