Women who forget not everyone has access to money from men

[windygallows]

With 34.5% of the population aged over 16 in England ‘single and not cohabiting’ (2015 stats), it’s clear that a significant number of women in the UK, many parents, are single and having to fend for themselves/live on one income.

Yet I'm amazed at the number of women who forget that not every woman has access to a second income from a partner. In fact the privilege of having access to another’s (usually a man’s) income is often naturalized and many women are, or become, totally oblivious to this privilege.

For example just this last week I experienced:

• A woman at work going on and on about the importance of her life/work balance and suggesting I drop my hours to have similar. She works just 2 days/week and seems to forget that such a setup is an absolute privilege, thanks to a husband who works FT.

• Another woman I know who is on quite a low salary bragging about her 3 luxury holidays per year, again thanks to the income from an IT Director husband. She thought she'd give me travel tips in case I wanted to go to the same 5star holiday.

There are a million reasons why women might have to rely on men’s income but I don’t think I ABU in asking women to recognize that their lifestyle and having access to men’s money isn’t the NORM for up to 1/3 of women, who are having to get by on their own accord and lack the same privilege or financial flexibility.

*that is, when they both work, of course. Just because both members of a couple work, it does not mean they are not actually reliant on each other for the lifestyle they lead. Even when only one member of a couple has paid employment, this does not mean they are not reliant on their partner.

Quite a few people actually Walkaround. I’ve got a friend who’s just bought a flat in a city she’s always wanted to live in, alone, despite having a long term bf. Another in a 6-year relationship and living together and she actively doesn’t want to marry or combine finances. Even from a young age when thinking about things I’d like to do with my life, particularly ones that cost money, I’ve always thought how I can plan for them. Finding another person/second income has never factored in my plans, because you can’t guarantee that’ll happen for a start! I value my independence too much to ever want to rely on anyone else, and surround myself with like-minded people

Well, that would be very unfortunate, then, dodgeballchamp, if you did fall in love with someone who earned less than you, and you wanted nicer holidays than they could afford, or wanted to pay for more things for your children than they could afford. Or, heaven forbid, you had children with someone on an equal earning footing to you who then became ill - or if that happened to you, and they took the kids off on holiday without you every year, because you couldn't afford to share that lifestyle with them, somthey might aswell leave you behind.

DH and I both work, and therefore earn.

Our lifestyle is dependent on both our salaries. We're dependent on one another.

This is pretty normal in this day and age.

If something happened to either one of us, life would have alter quite significantly.

But I don't think you can live your lives always waiting on a worst case scenario. That's not realistic.

If DH died, we'd have to cut our cloth, but at least I have a good job with a decent wage and could support our DC. Likewise, him. Life would be quite different for both of us, if something happened to the other.

Sorry, but we don't want to keep separate house and finances. No thanks - not when combining them gives us the life we have.

dodgeballchamp - how many of your friends actually have children?

Tbh, I don't think having a boyfriend you don't live with, have children with or share finances with is anything more than having a friend you have sex with. I wouldn't expect to pool resources with someone who is a casual friend, either, and certainly wouldn't wait around for a partner before I bought a house if I wanted to buy a house. If I wanted to have children with a partner, though, and needed to pool incomes to afford somewhere big enough to fit the kids in comfortably, then funnily enough I would not have any qualms about pooling incomes to get the house we needed for the family we had.

None of us have children and I can’t speak for the others but I don’t want them - in no small part because of the further inequality they bring to women’s lives

OK, well, clearly you can imagine that many people on this site do have children, and that's why we pool our resources.

The statistic that you quote doesn’t back up your claim that most women don’t have access to a second salary from a husband/partner. All it does is show that people get married/cohabit later in life than they used to.

Also, you make a massive assumption that in all couples the man is earning more than the woman.

Fair enough they it must be annoying when friends and colleagues don’t take into consideration their joint household incomes when discussing financial matters with you but you are making some pretty huge generalizations in your original post.

Agree with sushi. I don’t think it’s in the nature of most couples to want to keep everything ‘separate’, particularly when it would feel quite artificial.

Having said that I think there’s a lot of sense in both contributing in a balanced way- ie both earning, both contributing to practical household chores, both being hands on with the children (if you have them.) That way even though many of us would have to adapt and cut our cloth if the unthinkable happened, at least we’d be better prepared.

The problem with putting all the eggs in one basket as it were, ie one partner doing all the earning and the other giving up work and putting all their energy into home and kids, is that it becomes increasingly difficult to adapt if you need to. The non working partner inevitably finds it harder to step back into earning at a good level the longer time goes on. And as shown on many threads, if the other partner is focussing on going up the career ladder then that often means less time for home and children. It’s so easy for the roles to end up poles apart.

