To ask those who have high earning partners......

[Hollypies]

I’m shocked by the amount of women on MN with very high earning DP/DHs and I wonder, how did you meet and what is your life like? I can appreciate this is a little nosey, but after years of dating/being in relationships with men who are very low earners and with no ambitions in terms of their career....I’m very curious. I’ve always assumed that highly successful men/women usually mix with their own kind and meet an equally high earning spouse through their work or social circle... but thought it’d be interesting to ask!

We met at my place of work. Him being a high earner has enabled him to work part time and raise the kids while i work full time earning a decent enough wage. Its his part time wage that lets us live the way we do.

I have a friend who is close to being a billionaire - he married his childhood sweetheart (met in primary school) and you would never guess they were rich unless you really knew him or he told you he bought acres and acres of land and built giant houses for each of his 5 kids on there. Hes the most normal person you will ever meet.

My DM married a high earner. She worked in the same company as a secretary. She got resentful when we were little as my Dad travelled abroad weekly & she didn't enjoy motherhood one bit. But she liked the money. It wasn't a great marriage. I've been in relationships with high earners. Both were divorced due to wives feeling neglected for work. I left both as fed up of being the entertainment on Sunday, their one day free a week. (Saturday was playing golf with clients). It's not for everyone. The statistics for affairs & divorce are high I think. High earners are often easily bored & used to getting what they want in my experience. (I worked in admin banking & oil so got a bird's-eye view of temperament & character traits).

@NunoGoncalves

So now you're changing it to a luxury comfortable lifestyle in central London. Of course you can't live a life of luxury in central London for 100k per year, but where did that even come from? OP simply asked where people met their high-earning partners. You're really going off on a number of huge tangents here.

Exactly. As I said, it's a stupid strawman point, that makes zero sense.

A luxury comfortable FAMILY HOUSE in central London would set you back 5 to 10 million pounds, and the vast majority of ordinary working folk could simply not afford it in a million years. Only multi millionaires could afford to buy a family home in central London.

Such a ridiculous example/argument.

As you say, the fact that £100K puts you in the top 5% of earners in the country PROVES it's a high wage. And I know half a dozen people in London on £35 to 40K who live a decent comfortable lifestyle there.

Met through work, DW earned maybe 25% more than me, both decent salaries. Had kids, I went P/T but still earn a good amount, DW career really taken off and she earns 4/5 times my wages now.

This thread is thoroughly depressing. Yay for the men whose careers have soared. Double yay for the women who have enabled these men. Bleuch.

My DH is a high earner, but I'm even higher we met whilst I was still at sixth form and he was finishing his degree.

Well if 60k is high earning than my dh qualifies. When we met he was probably earning about double my salary. We both had jobs in a similar sector but his was in a better paid arm. My salary rose slowly but eventually he was earning maybe 4 times my salary.
As a result I can work part time.

My ex-husband is on approx £105k pa. I'm on around £18-23k pa working ft. The kids and I (forced 50:50 custody) are still in a two-bed rented 5 years post divorce while he remains in the five-bed executive family home. Note to self: never get involved with a wealthy man.

DH earns 6 figures and I just don't work. We're older I guess, but I'm 15 years younger than him. He travels in Europe a lot, which can be a pain as he's always tired, but other than that, we get along nicely.

Lol at the person who thinks a salary of £100,000 a year isn't actually all that much.

For the vast majority of people, it is. HTH.

For me, I'd far rather have a husband who earns less but has time for me than a husband who earns a lot but that I never see. I speak from experience!

Single mum to two kids earning 6 figure dollar salary
All by my bloody self.

Hate these threads.

Can we start again please

“ can women tell me what their secret is to relationship, financial, career, ....(.insert adjective of choice) .... success without the Need to enable a man”

Hear, hear Mokapot!!

