How much should your partner earn....

[nonwonderwoman]

I have always been ambitious but my DH has outstripped my earnings by at least double check in the last 5 years.
This hasn't generally bothered me as I have earned well in the legal profession and developed an excellent reputation at work. However my DH has recently been awarded a salary of £215k + .
The feminist in me wants to keep going to work and building my reputation and professional life but the realist in me wonders whether to give up my job and start enjoying a simple life. ABUR?

My DH is a high earner (not quite reached the 200s yet! Wow!) and I would never give up work.

It’s a huge part of my identity, and I look at women senior to me whose kids have flown the nest - and who also have high flying husbands - and wonder what their lives would be like without work.

What I would consider in your position is:

Going down to part time, or moving to somewhere with more flexible working
Moving to a non profit to take my skills somewhere they will still be valued but for a lower salary (yet hopefully some sort of psychological gain)
Thinking about whether your family is truly using their wealth optimally to make your lives easier - anything else you can streamline or outsource!?
Or starting my own business! You have some freedom to take risks!

If it’s always been your dream to be a SAHP, do it, but it doesn’t sound like it is!

OP I had 7 years with the DC after a fulfilling career but needed to go back when dd was settled into school to escape the school gate. When I stopped work my salary and bonuses were about £100k and DH was scraping about £50k with prospects. His career bloomed in those 7 years to what our dh is on now and then doubled again. But I was bored and had no professional quals. I went back part-time on £8k a year, locally and somewhere with charitable status and was thrilled to have my own money in my own pocket again.

That was 17 years ago and I was full-time in 2 years and sponsored to takes prof quals. I am now head if service and on six figures again. My compromise financially was working locally so I cd take the dc to school and be there in a flash.

DC are grown now and I've no intention of retiring although I'm nearly 60. I think it enriched our marriage ad enriched me. I also have my own healthy pension.

I was really surprised at the no of couples who split as the children reached early adulthood. Successful, high earning men, women wearing leisure wear and talking inly aboyt their dc and the tennis club. They are totally unemployable and rather bittter about their dh's and where they have ended up. It is most awfully sad.

@userxx He pays half of the cost of the cleaner ;)

Is going part time an option for you? It sounds like that would be a good compromise.

Another one for trying to reduce your hours. I earn £40k, job currently very stressful but I have always worked full time, and done all the wife work and juggled work around the sports days and clubs.

DH currently earns £178k, I don’t need to work but I would never leave as it is and always has been my financial independence even though we share one pot and DH is super generous.

In middle age now, the stresses of working and caring for elderlies and still offering parental support to adult DC it is too much and I’m going down to three days a week soon, whilst continuing to put as much as I can in my pension.

My dh earns about that and has earned more. I earn a decent whack as well. I personally couldn’t be with someone who wanted a gravy train ride from me. We built our marriage on shared values and that includes a shared work ethic,

IMO it's better for both partners to earn about the same and share other things (housework/childcare ...) equally.

But in your case you're both high earners so the disparity in your take home pay is not so relevant.

In your case I'd want to keep working; possibly consider reducing my hours slightly to do more of the after school type things, if that 's possible. With two primary aged children this is the hardest years for juggling, so you could look to increase them again in a few years if you wanted to.

I agree with your grandmother that everyone should have the ability to support themselves.

I also suspect you'll get bored and/or you and your husband may end up resenting each other if you give up work.

I was really surprised at the no of couples who split as the children reached early adulthood. Successful, high earning men, women wearing leisure wear and talking inly aboyt their dc and the tennis club. They are totally unemployable and rather bittter about their dh's and where they have ended up. It is most awfully sad.

I wouldn’t use those words but we are just 50 and have seen almost all of our friends who had a sahp see their marriages end as children went to uni. The high earning partners are all now in relationships with high earners which is fascinating

DH was scraping about £50k

The perspective on this thread compared to others is something to behold, when on many others £50k would be seen as a fortune!... as is the concentration of posters whose family incomes are comfortably within the top 1% - the MN demographic exposed!

