To be amazed how much women benefit financially from marriage

[Singleparent78]

I've been single most of my adult life, worked FT and built up a good career but despite this... I'm always struck how much better off women who are married are than me.

It's not just about the merging together of two salaries, but about how much easier financial life is when you have the benefit of a man's higher average income, giving many women a lifestyle they could never afford on their own salaries.

Consider:

• the many women I work with on low salaries or working part-time who are living much nicer lifestyles than I as they have a man significantly supplementing them.

• the married women I know at 45+ who have moved to part-time or stopped working as they have accrued significant savings with their dh but, critically, their dh is now a high earner who can pay for both of them.

• the girls from school who didn't go onto further education, got married soon out of school and haven't worked at all or a bit of p-time - they mostly live in nice houses and cars, have enjoyed nice holidays etc. There hasn't been much 'penalty' for not being independent or not having a career.

All in all these women, by way of marriage, seem to have an easier go than solo me slogging it out for 30 years working FT and trying my best to be independent.... like the teachers at school told us girls to be!

I understand: all the constraints on women to generate their own income esp the gender pay gap and the impact of childrearing; that the above scenarios don't apply to all couples; that I'm assuming a heterosexual set up; that women contribute within marriages in other way than bringing in income; and that assets in a marriage are shared as is any income that comes into a marriage. I know people might think I'm being anti-women for challenging women's choices or women's rights or just plain bitter...

Still, AIBU to wonder:.......Is it not depressing that the best or most common way for women to be financially comfortable or create wealth is still through marriage and the merging of assets with a man?

It’s probably also relevant here that I mainly communicate with other neurodivergent people. My husband is also multiple forms of ND as are most of our friends. My younger kids are undiagnosed but very clearly also neurodivergent. So sometimes, I forget that other people don’t tend to respond well to the way we tend to talk to each other. I didn’t mention it because I don’t like to “hide behind” my neurodiversity as someone accused me of, but I don’t think it’s anything to hide either if I’m asked about it. It’s a neutral thing, with positives and negatives that just happen to be different from the majority.

As I said, I wouldn’t go up to someone and just shout my opinions at them because I think that’s rude, but I don’t think it’s rude to discuss it in a thread online, at no one in particular, that no one is forced to participate in. If I’d singled someone out again that would be unkind. But I don’t think general statements on choices and society are.

Thank you.

you’re just determined to find fault with anything I say because you’ve decided you don’t like me.

I don't know you from a bar of soap so how can I have decided I don't like you?

You came on this thread and basically laid into me and people like me, saying we are "unnatural", bad parents etc because we do things to put food on our children's tables.

Your remarks have been breathtakingly insensitive so don't try to twist this around and make it look as if people are ganging up on you.

You know perfectly well, or you should do, that making people feel like shit parents because they do what they best can with their circumstances is not going to end well. Particularly coming from someone who clearly hasn't had to make these difficult choices.

Please please at least have the decency to own the fact that you've set this up for yourself.

How am I insulting “people like you” when I’ve said multiple times that people should have more financial support to give them a real choice, and that we have to work within the imperfect system we’ve got?! I also never called anyone a bad parent either. I don’t think someone’s a bad parent or terrible person because they chose something I don’t personally think is optimal.

@ForestFae I've told you multiple times how you've been insulting, and you're choosing to ignore multiple posters telling you multiple times the rude, insensitive and offensive words/phrases you've chosen to use. (Selfish, unnatural, pointless, why did they bother having kids).

Regardless of some general wafting about wanting money for people to make choices (and you only spoke about using taxpayers money for mothers to make the choice to stay at home and not work), you've been downright unpleasant about all women who decide to carry on working and put their children in childcare to do this.

I've seen posters be very patient and generous with you, even after you've insulted them, and you're refusing to take anything on board at all. Im done with interacting with you as I can see it's a waste of my time.

I also never called anyone a bad parent either.

You haven't said it in so many words, but frankly, you may as well have done, because that's definitely how people will understand your posts. I know that you will think that's their problem for misinterpreting what you mean, but the fact is, that's the very clear message that comes across. And it isn't just one over-sensitive person misreading what you're trying to say because of their own insecurities, the vast majority of people would interpret posts in that way because that's what is implicit in almost all your posts.

That is why people think you're being rude.

