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?

@lolulop - why wouldn’t you want your DH to have a low paid job? Do you have a low paid job?
It’s 2021 and women can easily out earn their DH’s.

The thing about "you knew what he earned" is that, before you have a baby, you don't know what it will be like leaving them at nursery at 12 months. I don't have any advice op but you have my sympathy. I was planning to go back full-time with my first baby (partner was at uni) and I massively struggled with that thought after he was born. Luckily my partner got a job and I ended up going back 2 days a week and I even struggled to send dc to nursery 2 days. I can definitely see how you would be resentful op.

The heart of this is bot having the luxury to go part time or stay at home with your child as your partner doesnt earn enough! Dh was a sahd with our first. I cried for 6 months every morning in the car going to work at the unfairness of having to work ft and not be home more. BUT it does pass, you get into the swing and start enjoying work again.

I think sometimes things look different from outside .Often the "lucky" SAHMs with all the goodies may envy you! Lots of men seem to begrudge their SAHM partners anything at all. While even the more generous ones often feel its "their" money and they are "buying " /Paying for everything .Regardless of the fact they would be paying a hefty sum for Childcare/Cleaning and so on done by these "lucky"SAHMs! ATM you will feel resentful as you are leaving a young baby ,however as time passes you will be pleased you havent taken a break and will be able to earn money,pay into a pension and so on.

I felt this. Very actuately and for a very long time. I had to go to work when both my children were very small because my self employed husband hardly made anything but worked a lot. So I had the worst of all worlds at the time...

So from experience I say, It is a horrible attitude that keeps you stuck in a victim mentality and its worth you sorting out because it does not help - it only sucks the joy out of your own life.

Also, 10 years down the line, life is very different, I have been able to step out from full time work, and he has been able to earn more... we have a better lifestyle than 10 years ago. It was very pressured back then and its only in hindsight that I can see how bad it was.

It's very difficult to take the 'long view' when the future is unknown and much easier in hindsight. Also your life might not work out like mine but my advice is:

Do everything you can to make your life as good as it can be TODAY eg
Get a cleaner (mumsnet number one, I know, but its about delegation).

• Delegate at work if you are in a position to
• Place as many things in the 'fuck it bucket' as possible - the things that really don't matter.
• Do things which bring you joy - think back to when you were a child and what you loved, start doing that again (horseriding, dancing, reading - what ever it is for you).
• I wish so much that my husband was able to use his initiative more and just 'see' what needs to be done. The best day was the day I woke up to the fact that he will never do that. I had to start telling him and letting him fail (eg yesterday he didn't have a card or present for his mum's birthday).

Life ebbs and flows.

JungOwlWan

"But I could tell the difference between a man determined to make the best of his SAHD role and a man who was passively avoiding working in his own job."

I'd like to think I could too. But at the moment I think a tiny proportion of men genuinely fall into the former category. Depressingly, it still takes a great leap of faith for men, who have been socialised to believe parenting is a "woman's job", to see raising children and doing (unpaid) domestic work as a vocation to which they aspire.

This may be changing but it will probably still take several generations to happen.

A lot of men with well-paid partners seem to see this as an excuse for the best of both worlds: they like taking their foot off the pedal in terms of the pressure on them to support the family but either actively avoid or just fail to see the need for, a step up to support on the home front.

Over the long term, the key to this is to build a greater sense of value in domestic work (which is a whole other thread). But for now, I just wouldn't take the risk of handing over half my income to someone who was basically coasting.

@Parker231 I wouldn't have a problem with being the breadwinner & earning more. I just wouldn't like my DH to have a low paid job. I earn less than DH but I'm not on a low salary. Life is expensive 🤷‍♀️

Why oh why didn't you marry a millionaire tosser? Sounds like you'd have been much happier................

Hi OP, just wanted to chime in here as I earn double my husband's wage and have done for some time but don't resent it at all, and haven't even when I haven't enjoyed my job at all (though I do now).

Partly it's because there's no difference in the effort we put in - both have quite high pressure jobs and similar standard hours (though mine it's subject to more intense periods of working late). The salaries are just different because of expectations of our industries so there no shirking to be resentful of!

