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?

I agree with your grandmother. I would never rely on a man for financial security. What if you split up? by then you'll have been not working for a few years and it will be hard to get back into it.
Happy marriages are happy, until they arent and then everything can change in a heartbeat. I'd never do it.

I would keep doing what you're doing. Being the higher/sole wage earner in a family has its own stresses. Quite apart from a potential future breakdown of the marriage, what if DH hates it? What if he wants to change paths, but you've left the law so he can't? That level of pressure can lead to resentment.

Eh I would go part time at least. You still get to keep your job, it's something to keep you busy and your mind active, plus its a way to keep earning if you do split up. But you don't need to currently work full time. It's a bit pointless.

I’m in your shoes OP. DS in same industry earns 450 upwards. I was ambitious, doing well earned 50 which is a great salary but paled into insignificance. If his job had allowed him to share a tiny bit of childcare (i mean picking up/dropping off a couple of days a week, odd work from home day etc) i would have continued my career. But jobs like that come at a price and there was not support for me from him or family. Consultancy can take people away from home for months and months and I had that with tiny kids. Money can buy nannies etc but actually that is no substitute for a parents love. I got fed up of my nanny telling me second hand about my DC’s milestones each day....I wanted to be that mum that saw those things for myself. So, moneys one thing but it cant buy time and connection sadly.

At a certain point of income, the MN mantra "Don't give up your earning power to rely on anyone else would be my advice, not even DH” becomes irrelevant though, because you don’t just have the money sat in the bank. You have investments in both your names and live off the dividends. Or maybe you’ve inverted in properties in both your names, so have income from that? Or if you live in a £5 million home with a low / no mortgage, you know you could survive if you had to, simply from your share in the divorce proceedings. What people don’t realise, I think, is that women who are long-term SAHMs to high earning men don’t put themselves in this position without a lot of security behind them in the form of family assets / investments /wealth. This is what you build up together. It’s not a case of “living of a man” at a certain level, or it doesn’t feel like it anyway, as you organise your family finances in a way that it takes care of itself.

Ha sod that, if my DJ earned that I'd quit in a heartbeat and take on the childcare and majority of housework in exchange for not working. Lol.
Unless I enjoyed my job. 🤷🏼‍♀️
But then I know and trust my dh and we have always been 100% in sharing our finances.

And all those people saying you can afford a nanny... why should she want to do that and have someone else share those precious moments with her children?

I don't quite get your motivation, beyond avoiding the juggling which I agree is difficult but not a huge price to pay. You don't seem to have a burning desire to be a sahp. You like your job.

Giving up financial independence is a huge step. How is your pension? What would happen if you split from your husband in future?

Have you considered part time?

I'd say cut your hours, go part time. Either dropping a couple of days a week or finishing early.

Quitting altogether can make it so hard to get back in at a later time, plus there is the potential SAH boredom.

Keep yourself in the game, up to date. You may want to up the priority again later in life so best to keep your options open.

Even on a high income nannies are expensive because of course with tax, you have to earn double their wage to pay them. There’s also the lack of privacy with nannies and au pairs. If you’ve been at work all day, its nice to come home and have your house and precious time with your partner and kid. But you’ve often got to offer a kind welcoming home to the au pair....thats not always easy - you brought them in! I found it very hard to hear (with the kindest intentions) stories from the nanny about what DD had done that day - how shed toddled, read some words, drawn a picture etc. It just isn’t the same second hand sadly.

Stealth boast! In fact not even very stealthy!

Wouldn’t you think it a bit unfair on your DH if he has the stress of having to earn all the money? What if his job makes him unhappy? Wouldn’t it be better if you both work and you can retire sooner?

I had a couple of years not working recently and I went back to work even though I didn’t have to (savings and a big pension through me being the higher earner). I did this partly because I felt guilty about it all being on my husband, partly because I felt lacking in purpose and intellectual stimulation whilst I was off, and partly to give us more disposal income and so we can retire earlier.

Oh, but I work part-time btw. Echo other posters - could you do that?

FFS, surely this is fairly straightforward - go part-time for a while. See how it pans out. Then you can see how it works for you.

i am so in the wrong profession.

What's important is that you discuss this as a family and decide what's right for you, as a family.

I think, though, that you should go part time and keep earning money and gaining experience. Even a few years out of work can have an impact on getting back into work.