@ForestFae

“I also don’t think my children would be as happy and as confident if they’d been in a childcare setting, nor do I think they’d be as knowledgable about the things they are knowledgable about (foraging, cooking, growing food, folklore).”

proper kicking myself now for going to work whilst my child goes to nursery…if only I hadn’t…they could have become really knowledgable about FORAGING and FOLKLORE. I mean they wouldn’t have been able to go on a plane and see the world as we’d have been skint but at least they will have know how to forage 🤷‍♀️ Sigh

But I think in this setup power is given to a man and primacy to a man's career and income. The woman becomes, whether intentionally or just over time, an enabler for a man, thereby increasing his power and ease in life.

Well, it's not really a mystery IMHO why somebody would be keen to enable another person to fund their life of leisure if that's the lifestyle they desire. Making sure he's able to grind out those long hours in the office to pay for the expensive lifestyle and leisurely days.

If somebody wanted to do my job for me and put the wage in my account, I'd be more than happy to wash their work clothes for them. Hell, I'd probably even make them a sandwich to take with them. 😂

Forestfae I absolutely see how in your situation home education makes sense. Take it from me NT kids want to go to school and be with other children. NT adults like going to work and interacting with other people.

I mean that depends on what you define as important doesn’t it? We don’t go abroad. I’ve had some stick here for being “rich” because I admitted by background was privileged, but we don’t go on holidays abroad - we could, but it’s not a priority for us. We go on camping and glamping outdoorsy holidays in the UK with lots of opportunity for activities. Different strokes. Maybe people think my kids miss out because they’ve never been abroad? I don’t think they do, but you might.

@Goodskin46 theres an element of this that will be rooted in that I think. Everyone’s experiences are coloured by the lense with which they view the world. I don’t know a single ND person who had a good schooling experience, unless they either went to a specialist school or independent, so that colours my view with regards to my own kids.

@ForestFae

We don’t go abroad. I’ve had some stick here for being “rich” because I admitted by background was privileged, but we don’t go on holidays abroad - we could, but it’s not a priority for us.

People didn't give you stick for being privileged.

They challenged you on the fact your privilege means you had many more choices in life yet judge others for theirs.

They challenged you for not understanding that for people who weren't raised in a financially privileged family, with no safety net of inheritance etc, it's important not just to have enough money for now but also to work more than you deem necessary in order to be able to save to give their own children the financial privilege you were afforded... so their own kids have more choices and opportunities in the future.

You seemed unwilling to take this on board.

So couples shouldn’t have the freedom to decide how they want to work in partnership and mothers caring for their children are nothing more than leaching drop outs propping up the patriarchy? Charming. We could all judge ad infinitum, perhaps you don’t do as much voluntary work as I see many part time/SAHMs do, perhaps you have weekends at a better off relative, enjoying their more palatial house and food, perhaps your parents could afford extra tuition. I speak as someone who does happen to have degrees and a career and now earns the same pro rata salary as my dh but I’ve also been a SAHM, I earned half his then pro rata salary when we first met, I’ve been a single mother so have the perspective of having sat in many boats and find it sad their is so much your devaluing and don’t see.
It really strikes me that you just seem to be wanting to find a reason to demonise a group of women out of jealousy without understanding what they bring to their husbands, families and society and how trying to pull them down won’t do anyone any favours

And I didn’t say anything negative about that. The one “negative” comment I made was that I don’t understand someone who has no need to work but chooses to do it anyway. I said absolutely nothing about people who are financially struggling or need the money, other than I think two incomes shouldn’t have to be the default and people should get longer mat leave with higher pay (I also think men should get more paternity leave, two weeks is a joke)

I also think men should get more paternity leave, two weeks is a joke.

I agree. Can you imagine working for 45 years straight and never having more than two consecutive weeks away from your desk throughout the whole period!

@ForestFae you obviously can’t hear yourself but please stop. I’ve been reading you from between my fingers for two days, cringing.

I have ND DC and I regret the equalisation of sexes in the workforce didn’t play out on a way that meant more under twos have parental care at home, but my goodness you’re the wrong person to advocate that POV and you’re being incredibly insensitive.

As do some ND people!

@ForestFae

you say you were independently wealthy before you met your husband?

how? Presumably you had a well paying job or you had money from your parents. So somewhere along the line you or your family have invested themselves in the meaningless capitalist hollow existence that you judge others for in order to have the lifestyle and financial comfort you have now. Even though now you shun it and judge others for it, and talk about how bad it is for your kids mental health etc.

don’t put your kids off from striving and working hard! It’s a fact that that equals money! And money is important no matter how much you might like to pretend otherwise with your homeschooling and foraging and folklores.

