To ask how you get over resentment at being the higher earning partner?

[Bluetoybox]

My husband is a wonderful, kind and very sweet man who treats me beautifully and is an incredible Daddy to our little girl. He's a good man... I want to preface this by acknowledging he is a good man and a good husband in all the ways that matter.
He is self employed and generally speaking, brings home half my bring home income but this can be erratic. He also has so many outgoings that in terms of actual
contributions to our family life, be pays his half of the joint account where mortgage and bills are paid for and that is it. I pay the other half, 100% of the full time childcare bill, all groceries, all bits for our baby and all savings contributions. I do earn a fair salary but not amazing so there's nothing left after that and we only save £200 a month at the moment. It's not worth him stopping work to stay with the baby because he covers his own bills as well which mean he does make more than our childcare bill which is only temporary of course but giving up his business would mean having nothing to go back to once we no longer need the childcare.
I've only just gone back to work and am finding it very hard now because all my friends (who earn less than me) can stay home with their babies or work part time because their partners earn more. In fact in my circle of friends, of all the people in relationships I am the only one who earns more that their partner. And everyone else seems to be able to afford a much nicer quality of life than we can and I find myself now that I'm at the stage of having to leave my baby to go back to work feeling really resentful.

Please can I ask how to move past this as I know comparison is the thief of joy, I know I am lucky to be able to have a good job and a loving family and everything else in life is good. So how can I move past this stupid jealousy of what others have?

I think you two need to sit down and completely review your finances. He sounds awful with money and he needs to learn how to manage his work finances better. As it stands he is barely contributing to your joint expenses. Now to be honest, this in itself is fine because I fully agree with staying in work when children are young and childcare is expensive so you have a job/career later. What isn't acceptable, to me anyway, is making such a mess of your finances it make life difficult for the higher earner.

2021 it not unto him to keep you

For many years I earned more than my DH, but the second we loved on together everything became “ours”. We came into the relationship with nothing each, scrimped for our first house together then shared everything. All bills came from the pot, travel card, petrol, utilities, home improvements etc if we socialised separately it was sporadic as we couldn’t afford to go out much and on those occasions we had a set budget each. It’s worked for the 44 years we have lived together and two children we have brought up.

Now he earns errrrr nine times my salary and I spend “his” money as my own.

Obviously we have the same outlook on money!

I wonder how many men resent their wife having a lower paid job and financially contributing less?

@Bluetoybox

The thing is he can't pay more, he doesn't have it. He earns enough to cover what he covers. In fairness to him, he doesn't buy things for himself very often at all and when he does we're talking something under a tenner mostly.

He doesn't do his fair share of chores and that certainly annoys me! He will do something if asked but to the bare minimum of standards and never off his own back.
He does do his fair share with the baby.

He does love his job and so do I and you are right that this counts for an awful lot.

I was reading your thread thinking it's not that big of a deal and generally agreeing with people saying try to remember you are lucky to have the income. But this would definitely annoy me if the lower earning partner also wasn't doing their share of chores.

I always try to see it as more about contributions generally than just money. So if he is working less than you, he should be picking up more of the domestic stuff.

Would you feel comfortablt to talk to him about how you feel and float this with him?

Communication is the first step to solving most relationship problems, including little resentments like this which will build if you don't discuss it honestly and openly with him. He may have no idea how you feel and start trying harder to bridge the gap once you talk to him.

In your heart of hearts, would you really have given up the career you say you love to be a SAHM? It wouldn’t occur to me to stop work if DH was a billionaire

Me neither. I'd lose my mind at home as a sahp

The grass is always greener... despite me being more qualified, my partner earns triple what I earn. This is just a result of financial services vs creative industries.

It makes me feel pathetic and, although we both work full time and share the domestic chores, we do ever so slightly prioritise his career over mine purely for pragmatic reasons.

I personally believe you're setting a great example for your children and you're taking care of their needs by earning money. Be proud.