Of course I knew that those at the top, of accountancy firms are well paid, but didn't realise it was that lucrative.

OP chooses to work full time. I wouldn't. Loads of partners of law firms are self employed, so work 4 days for eg.

Or else what's the point!

Why run yourself ragged, sorting childcare, and when you've already got a nanny. Seems silly.

What's your lifestyle like op? Your 4k is not insignificant to his 9.5k (approximate).

I really like working but am pt & my job is very stable & relatively easy. DH does earn more than me (100k) but I worry re burnout, job loss, etc. Luckily his job isn't too demanding (can wfh), not too many late nights. I think it's hard for one person to carry all the stress of earning & in a ideal world DH would work 4 days.

I'm in a relatively new career & keen to increase hours & progress once youngest is in school. I'm not sure I will get to 6 figures (not a lot of those jobs in my field) but 60-70k is definitely achievable. I love hearing stories like @OhTheRoses.

I think the /career oriented person within you is going to find that children and a house with flowers doesn’t fill her heart. The pride at the successful identity of gaining a good reputation at work will slowly be replaced by being known as Mr Good Catch/powerful/rich guy’s ’s wife.

She may also find out, that her husband would be happy for her to stay at home but the things that made him fall in love with her and see her as an equal, start to disappear, as her conversation starts focusing on what the children, dog did and what she read online during the day.

The high earning partners are all now in relationships with high earners which is fascinating

Not entirely surprising... To be a top earner you generally have to devote an enormous proportion of your time and energy to your job, and you’ll spend a lot more time with your high earning counterparts than your spouse, who is essentially milking the high earning partner for a life of relative ease which must lead to resentment.

If you take a job with a big salary and everything that comes with it, it’s a Faustian pact... That’s why I’m in no rush to jump up the ladder to a six-figure salary. Sure, I might be able to go on skiing holidays and afford a better car, but is it worth it?

Listen to your grandmother.

Hi OP. I see your dilemma, but I think you have to think long-term. In particular, what is the plan for educating your DC? If you’re in London or the outskirts, you would be looking at about £50k per year for the two of them - so that’s your salary gone.Then £200 odd k may not be that much for everything else, post tax, depending on the size of your mortgage and general outgoings.

As for your question, “How much is enough?” well, it purely depends in your circumstances, where you live and future plans.

It sounds as if your children are quite little now? I’ve been SAH for about 16 years. I thought I’d never go back tbh, because any money I would earn would be negligible in comparison to DH and we have 4 DC. I actually think it’s easier to have a nanny when they’re little, but when school and homework start to matter (particularly if they’re doing 11 plus for London independents) this is where a nanny falls short. You can’t expect them to be across all this.

I have many friends where one parent earns at least what your DH earns. They were fine both working until they realised that the nanny couldn’t help with the homework sufficiently and the DC were falling behind. That’s when the lower earner left work to be SAH.,

As a SAHM to primary aged DC, your day isn’t long really because you need to be mobilising at 3pm for school pick ups. It does make family life a lot easier, if you’re not exhausted and trying to cram everything into evenings. You wouldn’t be bored while they’re at school, because there loads to do, even with a cleaner coming in. You would be surprised probably. Also, there’s nothing wrong with taking your downtime during these hours because after 3.30 and weekends it’s full on and we are not machines. Also, you don’t mind if your DH wants to do his hobbies or whatever at weekends, so resentment doesn’t build up.

The time that you would probably want to return to work would be when there’s no more school runs - probably when the youngest one is in secondary. It might only be a couple of hours, but having DC come home on their own steam at 4.30 / 5pm does feel like a longer day than when you’re tied to primary school pick ups. The question is, how easy would it be for you to return to work at this point? It if you don’t want to return to the same field, what do you see yourself doing instead - eg maybe starting a business or restraining? Many women I know have a property development portfolio for instance? Some have online businesses that have been very successful; some are personal trainers or therapists who set their own hours? Having time out as a SAHP does give you the chance to reassess actually, or to think outside the box - and to reinvent yourself if need be

Would your DH actually prefer you to be at home if not? You have to have this conversation obviously. Particularly if he travels a fair bit, it’s very reassuring to not have to worry about juggling the kids.