In answer to your OP, you are correct to assume that people tend to marry/enter long term partnerships with someone like them. In fact ‘assortive mating’ ( which is increasing as a trend) is one of the factors leading to lower social mobility as it concentrates privilege across generations. It’s also a factor in workplace diversity since high potential men can often secure a SAHP much more easily than a high potential woman. Whilst anecdote isn’t data, most of my high earning male friends either have a SAHW or a partner who is working a ‘lifestyle’ job, whereas most of my high earning female friends are either chldfree or have a partner who is still working at his full potential. I don’t know any SAHDs.

@windygallows My DH's career has soared...but so has mine. We enabled each other I haven't had to give up anything in order for him to do well, nor would he want me to.

@windygallows bleach? Women supporting their partners is a problem?

Why define "success" on how much you earn?

I left an abusive and wealthy ex who neglected me in favour of work and left me literally penniless, homeless and with just the clothes on my back. I had 89p in my account, working 3 hrs pw and two kids age 3 and 6 at the time.

Stayed at parents for 6 weeks and managed to push hours up to 16. Found a private two-bed to rent and still here five years on. Not a penny from ex as he went 50:50 custody so he wouldn't have to pay me a penny in maintenance. He remains in five-bed executive family home with all of the trappings of a comfortable lifestyle.

I can't afford "luxuries" like a dishwasher or haircuts and only recently been gifted a tumble dryer. Only have very basic holidays etc. I have at times gone without much food or heating when the kids have been with dad.

Kids doing well. Eldest sat 2 x aptitude tests a few years ago for an extremely over-subscribed secondary school in area and came in as top 5% in both giving him a place, love him.

Ex earns in excess of £105k. In a good year I earn £18-23k.

My kids are settled and happy. I spend loads and loads of quality time with them. We laugh. We feel safe. I am no longer controlled or abused.

Who is the more successful?

My DH wasn't particularly high earning when we met, I initially earnt more than him. He was at the start of his career though and we knew that he would be high earning one day, as it's a set career path where the pay starts to increase very quickly once you get to a certain level.

It's good because it means I can take a few years out to have our babies without their being any financial pressure to have to go back to work. We're both happy this way.

My DH isn't on 6 figure salary. He earns much more than most normal people but he's not a millionaire and he probably never will be. So not sure if you're including me in this?

*there, not their, FFS

Allfur that's great but I think you are in the minority re two careers soaring at the same time.

I just get deeply depressed by the relentless posts on MN about Men's careers outstripping their wives and the wife taking a backseat but providing childcare and keeping the home fires burning to allow important man to focus on his important job while everything gets done for him. Yuck!

Why on earth would someone else’s lifestyle depress you?

DP has a very very fluctuating income in the entertainment business - on a fallow year he only makes about what I do (10k to 20k depending how busy I’ve been), but on some years it can be well over 300 or 400k. I had no idea what he earned when I met him and no one would be able to tell by looking at him - he’s a scruffy bugger.

The earning disparity doesn’t really have much impact on our relationship.. The fluctuation in his income and his love of saving mean we definitely don’t live in the lap of luxury, and wouldn’t want to either. This difference in income is overridden by the fact that we both do a job that’s a bit of a vocation, I think, and one that allows us both to live a similarly nomadic non-corporate lifestyle. We have very similar interests and similar social circles. Oh yes, and I met him online.

The amount of women on here who strayed out warning more is fucking depressing

Ivana it's 'bleuch' as in yuck.

You might want to use the term support but I think if women look after the majority of wife work and childcare to create a situation where well paid man only has to really focus on work and nothing else it is a strange situation that deeply privileges men and one that disadvantages women. Unless those women can reap the rewards money/income from said man as reward for providing that domestic support and keeping the status quo allowing him to continue to focus on his work. Yuck!! Doom spiral!!

Why on earth would someone else’s lifestyle depress you?

Because it’s a social trend that results in massive gender inequality? Or maybe you think that women just aren’t as good at these jobs as men and that’s why they are underrepresented in senior roles.