dh and I have made rather different career choices and have vastly different earning power. for as long as dds were pre-school I accepted effectively not earning anything as pre-school child-care is prohibitive. now both dds are at school, and at the same time I might be increasing my hours. We have a nanny and I'm scrabbling about doing lots of maths to work out different costs, different scenarios - things like different hours in term time and holidays (for both me and the nanny) and various bits of juggling - desparate to at least balance my net contribution to the household. dh just shrugs - he's happy for us to pay our lovely nanny according to what's easiest - rather than doing any juggling and jiggling. he says it's not worth the hassle. and he'd rather have relaxed, easy, stable child care, even if I actually end up costing the household. On the one hand I do see his point but it's utterly demoralising. fwiw he has no concept of his money and mine. he 100 per cent believes that no matter what my financial contribution I have equal say on how we spend it. personally I find that a bit difficult to exercise in practice. I know in reality me earning £50 a month isn't really any different from loosing £50 a month (though, depressingly enough it could be more...). I love my job, but I hate this huge discrepency...although, ironically, it's me that has the problem with it and equates it to influence, not dh. do I go with the flow? or make life difficult by cutting the childcare to the bone in order to save my pride?