Good luck whatever you decide!!

I also think it's essential that if both parents work the dhs do their fair share (where possible). DH does drop offs, batch cooks, sorts his shirts etc. We do have a cleaner & hands on granny's close by which also helps.

I did notice during each mat leave we argued more, by the end of the year I think I was itching to get back to work/routine & was resentful. I've nothing against SAHPs, just don't think it's for me.

Yet another one for trying to reduce your hours. We're in a similar situation and the thing I keep asking myself is when the last DC is successfully waved off to school, I come home and do... what exactly? I left a legal career and am self-employed. I work around DD, I set my own hours. My plan is to ramp things up when she and any siblings are off to school. But there are many ways to slice things.

I watched the tv programme the split. He's a barrister, she's a top divorce lawyer. Oh my word her clothes and louboutin's were to die for, but what a miserable life. What a terrible existence!

He works in consultancy at a big 4 accountancy firm.

I work with consultants from Big 4. Many of them know little more than the average bod (and many know much less, as they are external to whatever business they are consulting in!), so I both admire and envy them in equal measure for getting their foot in that door!

The whole job seems predicated on traffic light dashboards and strategy meetings and moving en mass, like those Naruto Run memes ()

Buy all the help, have a great career and enjoy nice times with your children without worrying about the ironing or scrubbing Lois.

But this entire thread is summed up in the second or third reply:

"Don't give up your earning power to rely on anyone else would be my advice, not even DH."

Being dependent on anyone else when I didn't have to is unthinkable.

Please do not expect parity in the marriage to survive long term disparity in earning potential. Where one partner is comfortable doing a 215K p.a. job and the other is happy to do childcare, there is a fundamental mismatch in outlook which a team approach is unlikely to bridge long term.

“I can’t imagine having the attitude of “oh he earns enough now for me to be a kept woman”

It’s not really about that. I think there comes a point (which the OP has reached) where you start to wonder if it is worth having the hassle of both parents working if one is earning a lot. I suspect that threshold is very different depending on where in the country you are, whether you want to privately educate, your general spendings, inheritances, job stability etc.

I wouldn’t give up work. I’ve seen so many marriages fail because the high earning DH gets resentful that they are sweating blood while DW drinks champagne at lunch time. It’s always interesting to me that the third wife is almost always a high earner past child bearing age and she can support herself while he pays out for the school fees/uni etc. I’ve seen it all - restructures, redundancies, partnership funding calls, illness and death. Nothing is certain OP, look after yourself and pay as much as you can into pension, investments etc. I think the future looks pretty bleak so be prepared.

Situations change so as long as you’re flexible to work with those changes then do what’s right for you.

I was the High earner for the first five years of our marriage. I then became a SAHM as my DH had better earning potential but at that time was doing most of the school runs and child care. His business has taken off to the point that I can carry on my career after three years as a SAHM, working alongside him but on a PT basis. We are now 50% shareholders and are both very high earners. It’s a lovely balance having been on the other side of working 50+ hours a week with two toddlers and missing out on so much of them.

I loved my time as a SAHM. I didn’t sit around and watch TV. A school day is actually quite short! I enjoyed doing the school run, meeting friends and making sure I did everything in the house during the day so evenings and weekends were ours. It was wonderful. However, I’d worked hard to get to where I was previously and I missed that side of me so after a few years I was glad to get back into work.

So, my point is. You might decide to become a SAHP but that might only be for a few years. Or you might find that PT suits you better. Should you then decide or need to go FT in the future you’ll be in a much better position to do so.

Or, do as some of my friends have done in the legal profession, and set up on your own and dictate your hours. It’s great to have options.