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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Husband demeaning my salary

147 replies

uhura · 28/04/2013 21:16

I feel sad - I started a new business 2 years ago after being at home with my kids for almost 10 years and I think its doing really well. I'm earning what I think is a respectable salary whilst still taking the kids to school and picking them up. That was the point of starting the business rather than going back to work as I wanted flexibility.

Unfortunately when I have spoken to my (professional) husband about how well I was doing, he laughed and said is that all you're earning? (or words to that effect - infact the word pathetic was used). I feel really demeaned and can't understand why he is not thrilled for me.

When I got upset I was accused of over-reacting.

Tell me ianbu and that he is a prat please.

OP posts:

Crinkle77 · 29/04/2013 18:29

Do you think he is jealous?

pointythings · 29/04/2013 19:23

I suggest you read the thread, piglet - the OP makes it perfectly clear what her business is and why it earns so well. No need to doubt her at all.

pigletpower · 29/04/2013 19:54

Sorry! I'm a bugger for not reading threads.

ColinFirthsGirth · 29/04/2013 20:05

I think you are amazing OP- you earn a great amount from your own business and are raising 5 children and manage to give them plenty of time! I wouldsay he is definitely jealous of you. Your husband is being a prat and I think what you are doing is great.

NoWayPedro · 29/04/2013 20:18

You don't need another poster to confirm how totally unacceptable your DHs comments are.

I will just add we need lots more small business start ups, offering opportunities to others as you have and hopefully more in the future.

GL to you :)

Solaia · 29/04/2013 20:20

OP, YANBU. You sound like you have done amazingly well.

This thread is very interesting to me, my DH is not in the City of London, but is in banking in another part of the country. Over the last 7 years he has had a meterioric rise through the ranks so even aged under 30 he holds a senior position and earns 6 figures. He has definitely changed from the student I knew and fell in love with. Years of dealing with vast amounts of money, earning vast amounts of money and only knowing and working with other people who earn vast amounts of money are taking their toll. My DH is becoming much more materialistic and less satisfied with a life we could only once have dreamed of. I earn £40k as a lawyer and while DH is supportive and proud, I do feel it is becoming more forced and less natural as my salary becomes less and less significant. Even though we both work long hours, I find I am expected to run our household and organise our lives - on some level because I earn less.

Sorry if that is long, what I'm trying to clumsily say is - is the DH you know and love in there somewhere? Beneath what he has said to you (which was absolutely horrible) is there something else going on? Are there other layers to this? I'm just wondering - as lovely and kind and supportive my DH is just now, I can picture him thinking (or even saying) something similar in a decade or two. If he did I would probably feel like LTB but I would hopefully manage to separate him from his work and if I could, point out how much he has changed.

Jestrin · 29/04/2013 21:06

He is being a prat.

I earn an absolute pittance but my DH has thanked me many a time for earning it just the same.

Mmmnotsure · 30/04/2013 08:32

I think actually it can be very difficult if you are in a big job in the finance sector. Ime you are surrounded by people who are phenomenally wealthy, or who earn ridiculous amounts of money. If you work and socialise with these people every day it can screw your opinion of normal. It's insidious, but it happens. I am always very impressed with people who work in this kind of environment for years, but are not sucked in to the money/prestige thing and remain normal and in touch with real life outside work hours.

I'm not defending your dh here, OP. I think he should have been apologising madly if it just slipped out. But if it isn't a one-off, and if he is losing sight of how life is for the majority of people, of how much time, effort and sheer boring hard work it takes to run a house and raise a family - let alone start up a business at the same time - then he probably does need a reality check and some communication with you.

Oh, and what Solaia said.

Littlehousesomewhere · 30/04/2013 08:46

So sad to hear how unsupportive he is.

He has really lost touch with the reality of most people lives and salaries if he doesn't respect and admire what you have achieved.

I can't comprehend how he doesn't think that what you have done is amazing.

Original poster

uhura · 30/04/2013 10:41

Thanks to all for the support.