Also, with Brexit happening, i think both of you being in stable jobs is so important. There's no way I'd give up work now that this country is about to royally fuck itself.

Sorry for getting political.

Your husband might be a high earner, but you can still have a lot more fun on a post tax hoysehold income of say 15k a month as opposed to 11k. Plus you get to keep your independence. But depends how mi j you love your job. If it's just "a job" retrain as something else you feel is worthwhile even of the salary is less.

I'd be happy for his achievements but I wouldn't stop working. I would however make sure that what work I did, I really enjoyed. I'd see it as an opportunity to do something different as I don't 'love' what I do.

"What people don’t realise, I think, is that women who are long-term SAHMs to high earning men don’t put themselves in this position without a lot of security behind them in the form of family assets / investments /wealth."

That applies to some and is brilliant when it happens
However, others have assumed / agreed that there will always be joint account and joint assets, but have not noticed them being professionally squirrelled away offshore.

It usually takes many years of building up investments before they reliably bring in 6-figure annual profits and may not happen before the DC are at secondary school

Also, there is sometimes a complete change in the relationship to reflect the financial imbalance.
Even when mutually agreed, arrogance / resentment of being the sole breadwinner can build as the stress does and then the ft female colleague without ties looks so enticing to him.

What does your DH think? Our roles are reversed and I’d be mighty pissed off if DH decided he was jacking his job in and all financial responsibility was now mine. At that level jobs at otter cut and then hard to replace, we also have significant financial commitments. As a woman I’d be careful of quitting then having nothing when the kids no longer need you

This is exactly what I am doing in September. DH has been made a partner at his firm and is on 190k this year and it will only go up. I am on 22k as a PT nurse. It’s long shifts that it’s difficult to find childcare for, we’ve had to share the pickups and drop offs or enlist a granny to help us.... grandparents all live an hour plus drive away and are getting older. It seems almost unethical to get them to come and look after our kids for us to to save money when we are earning more than they ever did, in orders of magnitude.

If DH is going to make the most of his career now, he needs to be available. He’s still leaving at 530 most days but when he needs to stay, he needs to stay and at the moment he can’t always. Whenever he goes overseas it’s an enormous ballache.

I’m going to do a bit of bank to maintain my registration, and when DS2 goes to school in September I’m going to quit my role. No stressing over sick kids, parents evening, sports day, performances, helping with swimming, workshops etc etc, no rushing at the weekend to get things done. Just a calm orderly home with decent food on the table, a parents who is always there and a relaxed atmosphere. I can’t wait tbh.

I'm in exactly this space.

I'm keeping my job. All the stress will be worth it when I come out the other side of young kids, and we both still have careers we enjoy, and neither of us is expected to be the house-elf to the other.

TBH, we're looking at retiring before we're 50, and we'll be able to do that because we both earn, so whilst his job is full on, to earn that much money it would have to be, I've been able to freelance/structure my work around the kids and still earn a tidy amount.

There are definitely days when I think I could just stop work, spend my days keeping the house up to scratch and indulging the kids, and doing my hobbies - but I don't want to spend my days cleaning and being responsible for dirty socks, even for a nice house, and more importantly I don't want DP thinking that I am.

I suspect that even when we retire, I'll keep working part-time as I genuinely enjoy my work - 2 days a week would be perfect, so I still have plenty of time for everything else too.

All your posts suggest you should keep working. I’d keep going.

Feminism was all well and good when women didn't have equal rights. It's outdated and irrelevant to still think about things in such terms.

Your DH earns a shit load of money, consequently, you don't have to work if you don't want to.

Stay at home, enjoy your life. If your relationship ever breaks down you'll get half of everything, including his pension. You're set for life.

I have been in your shoes.

Even with savings, there is pressure and inequality for both of the couple where one is the sole earner (what if they are hit by a bus or ill or whatever? What’s the sickness insurance like and will it cover you all for the rest of your lives? What if they want to change job with a smaller salary in future!) and one stays at home (what if they divorce? In the worst case scenarios, is it really an ideal time to be job hunting?).

I would get a (relative to private practice) low paying part time job (2-3 days a week) in a company where there is the opportunity to ratchet up if the shit ever hit the fan.

Try in-house or the GLD.

It’s really all about all about money though is it. Satisfaction in life is the big key.

My husband earns well but not anywhere near 215k. We have a comfortable life and I don’t work because I was miserable in my job and wanted to be with my children.