To Want a Richer Man?

[ChegPasty]

Obviously I am but do any of you ever feel this way?

My DH is incredible by anyone's standards, couldn't fault him. His parents are not particularly wealthy and he has a below average salary. We get by and he's not tight with the money he does have.

I'm slowly qualifying in a career that comes with a large salary. It will be a while before I get there but I work alongside lots with million + salaries. They're mostly men with wives who don't have to work and they have incredible lives (from the outside). They walk around in designer clothes and shoes, holiday for most of the year and go 1st class or private, drive flash cars, they have beautiful homes and want for nothing.

AIBU to want in on this even though I have a man who adores me? I work ridiculously hard long hours and couldn't even imagine spending the amount of money some of these women do on a pair of shoes and I sometimes wonder what the point is.

Your husband sounds lovely, he works and isn't tight, he also adores you. Presumably he's been supporting you financially and emotionally through your training. You have a good salary to look forward to and love and support at home. Plus other people's lives aren't always what they seem.

Chopstick I'd happily tell you but don't want to out myself. We have other problems though- one of mine a disability. If I let myself, I could be jealous of everyone without this disability- which is most people!

Op I agree your husband now sounds lovely- but the envoironment you're now working in is possibly distorting your view.

I gave up work when DH's pay rise was higher than my annual salary. He did the ironing twice a week and that was it -I was running around headless trying to juggle work / house / kids.

Isn't there a saying- 'fake women want a man who has it all. Real women help their man make it'?

Personally I'm very glad that I partnered a man with similar earning capacity to me, and that we see life as a balanced adventure where we both work, both do domestic work, etc

I've come across the type of woman you describe OP- they're usually bored and boring. It's a vacuous lifestyle, wanting a man to bankroll you rather than achieving in your own right.

Men may find it convenient to have a woman pottering around doing the housework, cooking tea etc but they respect'women who are successful In their own right

Well done Munstermonchgirl for disparaging any woman who didn't make exactly the same choices you did - you were wonderfully condescending and unpleasant. It must be such a comfort for any woman who doesn't earn as much as her husband to know that she doesn't have his respect, is vacuous, bored, boring, and best of all ... a fake!

You might want to step off the balanced adventure raft sometime and see that there are many different ways to live a life.

I don't think the money is all that without emotional security.

DH and I are squeezing our pounds so hard the Queen is grinning, we are that skint. For the second year running. But as a family, we are as close and happy as we have ever been. The DC have been fantastic and hilarious all summer, despite our various difficulties. I am so thankful for them and DH.

My BIL is a lovely man. One year not that long ago, he got my sister a tortoise for her birthday. Hilariously wrong, but as she said to me, her friends who got diamonds only got them as a 'sorry' for the husband having had an affair, and she'd rather have a lovely geeky clueless tortoise buyer who didn't stray.

Actually that sounds really smug, sorry.
I do understand the odd pang of yearning for an easy, or just easier life, I do. And all that social conditioning about the ultimate life being one where you are kept by a handsome Alpha male (Michael Jordan, please) leaves traces, however much we know it is all crap really.

Don't take your swanky colleagues and their spouses at face value, OP. We are all fronting about something in this life.

I married a rich man. He was a cunt.

I'm now with a lovely, lovely man who is as poor as a church mouse. He's working towards a specific licence, and one day he may earn more. I earn ok, but his pride won't allow him to take any money from me. So I buy him clothes in sales and have him over for nice dinners a lot :)

Money is not everything.

How cool that you are working hard, suing your intellect to achieve your goals and provide for yourself. I know who I'd like as a role model for my DD.

And how lucky you are to have a decent wonderful man who respects your desire to work and shares all he has with you. I envy you.

Well done canyouforgiveher for deliberately twisting my post.