I think about the fact that because he is has a penis that doesn't mean he should be the main 'provider' we both work very hard. In the last few years he's completed a second degree and professional qualification whilst working full time which led to promotion and increased career potential. I've never expected a man to financially support me so don't resent the fact that he doesn't. He pays his fair share and pulls his weight with childcare and household chores unlike a lot of men on MN, he was also more than happy to consolidate his FT hours over four days the same as me, which saves us in childcare and also gives us both a day in the week to spend with our child. Up until recently I paid for a lot more than he did, but it didn't leave me with less disposable income and I see how hard he works in a profession that really makes a difference to vulnerable and dangerous people. We now throw everything into the joint account, all bills come out we set aside a decent amount for savings for us and DS , spending for DS a small contingency for monthly unforeseen joint expenses, then the rest is divided equally in two and we get that each for fun spends.
I can't resent my husband for working as hard as I do, taking opportunities to improve his career, being an equal partner and a great father, who doesn't expect certain things from me because I'm female. What is there to resent?!

Oblomov 21 is talking total sense, so ignore him/her at your peril.

You need an equal share of all areas of your life.
Fair contributions to all joint expenses, all child related expenses, all household jobs, all childcare that is provided at home......

I would resent my husband if he didn’t do his fair share of all of these.

And who is the main earner changes over the length of a marriage. I now earn more after many years of him earning more.
We still do the same amount of all the other things as that is fair.

Parker123 "I wonder how many men resent their wife having a lower paid job and financially contributing less?"

That is NOT what is being discussed here. Many many women (or men, as partners) work less or part time, especially whilst bringing up children. There shouldn't be any resentment.

I've worked part time for the last 17 years and have actually made a recent decision, now bits are older and don't need me so much, that I always will and never intend to work full time again.

This is about resentment.

1. part of that is learning how not to view others , be grateful for what you have, ' envy is the thief' .

2)But there are a few issues in this particular case of OP : such as the fact that i) he doesn't earn that much and that really does need to be addressed, his way of viewing his business, ii) he is maybe not very good at money generally and has previously made bad decisions which has affected her and iii) finally the fact it doesn't do much without being asked.

all those things are actually totally separate issues, in any relationship, that all need to be addressed.

Look ahead ten years. Ms y if your friends will be in shit positions. Husbands have left, are shagging away or are Financially controlling. The work can’t match their old salaries or even get jobs. Be resentful that life is so expensive but remember in some countries it’s harder. We work around our babes, some women have to leave theirs to be brought up by family as they work away for low wages. Be proud of how you have provided for your family and protected yourself. I have a friend whose husband died, another who turned out to be abusive, another who walked away from his big salary with a breakdown.

Don’t accept the not doing chores shit though. For a the next 4x4 but cheap and second hand with a loan. For less than the pcp yiu will own it at the end.

Thank you User147.
I know I was harsh to op, but I still believe everything I've said really is the truth and really does need to be addressed.

It's difficult isn't it - women have fought for centuries for equality in the workplace as well as in life, only to find that it isn't what we (always) wanted after all.

I think you just need to accept that one of you is the high earner, and be glad it's you. If it weren't you then you would be expected to give up your job, do all the house work, and all the childcare. He isn't expected to do all of this single handedly because he is a man. Soon your girl will be at school but you'll still have your job.

Does he make an actual salary, say more than £20k pa from his self employed forestry work, or is it more of a hobby 'playing with chainsaws' type thing?

I wanted to ask a version of this. The 4x4 thing / way it was handled sounds like a bit of an expensive mistake but, so be it. Long-term what is the goal? What will his work look like in five years, and yours? What is the longer-term plan in terms of childcare, work, savings, contributions?

I think some SE work easily falls into the trap of not being particularly profitable/tax-efficient, so you end up with people working hard, not contributing much to family life but not contributing much financially either. If that's where this is going he'd do better to be employed, I'd expect, so someone else can deal with vehicles/taxes/pensions/yadda yadda.

Also, as others have said, if you earn 40% more than him (or whatever), you'd typically split things so that you pay 40% more of the mortgage, bills etc, rather than 50/50.

OP, do you feel it's your DHs responsibility to financially keep you? You pay proportionally more of the Bill's than him because you earn more. That's the way most couples work.

Would you expect your DH to resent you if you earned less?

Going to work to do the financial heavy lifting is also taking care of your family/ your baby. I feel proud that I do that, and maybe you should too? Feeling guilty / envious etc is a choice - you could choose to feel proud instead. But it is hard when you’ve just gone back and still getting used to everything.