I think he has lost touch with the real world and how it is possible to be doing well without earning huge amounts of money (by creating a happy home, balancing reponsiblilites, setting foundations for the future) and this is most likely because of the toxic environment he has been working in for 20 years.

I now need to work out a way of making him realise this.

OP posts:

WhiteBirdBlueSky · 30/04/2013 11:01

Good luck with that!

ScarletWomanoftheVillage · 30/04/2013 12:22

Would it be any use to show him this thread? or would he be dismissive?

WhiteBirdBlueSky · 30/04/2013 12:55

Given that most of the people on this thread are really impressed with the OPs salary, I think he would probable think we're a bunch of losers and think less of the OP for taking us seriously.

stopgap · 30/04/2013 13:04

And calls of LTB would probably do little to appease him.

I don't know what to suggest. Maybe he needs to do some voluntary work in his spare time. Habitat for Humanity or a soup kitchen. That ought to open his eyes a bit.

WhiteBirdBlueSky · 30/04/2013 14:24

He'd probably think that wasn't best use of his skills! Why should be do that when a 'lesser' person could manage to serve food and help the poor? Horses for courses he probably thinks.

Sorry OP, I may be completely misreading the situation and in every other way he's lovely .

DreamingOfTheMaldives · 30/04/2013 15:18

Your husband sound a real arsehole catch - surely any decent man would be proud that his wife had managed to have the best of both worlds; earning a bloody good salary after only setting the business up 2 years ago AND being around for the children. God, I dream of being able to do this, but sadly it will only ever be a dream. OP, you have achieved what many many parents would love to have.

He sneers at a salary which is well into 40% tax for part time work - me and my certainly no where near 40% tax bracket salary for full time hours are glad we've never met him, he sounds despicable.

shewhowines · 30/04/2013 15:40

Success isn't all about money is it. Success is being able to do what you want without any financial worries.

You want a healthy work/life balance whilst earning enough to support a lifestyle acceptable to you. You have achieved this.

His definition of success is different. It is purely financial and includes the material things that financial success brings. BUT with his definition would come - a stressed out wife/ a less smoothly running household /and children that don't come first and whose needs will not be catered for as successfully.

You need a conversation about your different definitions of success and he needs to understand what you actually do, and the impact of you not doing those things, on your household/relationship.

I suggest you going away on holiday for a week on your own and leave him to run your home. - not to punish him but as a trial to see how you all get on.

It boils down to
Would he rather have a miserable wife "pulling her financial weight" or a happy fulfilled wife who is still very successful financially by society's definition?

I bet you feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under your relationship. I suppose it's to his credit that he's never said what he really feels before. Now you have to make him understand 100%, what you feel. He is being unrealistic. YANBU

WhiteBirdBlueSky · 30/04/2013 17:54

Ah but a 'happy fulfilled wife' is kind of what he was describing when he said the OP was 'indulging herself' though isn't it?

Going away for a week as a 'trial' for working longer hours sounds nice in theory. Of course at least half of the organising would need to be 'his work' for it to be worthwhile. Surely with five kids you'd need a nanny?

complexnumber · 30/04/2013 17:58

I definitely do not think UABU.

But here's a perspective from the 70's:

My dad had a (very) good salary, my mum wanted to go back to work (as a nurse).

Dad's accountant told him that we would be better off if mum did not work.

Dad ignored accountant.

Mum spent decades in a job she loved and became a loved member of our community

thebody · 30/04/2013 18:07

He's jealous and threatened op.

Not nice.

ScarletWomanoftheVillage · 30/04/2013 21:15

Yes, him talking about op 'indulging herself' sounds as though he is resentful, never an attractive emotion. Perhaps he is not as satisfied with his own work/life balance/choice as he wants to be, and he is actually jealous of you, rather than admiring you for achieving it.

JenaiMorris · 01/05/2013 08:40

You are clearly the kind of competent, together person that makes me feel quite inadequate

You know that you're good. It must be hard to believe that, having achieved so much, you find yourself with a complete arse for a husband. Only desperate losers have such crap partners, don't they? Sadly that's not - I've seen it so many times (both sexes, fwiw).

Sort it out, lady.

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