Second, we always used to organise our finances so that we paid all joint bills proportionally by our take-home pay, after we'd paid for all benefits through our respective work places like pension and life insurance, which always felt fair to both of us. Since having a child, I pay now than this share because it started feeling unfair to me that I had so much more fun money left over than him in real terms and I'd rather is be more equal in that than it always being me buying the treats and days out etc. It helps that he never asked for this and was a bit wary of me doing it because he didn't want me to feel like he was taking advantage. He still refuses to allow us to set it up so that we have exactly the same spending money left over because that feels unfair to him! I respect him being very conscious and appreciative of the fact I bring in a good wage and not taking it for granted that I will just provide, so no resentment there.

Third, I was brought up to always want to be financially independent of a man. That's no judgement on anyone who stays at home because I appreciate it works best well for plenty of people, but it would make me feel incredibly uncomfortable and vulnerable. No comment on the state of my relationship but, because of who I am as a person, I think that the fear would weigh heavily on my marriage. So from that perspective in very comfortable and non-resentful of the situation.

Last, I had a good length maternity leave but still missed my little toddler when he eventually went off to nursery. I think that's natural. He absolutely adores it there, though, and equally loves coming home to us so we have been very lucky and that's made it easier. Much as I adore him, I think I would have struggled being with him 24/7. When I think that we wouldn't have been able to have him socialising with other children during this pandemic otherwise, I thank my lucky stars that he's been going to nursery all this time.

We also have also had a domestic chores mismatch in this house which is now largely solved after a lot of heartache (and I've now made my peace with the night left over!) but I can honestly say that income disparity had never come into it because I am genuinely content with the fairness of how things are set up.

If any of that helps at all!

Lolulop - Many key workers are on low salaries - care workers as an example. The last year as taught us we would be lost without them.

@Parker231 sorry I don't understand your point? I'm a key worker too & have worked throughout. I live in London & was born & raised there to immigrant parents, same as DH so we don't want to leave but that means a high cost of living.

He doesn't do his fair share of chores and that certainly annoys me!

OK, this needs to get sorted PDQ. He has no excuse, when you are finding his lifestyle. What is his excuse for not pulling his weight with chores? Listen carefully, it's very likely it will be the as his reasons for not earning at least enough to cover his cost of living.

Congratulations on your baby. I sincerely hope that you can get your life working properly to be happy staying together.

Financial independence plus a baby is a strong life position. You really don't need a deadweight to carry in terms of chores and finances.

What would you think if your part-time working friends' husbands were all complaining, that their wives are not paying their 50% and the husbands also want to work part time?

As PP gave pointed out, when women cut back on earning potential, it's usually to look after DC and run the household. Your situation is not similar until he starts to pull his weight with household and children.

As for his sulking when faced with his contribution to household chores, does he realise just how unattractive that makes him as a partner. Ugh. For me this really is the worst part of all. Good luck.

I am the big earner and I love it. I like giving an example of a woman earning to support her family. I think my sons will be proud of me.

It doesn't bother me he brings less to the table, I really don't care. We pay our money all into a joint account and I don't even know what he pays and what i do. He is a very good dad. Ironically he works a lot more than me because my job is very flexible. I have to do all the medical appointments etc to be honest it makes me proud that I manage both.

The issue is that you want to be at home with your kid. Personally I’d drop a days work to make this possible. His finances will change once the car is paid off. However he clearly can’t afford such high payments and needs to change the length of the debt so that payment is spread out over a number of years. He can reduce his car payment to £100 a month

I think you've been with your baby, you are enormously attached to her - she has been your world - and now you have to leave her and trust others with her.

It is a very difficult time. I remember going back to work and leaving DD with DH two days a week, grandma the third day. I was in tears on the train.

It does get better. Instead of allowing your grief about this to turn into anger and resentment, focus on allowing yourself to know about how sad you feel about it and how much you miss her.

Ironically I think this will help you to move forward - this has got a lot in common with a bereavement for you really. Loss grieved can be turned into something constructive, but grief turned into grievance is VERY destructive and will eat you up.

It will get better as you get used to the new way of living and you turn your focus outwards again a little more.

Your DD will be fine.

I earn more than double my DH's salary and I don't resent it. I think this is because my DH does more than his fair share of the housework. Perhaps unusually for a man, he used to run a pub so understands the importance of cleaning and tidying really well and just does things as they need doing rather than needing a list of chores etc. I do more cooking but I enjoy that, whereas most other things are split equally or he even does more of them.

