To think some people here make a big deal of stress of being financially responsible?

[cantbearsed1]

I often see on here someone making a comment about the horrendous pressure and stress a man feels if he is financially responsible for his family e.g. woman is a SAHM. I have been financially responsible for my family when my DP was not working for a year because of illness.
AIBU to think this is not a great pressure or very stressful?
I have had very stressful times, but this would not even rate in my top ten.

I became a sole earner when my DH became ill and it was far more stressful for me.

Yes, full time working partners need to help so partners get equal leisure time. But I always feel a bit when SAHMs are urged to put their DCs in childcare to get some 'me time' but working parents (who can't just skip work for a few hours during the day) are blasted if they want to spend a few daytime hours on the weekend doing something away from family or work.

You are being totally unreasonable.

It depends on the job and what’s at stake. I have been the sole breadwinner as DH was trying to set up a business.

We’d just moved back to our home country. We needed my job to secure (and then pay) a mortgage. We were living with my in-laws in the meantime (which was horrendous).

I was in a very stressful new job, stretching revenue targets to meet, a boss who had no management skills and who hated me, very much sink or swim environment. 50% of staff didn’t pass their 6 month probation.

I woke up every day full of dread, it was terrible. In retrospect it was a god awful business, but I needed to keep that job and it was stressful as fuck.

I don’t think being the sole breadwinner exonerates the working partner from contributing in the house at all.

However I get the sense from some SAHP on here that they don’t want to engage with the pressures their other half might be feeling to facilitate their lifestyle. Before I get lynched, I am talking about some SAHP, not all.

As a single parent now and effectively sole bread winner since DS was born, I am still able to be fairly pleasant at home and spend time with my child.
I have very little sympathy for men who think that they can be excused from being decent partners and good parents just because they're sole earners. And even less sympathy for people who excuse them

This!

The idea that working is a Get Out of Life pass because your partner's role is as domestic appliance.

I was sole earner for about 10 years. Still managed to function as an adult, just as I had before I chose to get married and have kids.

This is NOT about financial stress. You can be a SAHM managing the money and be very stressed because you don't have enough money to feed everyone.
In every job I have ever had, losing it would mean great financial stress. I just see that as life for most people.

stuckforthefourthtime I was the sole earner when my DP was ill and unable to work, and caring for him. That was very stressful, but not because of being the sole breadwinner. I was having to do everything, and I was seriously worried about whether DP would ever get better. A partner being seriously ill is pretty horrendous.

Many people are posting about horrendous work situations, but having to still work because you are the breadwinner. Horrendous work situations are of course awful. But most of my life, like most people, we have had to have both of us working to pay the bills. That was not because we were the sole breadwinner, but simply that neither of us is well paid so can't just rely on one wage. And yes we have both had horrendous times in some jobs, and lovely times in others.

But for most people, except when on maternity leave, we have to work all our life. It is not a choice. It is as much part of being an adult as cooking and cleaning is. Yes sometimes individual situations may make that stressful. But you probably need help with managing everyday stress if you can not manage the ordinary stress of having to bring in money so your family can live.

But if you’re the only working parent or a single parent then that stress of disaster if you lose your job falls solely on your shoulders. The SAHP doesn’t have that stress because they have no job to lose.

They have different stresses but they don’t have that stress.

I would never be with someone who wasn’t working because I would not be prepared to shoulder all the responsibility for earning money to support the household on my own, in a situation where there was another adult in the household. (In my case there isn’t, I’m still a single parent)

And yes, I never understand people who see that the fact a man is a breadwinner, as a get out clause for being involved in family life, childcare, housework, etc.
I just feel like - the 1950s are calling for you.

I have to work. If I don’t work, we don’t eat and we go cold. How is that not stressful? Knowing that, how is that not stress?

scoutrus But your partner can get ill, or become disabled. I was sole breadwinner because my partner was seriously ill for a year and potentially could have died. You can't always make choices like that.

Looking at it the other way round...one of the things in life that gives me enormous comfort is that we can live on either DH’s or my salary and still pay the mortgage and put food on the table. We have insurance cover if either of us is ill etc and the childcare provision would have to go if we weren’t ill.

Yes, we chose that path rather than a bigger house. But had we made a different choice then I would twitch about job losses etc a lot.

So, yes, I buy it being stressful. But no, I don’t buy it as a get out of helping around the house excuse. Equally, I can understand not wanting to have a SAHP because it would be more stressful (to my mind).

Scoutrus That is the case for most people. Most people do not eat, and their kids do not eat if they do not work. It is the ordinary stress of being an adult rather than a dependant.