I didn't say everyone should follow my life choices (though it shouldn't come as any surprise that many couples do have similar earning capacity, capabilities, intellect etc)

My point remains that a woman who seeks out, or aspires to, man earning lots of money, because she sees this as his role, is pretty shallow. It smacks of the worst type of stereotyping. I can't understand for a moment why the op aspires to the lifestyle she describes

I couldn't live your preferred way op, I can see through that sort of thing, sure I bet their shoes are nice, but behind close doors are they happy?
It might look good from the outside but looks aren't everything and how many are really that rich some may just like pricey things and have debt, you just don't know for sure. Personally I'd rather do with out stuff like that, yes it's nice stuff, but that's all it is and I wouldn't want to be seen as how you describe I'm not begrudging it if it's a by product of people knowing I work hard in a good job by just being rich and having nice stuff that sounds more showy and fake.

I know what you mean Munster and I agree.
My sister is very clever, way cleverer than me, was the star of the school etc. Got a fab degree and started off a promising career. When she had children she went part time in a role that was less career focused and with no real prospect of promotion. She crowed about how much her husband earned (loads) and paid for everything and treated her all the time, she wanted for nothing, how sorry she was for women like me who had to share the breadwinning. I bit my tongue and said "that's nice".
Now she's in her 40s, children at school, has tried without luck to kick start her career as she realised she missed it and felt unfulfilled. She's bored and unhappy. Has all the money and treats she could want but says she just feels like "someone's old mum" and that I've got the life/career everyone had expected she would have.
Be careful what you wish for OP.

WindPowerRanger Your BIL sounds amazing! I would LOVE a tortoise for my birthday. Where do I get me a geeky tortoise buyer?!

My DH earns a lot and we have moved to an affluent area, kids in private school...I feel a bit like a fish out of water.

I didn't earn a huge salary prior to stopping pt work a couple of years ago after my third DC, around £30k pro rata. Anyway...made no sense for me to go back. I enjoy time with youngest DC but am lonely at times - and feel a little out of touch around those who are used to being wealthy. You know, glamorous without really trying, slim, highlights, manicures, jewellery. I'm quite attractive but not a gym bunny and don't spend money on things like hair, clothes and make up.

Anyway - my DH works long hours and I miss him. So do the kids. Sometimes I look at our big house with the nice things and feel guilty for feeling down. But he is always busy and distracted and his health is suffering a bit - he doesn't sleep well.

I feel a little lacking in focus and direction and don't really know how to fill the time - although the toddler and dog do that pretty well - however I do miss "my" time and I had that when I worked.

I resent the fact some people view someone on my position as a kept woman. We are a team and nothing in his life would work without me, and vice versa. It's not all about bloody money.

Money really is the source of all evil!

I have been pretty wealthy in the past and I have also been extremely poor. Right now I'm just about ok and I have a totally new outlook on life. "Things" really don't make you happy. Not in the long term anyway.

This is going to sound pompous but I think you need to reflect a bit harder on what life is really about and what is important in it. You could do this by exploring some sort of spirituality - could be christian but likewise buddhism, or even humanism and or mindfulness.

Also try watching a few videos of e.g. the Gestapo in the 40s, the Warsaw Ghetto, the Srebenica massacre, Syria right now or the famine in southern and eastern Africa this year and be grateful for all your blessings i.e.

• you have enough to eat
• your food is safe to eat
• you have clothes
• winter is coming and your house will be warm
• when you need to wash you clothes you don't need to trudge to a river and spend all day scrubbing them
• you don't need to choose between feeding your family and paying for your children's education
• you have clean safe water, which is hot whenever you want it to be
• you have enjoyed an education
• you have the opportunity to work
• you haven't been genitally mutilated because you are a girl
• you live in a society of at least reasonable equality between men and women
• you don't lie in fear at night, waiting for the knock of the military police on your door to take your DH or you away without any judicial process due to you political or other views
• you aren't facing the decision of whether to leave your home and risk taking your babies across the Med on an inflatable raft because soldiers are bombing your home town and raping and pillaging.

