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?

Yes. I earn more than all my school friends, not a brag, because I moved out of small town, plus I was the one pregnant at 16, so pleased that I earn a high salary. But all are part time or don’t work and have more disposable income. That said some don’t get a say in how it’s spent, they have DH’s squirrelling away all the savings in his own name. Or their OH won’t buy a new sofa etc. I might have less disposable cash but I am proud Ive earned it myself. My mum once said ‘hasn’t Susan do well for herself’, erm because she doesn’t work and has a nice big house as her DH owned his house outright when they met. Wouldn’t it be nice if she said ‘hey daughter haven’t you done well getting yourself an education and pushing yourself in your career despite being a teenage mum and raising 3 kids’. But no. Hey Ho, not jealous of any of them as I love them to bits and want the best for them (genuinely) but hate how society values someone based on something they didn’t do.

Relying on someone else for your own financial security is fundamentally insecure: marriages breakdown, spouses can sadly die.

Even then, people that stay together are in a riskier position financially in times of severe economic stress if only one party earns than if both work. If the sole earner loses their job the single source of income is removed, which is inherently worse than if both earn.

If the wife has to go back to work after her husband dies and she’s been out of the workplace for years, she will struggle significantly to find work. Beyond that, many women find themselves in a dynamic where all things financial stay with the husband due to societal norms, and when they become widows they are so deskilled they struggle significantly to adjust to having to handle finances.

There are many, many reasons why marrying is absolutely not a sound way to obtain financial security. It may look that way to an outsider. But it’s a fallacy.

None of what you said is false, but some is obfuscated.

The nurturing comment for example. You say "equal" but you don't qualify what you mean.

A man cannot breastfeed and that is a part of nurturing, a very important one in fact. The baby has not been inside the man for 9 months nor does the baby get the same comfort during the fourth trimester from a man as from the mother.

I don't think you were being deliberately dishonest but biology is real and bonds between mother and child can be different to father and child.

The reason the family unit has persisted throughout the ages is not chance. It's to do with biology and natural maternal instincts and natural instinct to provide.

It may sound archaic and you may shout 'how archaic and limiting for women' but again, it doesn't have to be limiting, and it's archaic because it's persisted through time. Nature is archaic.

Erm…so just get married then, if you feel it’d benefit you financially.

Boiled down, if you are single, you carry all the risk but also all the control.

If you marry expecting the other party to provide financial support, you handover the control but still bear the risk. In fact your risk exposure increases because you’ve handed over the control.

You sound a bit bitter OP. Marriage is a choice (for most) that comes with advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages for many is combining salaries or only one person needing to work. There are advantages to being unmarried too, but this isn't one of them.

I think also that financial security comes from being able to have a long term plan for those joint finances too. A lot of my friends feel that they can't make certain decisions until they know what happens with their relationship etc so the big decisions can't be made. But I do think 2 people is not just double the income, but more than that sometimes.

However when it fails, it fails spectacularly, and there will be a few of those women you know who are trapped in a gilded cage.

It's not a fallacy, you're just pretending that to be a housewife you have to be financially illiterate and unemployable, and that's not the case.

Whut. You say “married women have more wealth than single women” as though you’ve discovered gravity. Married people have more wealth than single people because generally speaking 2 people have more money than 1 person.

to take bizarre selections of permutations of people to prove a weird point when the fundamentals of said point is 2 might make more money than 1 is a bit of a non point.

Well yes, but to then do so and complain that it’s wrong that your husband’s career pays more is a bit perverse.

My wife chose to go the same route as me, high-stress, long hours job but with very high pay. Had she made the choice for a more flexible / less stressful job on lower lay I don’t think she’d then be complaining that I earned more.

I think you're underestimating the impact of societal expectations on career choices and the barriers particular groups (women being one of those groups) face in education, career choice and career development.

Do you have children, though?

Men don't necessarily make more than women until around the time that women start having babies. As that's also the time that people start moving into 'senior roles', the fact that women are more likely than men to go part time or scale back their ambitions due to childcare responsibilities is also going to have an impact. We can argue as to the extent to which this happens through woman's choice, but it does happen. It is not inevitable that men outearn women.

Plus, I'm guessing from your posts that you move in fairly affluent circles. Most people aren't in 'senior roles' or earning big money. Millions of women are married to bus drivers, Amazon warehouse workers, admin officers and so on. I doubt these women are getting massive financial benefits from marriage. Look outside your own charmed circle.

The reason I never got to a senior position was because I never tried to, not because of any barriers to me being a woman.

Do you genuinely believe women don't face any barriers in relation to their career choices and career progression?

Honestly - when people talk about how high earning men can work long hours because of the childcare and domestic support of a spouse, I don't buy that they all see it that way. I know at least 2 who were quite indifferent to children and only had them because the children were going to have a SAHM. And if they had no children with a wife working long hours they'd just hire a cleaner.

It’s odd how obsessed you are with other people’s finances. Maybe you should work on finding a job that earns more if you’re unhappy in your own life, or a partner if you’re bitter about being single.

I've often wondered same thing. Based on observing my colleagues, friends, relatives etc. Often the difference in earning potential is evident even in mid or late 20s, before kids come along which is a bit depressing. Childcare cost then seems to solidify it.

I wonder if it's a confidence thing or drive or ambition? Are men more likely to go for and get a promotion than a woman.

The idea is he goes to work most of the time.

No, I’m arguing that OP’s view of marriage as a vehicle for financial long term stability BY CHOOSING NOT TO WORK AND RELYING ON A HUSBAND is a fallacy. She’s got a rosey view that is simply not true.

If it was then there wouldn’t be swathes of women on here who’ve given up work and found themselves let down by shitty men.

In our house it's the other way round, I earn more than double the amount my husband does. He has a much nicer lifestyle being married to me than he would if we was single, despite the fact he works. Marrying a higher earner will usually ease the financial burden, yes, but isn't that obvious?

OK, I accept that men cannot breastfeed. That is true. There is very little other nurturing that men cannot do equally well though.

I certainly don't dispute that biology is real (and I never implied that it was). I just believe that, as you yourself have acknowledged, biology doesn't have to be limiting in the way that some women seem to think it is.

Breastfeeding is actually an excellent example of this. I continued to breastfeed until dd was nearly 3, despite going back to work and pursuing my career. I loved the bond that it gave me with my daughter, and I loved the fact that it didn't hold me back in any other parts of my life either.

*he was single. I'm not saying "we was" instead of "we were" as that makes me shudder

YABU I have single friends who are way better off than me. DH is a primary school teacher and doesn't have any responsibility points so not a great salary. My single friends do lunch, go on spa days, go abroad on holidays. I have to pay a big chunk towards house & kids so can't afford those things.

Are you able to offer an answer to my question and challenge that belief?

But that’s surely not because men in one job are paid 8 times what a woman in the same role would be? If you chose a sector with a ceiling which is lower than the one in which your husband works, that’s down to your choice of career, not your sex.

Yes, that's me @Gooseberrypies I'm obsessed by other people's incomes because I asked an honest question on a public forum!