No one wants to think of death, divorce or illness but I do feel more reassured by the fact that even though any of those events would change our lives, at least dh and I have always both earned and paid into pensions - and less importantly but still an issue- we can both cook, clean and run the house

Of course Sushi but in a large number of cases it’s not an equal division of responsibilities is it? For me that’s a problem. It’s a societal and feminist issue. Someone is losing out on autonomy and independence and in a lot of cases it isn’t the male partner. It goes further than individual choices though, it’s structural on a large scale.

Gatoadrigado has the most sensible suggestion: Having said that I think there’s a lot of sense in both contributing in a balanced way- ie both earning, both contributing to practical household chores, both being hands on with the children (if you have them.) That way even though many of us would have to adapt and cut our cloth if the unthinkable happened, at least we’d be better prepared.

dodgeballchamp - I don't think children have brought inequality into my life. I think they have brought a great deal of pleasure. Having children may have been the riskiest venture I have ever entered, but it is by an exceptionally long stretch the most worthwhile risk I have ever taken in my entire life. Trying to insulate myself from every possible risk imaginable, or trying to protect myself from ever having responsibility for anything other than myself is not what I want for my life. I had various possible lifestyle eventualities in mind when I was younger, including being single and childless, but that certainly wasn't what I aspired to, it was just something that might happen to me which I therefore needed to be prepared for. Regardless, I wanted a life that was meaningdul to me. Funnily enough, I felt I needed a higher paying career if preparing for children than I would need if not planning for children, not vice versa.

Well what’s good about working part time, living off a man to pay for your 3 luxury holidays?

What's good about it is that you only work part time and have three luxury holidays a year!

For a materialistic/selfish person who doesn't give a shit, this setup would probably be extremely desirable.

It's strange that this female privilege is rarely discussed. You generally don't see the reverse, and when a man is the lower earner or SAHM, he's generally not a total freeloader IME, just had a lower paid job as opposed to having sought out a rich woman.

And for all the sense of aspiring for all responsibilities to be shared 50:50, so nobody has more domestic load and less financial load or vice versa, life is seldom that simple. That would require a whole extra level of planning, involving deliberately favouring some more flexible careers over others, refusing to go out with anyone who has a career you believe to be too inflexible, and hoping against hope that no health or other misfortunes ever hit the family. I'm not aware of there being any evidence that some types of career result in more successful relationships than others. Plenty of relationships where domestic and financial responsibilities are not shared exactly 50:50 work out extremely well in the long run. Mutual tolerance and respect is a better inidcator of success than a rigid insistence on things being just so, regardless.

*(aspiring to...)

Wow - the thread is still going!

The way I’ve always seen it, there is no way in hell I’d be prepared to share my DNA with someone to create new human beings; carry them for nine months; bf for that time again and everything else having children entails - with a man who can’t even share finances!!! Wtf! I simply can’t comprehend why anyone would do this.

Also, none of the SAHMs I know of the longer-term variety (ie ten-plus years) feel trapped or as if they have given up a vital part of their identity. Having children changes you and the years spent as a SAHM are actually a golden opportunity to retrain or reinvent yourself. Think of the skills or qualifications you can gain in that time, if you’re so inclined. Not everyone is interested in a corporate career or the type of job where you have to “keep your hand in.” I know women who used to work in finance who, after bringing up their DC to the teen years, have returned to work in their mid-40s or 50s, but they do so on their own terms - maybe they start up a business; train as a psychotherapist; open a gym / personal training business - the options are endless really. Being a SAHM gives you that freedom. I myself know that I’m not the same person now, in my mid- 40s, as I was when I was 30 (which was when I left work). I’m looking forward to the next phase and am due to complete a second MA which will enable me to work privately and in my terms.

I’m other words, I don’t recognise this MN presentation of the poor, hapless SAHM, whose DH will leave her penniless and wasted, for a younger model. I only know if one divorce in fact, and I must know about 100 SAHMs who all have DHs who probably earn anything from 200k to millions. These women know that, even if the DH buggers off, even the proceeds from the house and (if it came to a bitter divorce), even a small percentage of the wealth they have wouid still mean they were in a similar or better financial position to if they’d worked all these years. This is why they do it fgs! They are not dim. They wouid not risk their children’s security, let alone their own. It’s a cost- benefit analysis, like anything else. Plus, it’s not popular on MN, but many men prefer to have SAH wives for a whole variety of reasons. If you meet a like-minded partner - ie a man who prefers his wife to focus on the family and a woman whose instinct is to do just that - then you complement each other and that’s that. It’s nobody else’s concern.

Even if I was left penniless tomorrow, I wouid do it all again. The 16 years I’ve had with my kids are the most life-affirming thing I’ve ever done and I don’t regret a second of it. That’s just me.

People can't win, really, if their family income is a bit higher than average/than their peers. E.g.

Scenario 1: talk openly about aspects of your life that clearly not everyone is able to afford (e.g. holidays)
Outcome: judged as tactless etc and considered to be "assuming" everyone can afford these things.