BUT him not doing much around the house and huffing and puffing about it is bullshit, so I would be choosing to get quite annoyed about that. Being male doesn’t mean you have to earn more, but it doesn’t get you out of doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom.

@Oblomov21

Every bit of what she has written is extremely obvious.

OP, he doesn't pull his weight at home and is a sulker.

He really doesn't read as any great prize.

Despite your income things are in fact tight financially.

I hope your contraception is bullet proof because the last thing you should do is take the huge load on of a second child.

Clearly you are the parent in this relationship, protect yourself as this will get very old, very quick.

I'm not ignoring @Oblomov21 and I wasn't offended by their post or any other post criticising my husband's financial planning, I just realised that I don't need to hash out every detail of this to rationalise why he did some of the things he did, as that wasn't the point of the thread. I hope you can all appreciate that our set up and finances are far more complex than can be summed up in this thread and I'm also sure you call all appreciate that I'm fully on top of it in understanding it all and what impact it has on us. My post was about learning not to be resentful of my husband because I have to go back to work and this thread has helped me to look at it from a few different view points and realise that this isn't something that has been done to me, it is a decision we both made about what was best for our family. I don't need to spend more time breaking down the finer details of why we are where we are now because I am confident that what we have worked out is what is best; I've just been struggling to accept that when it comes to actually getting up and leaving my baby.

The feeling of unfairness that you have to return to work, away from your child, to keep the family afloat is the deal that the majority of men are expected to live with. And often they have to go back to work after just one or two weeks with their child.

He needs to pull his weight in chores more, but it sounds like he's paying proportionally about right for his income - he shouldn't be paying half of everything if he's the lower earner.

It's hard, I get that. I returned p/t when my babies were young, and my husband took parental leave instead because financially it made sense (and also we wanted to have equal opportunities to bond with our children) and it's hard. But it's also a price we pay for women being taken more seriously in the workplace, for (working towards at least...) equal opportunities at work, is that we can't also assume that we should be have the 'right' to stay at home and be taken care of financially by a man. Sometimes it works the other way, sometimes both need to work.

I'd suggest trying to arrange flexible hours in return, maybe do condensed days, to give yourself some time in the week to have off with your child. Or in the autumn, when the car loan is paid off, reduce your hours a little (and skip the saving for now) and be more frugal with money for a year or two.

Don’t see being a higher earning working parent as a disadvantage. See it as setting an example for your children and being a role model. Especially if you have a daughter. I’m a higher earner compared to my DH who WFH and has things easier in my view whilst I make the daily commute to work. But I never resented this. He used to make more than me but in a job he hated and worsened his mental health. I’m glad he is in a job he enjoys, although paid not as well. I pay more into the joint accounts but he does his fair share around the house and treats me like a queen. We have a comfortable life. Are you sure you enjoy your job? If you did, I can’t imagine you wanting to get away from it so much.

@Oblomov21 I had the experience that op is having but I’m several years ahead. I had the second child, my relationship broke down under the weight of carrying everything, all the housework, financial responsibility and looking after the now two children. He never accepted that he didn’t make enough money and it wasn’t a viable business but it folded last year. My health is utterly destroyed and I’m permanently exhausted. I’ve had to leave my job and will be selling my house in the summer. Sometimes you just don’t want to hear something.

Good OP.

" hobby 'playing with chainsaws' "

Sorry. But having just done a number of tax returns for family and friends (including my middle brother who by god my patience was tested beyond what even I can endure ....)

The above made me really smile.

I get why you feel cheated. You're funding more than 50% and you know it and your H gets to spend time with your baby. That's sad. And you know that you could BOTH be could be low earners and that wouldn't be a better situation.

I think you should ask your husband to do x, y and z around the house. Tell him you're struggling with him being the one to see your baby grow up and you need to not come home and see the bin over flowing and the dish washer unloaded. Hopefully he will manage to do those tasks.

Don't have another child.
Has he brought up having another child?

Does he think he'll wait til this one is off to school and then extend his staying at home by suggesting another?

I think you'd be mad feeling as you do to have another unless you could be the one to take some ML and then be in a position to at least share the earning/caring responsibilities.