I don’t understand this argument - it’s like saying “oh you have an iPhone, checkmate leftists!”

People work within the system we have. You can criticise the system while acknowledging we have to exist within it currently. It’s like you expect anyone who says they have a problem with capitalism to be a paragon of virtue and somehow exist outside of it completely despite living in a country where it’s the dominant system by far.

I don’t put my kids off “working hard”, in fact my kids work pretty hard as it is. They’re taught the value of practical tasks, working together in a family and helping their community, and have been taught this since they were very young. What they’re not taught is to dream of exploitative labour and that material items equate to “success”.

I'm finding impossible to sit on my hands now; I know I need to work on myself . Also suspect that @ForestFae is a complete wind-up merchant, rendering my efforts doubly wasted.

But the way she's sneering at working women for prioritising 'material' possessions from her place of privilege makes me feel sick. She's (deliberately?) misunderstanding @wellhelloitsme 's explanation of why it might be really important to women who have not grown up with financial stability to prioritise that for their children. I was fortunate enough to not HAVE to work when I had kids, but I still chose to. I could have downsized, or moved to a cheaper area in catchment of an underperforming school, or scrimped to just survive through the early years as a SAHM. But I didn't want that level of insecurity for my children in the short or long term. Having grown up firmly in the working class, I know the value of a good education, a stable home, living in a place where people have high aspirations, having savings etc. Because of that, and the fact I had no family money to fall back on, I carried on working to give my children the financial stability I didn't have. We wouldn't have starved if I'd quit my job, but we wouldn't be in the position we're in now. I don't spend my money on designer clothes, expensive kitchens and all the material things she looks down on. I spent it on building a sound financial base for my family. I did not have a 'glittering career' earning 100k plus. I was a public servant, but I enjoyed my work - it was very fulfilling being a teacher - and I was very good at it. And working has given my children a childhood much more stable than my own. We don't have to worry too much about rising fuel costs, they each have a bedroom, I don't have to make sacrifices elsewhere to afford to pay for the school trip, they're not on FSM, I'm saving to support them to be able to go to university. I understand I'm in a very fortunate position that millions of families are not.

It's often the case from generationally wealthy families - the hypocrisy of blaming women for carrying on working as being selfish and neglecting their children whilst also declaring that families who struggle to make ends meet are work-shy. Well done on becoming such a cliché.

And reading that back, I'm not even touching the surface of the multitude of reasons for carrying on working.

For a few years, when we were paying for nursery for 2 children, the nursery bill was about equal to my wage each month. I had to run a car and buy clothes for work, it actually cost me to work. But I was mindful that taking years out would have a massive effect on my earnings trajectory, on my pension. It would have been so easy to bow to pressure of insensitive comments from people like her and stay at home with my kids when I was working for nothing. Calling me selfish for my decisions is a real slap in the face. How unpleasant of you, @ForestFae, for refusing to listen to so many women telling you your comments are rude and offensive and instead doubling down on your insults.

I think - ForestFae - is perhaps not entirely genuine. Sometimes people enjoy being wind up merchants- this isn’t to say the poster is a troll and that’s not my suggestion - but rather that some individuals enjoy internet anonymity to wind others up, in volumes. Denying them this satisfaction might be useful.

@ForestFae

Yes you can criticise the system while acknowledging the need to work within it. I am not someone who believes that being wealthy means you don’t have the right to criticise capitalism.

But you aren’t just doing this. You are stating as fact that a lifestyle which is available to you but not to millions of other mothers is inherently preferable for children but you aren’t able to acknowledge that your perspective on this is totally slanted. You don’t have the full perspective needed to make such sweeping and offensive judgements.

And when challenged on this your comeback is to say that it’s OK because you are introverted and ND.

Its naive and irresponsible.

The words I needed to hear. Thank you. Wish I'd read them before my last 2 posts

I’m not engaging with this anymore because it’s clear some of you are never going to see my perspective - however, I want to point out someone directly asked me if I was neurodivergent. I didn’t bring it up unprovoked and I didn’t use it as an excuse. Someone said the way I wrote sounded like I might be neurodivergent, and I said that I am. We then had a conversation about the differences between ND and NT communication. That’s all.

Fact - marriage provides greater protection for both people involved different or same sex
Versus
Unmarried, Co habitants are just 2 single people