Scenario 2: try not to mention these things, and join in (in a generic way)/ empathise with people during the usual social conversations gently griping about cost of living etc so as to fit in
Outcome: judged as "moaning unfairly" & again as tactless because no matter how discreet you are people always sense you are perhaps struggling less than others may be.

Scenario 3: avoid all conversations where any disparity in wealth is in any way apparent.
Outcome: judged as snooty/assumed you are being quietly smug about your position, judged as indifferent/ lacking empathy regarding others position.

Dodgeball - children change things. I've got an excellent professional career earning the same/sometimes more than DH. I've recently had to stop working because I have serious pregnancy complications and we recognised as a family that stress/long hours was putting our baby's life at risk. In doing this, I'm relying more on DH financially than I have in the past, because we both have to take decisions to prioritise our family.

Playing devil’s advocate, what about if the high earning partner decided one day they wanted to stop working having shouldered 100% of the financial responsibility for however many years, and spend their days pottering about getting extra qualifications and spending time of their hobbies and interests? Of course they can’t, because the SAH partner in most cases won’t be able to walk into a job that would continue funding their lifestyle. It’s not exactly fair is it? The SAH partner can go back to work whenever they like once children are old enough etc but the earner has no flexibility or choice in their role. I just honestly don’t understand how anyone can get any sense of achievement or satisfaction when everything you’ve done is on someone else’s dollar. When does the wage earner get to catch a break?

@zaeem5 I totally agree.

I have been trying to think of a way of explaining its worth the risk to me, but you say it perfectly.

"Even if I was left penniless tomorrow I would do it all again"

We personally did not choose to have a child and the let someone else enjoy the time with that child for the majority of its daytime. I wanted to be there investing my time, in my child.

My husband has even more respect for me now as I do him. Yes currently he is the main earner but we are a team, he is just as reliant on me as I him, him maybe more so.

If he walked out tomorrow, I would be heartbroken, but I would cope. But I'm not going to miss out for the "maybes" in life.

I bloody love it, and I'm independent, and I'm not lonely, isolated or controlled, I'm happy and we are having a blast!!! I haven't lost my identity as my job didn't define me. I love who am I and I love my life!!!!

dodgeballchamp - I think you need to work out what you really think. Do you think the financial earner has no choice or flexibility, or do you think the SAHM has no real choice or flexibility? Do you think the earner is in the stronger position, or the person who stays at home? Or are you just intent on inventing problems that simply don't exist for some people, because they are actually happy with the way they have mutually arranged their lives? As I said - mutual respect and tolerance get you a lot further than paranoia, jealousy and resentment. Not everyone is busy comparing their lot with everyone else's and finding their own lot wanting.

@dodgeballchamp - I know you don't have children. Do you have a partner?

Today 16:43 Walkaround

And for all the sense of aspiring for all responsibilities to be shared 50:50, so nobody has more domestic load and less financial load or vice versa, life is seldom that simple. That would require a whole extra level of planning, involving deliberately favouring some more flexible careers over others, refusing to go out with anyone who has a career you believe to be too inflexible, and hoping against hope that no health or other misfortunes ever hit the family

Gosh talk about hyperbole!

It really doesn’t need to be that difficult. And balance doesn’t have to be busting a gut to make everything exactly 50/50 so that if one
Partner does nursery pick up one day they’ll steadfastly refuse to do it the next even if they finish work earlier!

My point is that it’s quite possible to aim for things to be as balanced as possible, and yes that starts with picking a partner who is up for sharing the joys and the pains of working, parenting and running a home.
I wouldn’t want to completely give up my career, and neither would I want my kids to have a father who’s working unholy hours or in such a high powered job that he’s getting scant time with them

walkaround I think neither party has much choice or flexibility because they can’t function without the other. The breadwinner/homemaker set up, and societal structures that facilitate it, are inherently misogynist. The non-earner is in the weaker position certainly, but the earner role doesn’t come without its problems either. I like how you deviate from the question though about when the breadwinner wants to swap roles. Because there isn’t an answer for that is there, at least there isn’t one that doesn’t highlight how unbalanced the set-up is. I’m not sure how you’re extricating jealously and resentment from any of this, seeing as I’m actively planning my life not to ever be in this situation! Anger, yes, that we haven’t moved on as a society from this arrangement, and a degree of contempt I’ll admit, but certainly no jealousy.

Dodge - well I can only speak for myself, but my DH is an entrepreneur- type, so he’s never been tied into fixed working hours or set holiday patterns anyway. As for “when does the main wage earner get to take breaks?” Trust me, DH and most of the DHs I know get plenty of those - ie about six cycling / climbing / other hobby trips a year. It’s a different kind of “break” to the freedom I have, but it suits us, I guess. Otherwise we’d organise ourselves differently! Plus the pressure is taken off him at home and he never has to worry about going away on business or making arrangements for the kids because he knows I’m always there.