I also recommend camping. Whenever I start feeling materialistic or down that my house doesn't look like something in a House and Home magazine, I go camping and am instantly grateful for the absolutely luxury in which we all live in the first world.

My final thought is that "feeling you have enough" is linked not to how much you actually have, but how rich you feel inside. If you feel that you are unworthy and/or "poor" then no amount of money or stuff will fill up that gap.

Sorry OP - one more thought then I really will shut up - you said you wonder what the point is? Maybe this is not just rhetorical, but a really key question for you right now.

What IS the point of your life? Is it worth working so hard as you do now to just earn loads of money? Is that enough for you? What about when you qualify and have loads of money?

What then? Buy lots of stuff and a bigger house and car and smart clothes and cool holidays and private education - all of which will be lovely - but won't answer the core question that you are asking here.

YABU. I would suggest you spend 10 mins at the start and end of every day thinking about all the things you can be grateful for. Make it a habit. In the long run this will do far more for your overall happiness than a £1m salary

OP, reading your subsequent messages its coming across that what you are really after is not material stuff for its own sake, as such, but security.

You worry about everything "being taken away" and you are working your arse off to try and ward off and protect yourself against disaster and loss.

I think you could explore that a bit more; do you really need to have all that security? After all no-one in this country needs to be totally destitute - that is guaranteed. Whatever happens you and your family will always have somewhere to live, you will always have something to eat and your children will always have access to education. Perhaps the insecurity you are truing to protect against is really something else.

After all the sad reality (which we all live in some degree of denial in order that we can function every day) is that loss awaits us all - our young bodies will age and decline, those we love will die, the good times we enjoy will pass, our beautiful children will grow, the summer will turn to winter etc etc.

It's the price of loving, unfortunately. There is no vaccination against it or antidote for it. The trick is to live in the moment and value the right things, not scrabble around working your arse off because you think lots of money will buy you your out of this fundamental existential problem that we all face. It won't, and when you have all your money, that problem will be there just the same, and indeed might even be bigger because you won't have been prioritising the important things in life in your race to try and outwit nature with stuff.

Hmmm.

It's unreasonable to want to trade your lovely DH in for a richer one but lots of the posts assuming that women with rich husbands are unhappy, financially abused boring, bored, golddiggers etc... are BU too.

My DH earns loads of cash. We live the type of lifestyle OP mentions and yes I have very lovely shoes . I'm neither unhappy or bored. Nor am I a 'spoilt princess' and my DH is not having affairs.
I didn't marry DH for his cash - I married him because he is lovely and makes me laugh all the time. I earned more than him from the time we met right through to the time I gave up work to be home with the DC (which was what I wanted to do).

I have my own pension, plenty of savings in my own name and am in no way financially abused.

I'm not bored either because the fact that we don't have to worry financially has given me the freedom to pursue my interests rather than having to keep slogging away at the well paid job I didn't. I have a small business, am a trustee for a charity that means a lot to me and am involved in politics on a small scale.

Yes it is unreasonable to want to exchange a lovely man for any man with more cash. But being married to a lovely man who also happens to have lots of cash is a lovely position to be in.

PS OP I don't want to come across as preachy. My DH earns a bit less than me because he works in a field which is not about money making (though he works harder, at least in terms of his job hours). I have struggled and still occasionally struggle myself with some of the feelings you have, particularly trying to be main breadwinner, mother and housewife all rolled up into one.

Sometimes I think it would be great to not have to work and for DH to provide us with loads of money. But I quickly realise that if this ever happened in real life rather than fantasy, I would miss my financial clout and independence and also it wouldn't be the "solution" that in my fantasy I think it would be.

To have a husband that truly loves you is worth more than any amount of money. To get love and respect from someone makes you rich. Money isn't everything. Trust me.

Francescaestee wise words. Money comes and goes but if you genuinely love someone and are loved equally in return, assuming you have a roof over your head, warmth and food (and are not a particularly envious person), you really are wealthy.