We each get our salary paid into our separate accounts but we then each have a direct debit into a joint account into which I pay roughly 2/3 of our household expenses (bills, groceries, baby stuff) and he pays 1/3. We then have roughly the same amount of money over to spend on stuff for ourselves, or to save. There's not really a huge distinction between the accounts, but it works for us and we don't feel guilty about spending money on clothes or stuff for our hobbies.

On balance I think I'd rather be the higher earner and have that security of being self sufficient and having a solid career, than not have to work but be reliant on someone else's salary to support my lifestyle. I love my DH very much and I can't imagine us ever not being together or sharing our money fairly, but I think part of the reason why we do have such a good relationship is that I don't feel reliant on him financially. I'm maybe a bit paranoid about money because I've seen people in my family treated terribly in relationships, financially speaking.

My suggestion would be to see if you could manage to go down to 4 days a week at work, or even maybe do the hours you'd normally do in 5 days in 4, or 10 days' hours in 9? DH and I each do 4 days a week now and I find it a really good balance being at work most days but having one day a week to spend time with my toddler and get a bit of stuff done around the house. If you can't do that then maybe try to arrange with your DH that either Saturday or Sunday is your time to actually play with your DC or take them out or whatever, so DH does whatever needs doing around the house that day and you get some quality time. Even a regular weekend morning or afternoon might make a difference.

PS you could have another baby soon, if you were so blessed, and do it all over again!

I can totally understand where your resentment is coming from OP and it’s because you don’t have choice. No woman can know how they will feel about going back to work and leaving a baby until the time actually comes. Call me old-fashioned, but this is more of an emotional wrench for women than men. If you don’t have a DH who is able to support the family on his sole income (particularly if you are the higher earner), then this deprives you of the choice to follow what is a basic instinct. So I can understand how you must be feeling 100%.

But, I guess you knew his income when you got pregnant?

Do you think his business is worth him sticking at and is it likely to bring worthwhile financial reward in the future? If so, you could look at this as short-term pain for long-term gain possibly? Maybe he’ll sells his company for millions in the future and you’ll never have to work again? Does he seem driven to make a go if it?

Sounds like he is really good at certain things. Can you encourage him to do more chores? Income wise I think you may regret altering your prospects- can you focus on an amazing treat after childcare costs deminish to feel it is worth it ?

OP - so he earns less than minimum wage?
Wouldn't he be better for him to get a job in a supermarket or something? He could then work hours you are not and could cut down your childcare bill.
He also wouldn't have expenses such as a car but would get holiday/ sick pay and pension contributions - does he even have a pension?

It is a hobby, not a business.

We have similar issues except I am the lower earner and I went PT after having DC but I do virtually all the chores at home and drop everything for the DC. He just has to work Mon-Fri. He resents "having" to work but it is the only option he presented, I suggested we both work 0.8FTE but he wouldn't even ask.

Looking back, I wish I had stayed FT and not be at the mercy of his sulking about having to work FT and being responsible for the majority of our finances. I feel trapped now because there is no way he will step up to 50/50 on childcare and chores, the precedent has been set and so I will end up working FT and doing everything else on top. This is the time to set the tone for life going forwards.

If a man posted about his resentment at being the higher earner, compared to his wife that worked the same number of hours, for less money, he'd get very little sympathy.

If they are working the same hours, they should be sharing chores equally, and this does need to be tackled.

@Bluetoybox
You sound extremely sexist. You’re a family, you all work together and you’re putting away savings which is a good thing! You can’t just expect a man to give you everything.

Youllbeoldertoo

Eh? How does she sound sexist? Or imply that she expects him to give her everything?

I am the higher earner. I have resented it at times when I see what friends with higher earning partners have. However, though my partner works hard, he doesn't have to work late evenings so is always around for dinner/bedtimes with the kids etc.

I am glad not to be in a situation where I'm reliant on anyone financially. And ultimately I've realised I enjoy working and wouldn't want to be a stay at home mum. My work gives me a lot of personal enrichment and I feel that helps me be a better parent overall.

Call me old-fashioned, but this is more of an emotional wrench for women than men. If you don’t have a DH who is able to support the family on his sole income (particularly if you are the higher earner), then this deprives you of the choice to follow what is a basic instinct.

What an odd response. Do you genuinely think that every mother in the working world has chosen to ignore a 'basic instinct'? Wouldn't you say that providing for your child is equally a 'basic instinct'?