That’s why I’m a single parent. Because I’m not going to be responsible for another adult until such times as my job is very much more secure (I’m on short term contracts of 12/18 months at the minute) and I’m earning at a higher level than I am at present. Because I couldn’t afford to keep another adult at present.

Delurking I think that is a sensible decision, but it is one few can make.

I was in a week to week contract. If I lost my job, we wouldn’t be able to eat or pay rent bythe following week. Finished on a Friday, paid on a Thursday for that week and a wait for benefits. No family support. No maintenance. That is much more stressful than my position now. Can you not see that?

Er .....yabvu. And possibly living on a different planet!

I am American so have to pay for health insurance, medical bills, and face substantially reduced pay if out sick for extended periods.

I was the primary earner when I got cancer. The pressure to keep working was intense. I was sick all the time, but the bills kept coming, so I had to keep working. DH at the time was in school. He had a stipend, but it was tiny.

That was an extreme situation, but the pressure is very real. It’s the same pressure that kept me showing up to a job I hated and was causing undue stress because I couldn’t risk a day without a paycheck. I had to find a replacement job before I could leave.

As an aside, that was the H who thought he deserved 6 months off after finishing school because earning his PhD was just so stressful. He became my XH shortly after making that request.

Purple Having to work to pay medical bills is VERY tough.

Purpleartichoke I cannot imagine your stress. Our family would be bankrupt if we had to pay our medical bills. I have never been so grateful to live somewhere with universal free health-care. If this were different, then being the main wage-earner whilst having cancer treatment would be a nightmare.

I don't think this is what the OP is getting at though- she's getting at the default assumption whenever a SAHM posts that they need to appreciate the stress on their husband of being the sole breadwinner as if simply being the main wage earner is some type of intolerable life position rather than actually pretty standard stuff for so many.

Dh runs the company we own. He says he never feels any stress about being the sole source of income.

I look after the dc but when the youngest goes to school (in about 2.5 years) he doesnt even want me to get a job.

Hes probably in the minority though

Of course it's stressful. You may not have found it stressful for the year you had to do it but so what. Different people have different situations and different things that stress them out to different degrees.

Other than that men as a whole still have the patriarchal expectation that they will 'provide' for their family. For instance a couple might have two ok paying jobs that suit them fine but when they decide to have children there may be an expectation or aspiration for the mother to take time away from work to look after the children and/or buy a bigger home, often including a longer commute.

These all increase the cost of living and the father may therefore seek a higher paying job, a promotion into a job he wouldn't want otherwise, taking on more responsibility, maybe more hours, maybe a job he is not suited to. Lots of people aren't suited to management for instance. Both parents can have overwhelming feelings of needing to care for their children in the 'best way possible' and being the breadwinner is still often seen as the man's responsibility. The fear of letting down your family financially is likely to be felt more by the father than the mother because of societal expectations, toxic masculinity, patriarchy etc.

waffly My experience is that the reason the mother is more likely to become a SAHM, is simply because she earns less. That is down to patriarchy.
And yes springisallaround that is exactly what I mean.

Maybe it is different for some on here, but my mum and my MIL always worked. I have just grown up with the assumption that I would always work and provide for myself and my family. Yes when I have been in horrendous jobs I have very much wished I could just quit - usually along with most of my colleagues. But I had to carry on working and apply for other jobs.

I guess I think working is just part of being a grown up. So yes there is a certain kind of stress of getting in from work and having to make tea and tidy up. Or from having to sort out say a leak in the house. I am not saying adult responsibilities carry no stress. But they are part and parcel of the ordinary stress of being a grown-up who is not independently wealthy.

But you’re talking about working as part of a couple? My experience is completely different.

We literally had nothing. We went from a refuge to a horrible private rent. With nothing. Literally nothing. I had nothing. Knew no one where we were. No one. Nothing. I can’t even begin to describe it to you except to say you are lucky you have no idea. And I hope you never do.

My fear is was and remains horrendous. It’s just not the same if you have a supportive partner, who has a period out of work.

I think that situation is very stressful. That is not about being sole earner though, but about starting with nothing after a horrendous situation.
I have never had that. But I would have been street homeless if I hadn't went to live with my parents for 3 months. I had to take out a load to get back on my feet and rent a room.

I couldn’t go to my parents and I couldn’t get a loan.

Your op is about the stress of being the only wage earner and how somehow feeling stress over it means I’m not “financially responsible”.

I honestly think you have no idea about how it is for some people and you should be glad you don’t.

&scoutrus* Have you missed me saying that your individual situation was a very stressful one?