A lot of financially successful women date low earning men?

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Im prepared to be FLAMED!

My friend was ranting to me about the dating pool. She was saying how hard it is to find a man financially equal to her. She said getting dates wasn’t a problem but getting dates with a man earning roughly the same to her was virtually impossible. The guys she does find who earns similar or more tend to go for women who earn significantly less which she didn’t understand. She just wants someone she doesn’t have to constantly subsidise to go on holidays and days out with etc. She said it’s impossible for well earning women to find financial equal partners.

So I thought about it and actually I have noticed that lots of well earning female friends mostly seem to date very low earning men and I wonder why that is?

one of my best friends is a doctor and her fiancé works in a hobby job that doesn’t make much (no kids).

Then my friend since school has grafted her ass off and earns well but works pretty much everyday whilst her DP works a zero hour contract minimum wage job(no kids either).

These lovely women are paying for pretty much everything.

I know it’s anecdotal and people will say ‘that’s your friendship circle blah blah’. So I’ve thought further afield and all the female directors and senior managers at work have very low earning husbands too.

It’s not even a childcare thing as when I look across the successful women I know of, they are a mix of parents and childfree couples.

The higher earning men I know have financially varied partners but if they date a very low earning women then its either because the woman has taken time out to raise kids or the women tend to be very ‘mainstream attractive’. So the stereotypical wealthier older man with younger attractive woman.

But the higher earning women aren’t dating lower earning younger very attractive men. Just everyday blokes.

is it because women tend to just go for who we fall in love with? Or is it harder for high earning women to couple up with financially equal men?

I’ll probably somehow offend someone with this post/question, but I am now curious after my friends rant to see if this is true!

Disclaimer: I am neither high earning or a trophy wife. Just average and pondering.

I think you would be suprised by how many high earning men with low earning women don't come home to domestic goddesses who keep the house spotless, cook all the meals from scratch, look after all the chores and upkeep, and keep themselves pretty for their man. That was the traditional woman role when the man was the traditional breadwinner and provider.

Younger generations of women are not doing wife work - and some, but hopeully less and less - still want the traditional breadwinner husband.

I'm another one who, when we met, earned the same as my partner. 9 years later his salary has doubled but mine has quadrupled. Pretty sure I'm not going to dump him now though.

Same. I can only think of one high-earning woman who has a low-paid husband. And I work almost exclusively with high-earners.

Do you think premier league footballers only date women earning £200k a week?

I earn 3x DH salary. When we got together 20 years ago; it was only £2k pa difference.

it’s made no difference to our relationship. We pool money, ans we have a child now. DH never works overtime so can do school run and drop off, and pulls his weight in the house, so it’s never really been something I’ve dwelled on.

mind you: if we split and I started a new relationship I’m not certain I would feel the same about someone else. I wouldn’t be happy sharing everything with anyone else. DH and I are life partners and a family. And I can’t imagine that with any other person.

In a very simplified way and of course 'not all men' but Financially successful men are not looking for a financially successful woman. They are looking for, and can attract, a beautiful woman. Men do not expect women to earn more than them, do not seek it and do not even necessarily want it. The biggest status symbol for a man is a beautiful woman not a rich one. So rich women may have to settle for less financially successful men.
I have some high earning single female friends in their late 30s who can't understand why the high earning men in their teams don't want to date them. It's because they do not fit the stereotypical beauty ideals (or youth) that these men want. Women and men want different things. Again to be clear - very generalised!

Majority of people I know are high earners (over £80k) and married similar partner

Maybe it depends on when and where you meet?

I'm a higher earner (£150k) if I was dating now I wouldn't look for money really. More kindness and a good dad maybe an older man. None of this was in my thoughts when I met DH 20y ago. Guess high earning men may be similar too on divorce / look for a chilled empathetic partner rather than a direct peer?

People change over time, money is less important as we age I think

I am with a low earning man, it came about because I was attracted to him and thought it would be shallow to not pursue a relationship with someone I was attracted to because of their income.

i have to say never again. We are in the process of separating because it hasn’t worked out. I am sick of being seen as the cheque book, whilst holding down a tricky job and doing all of the work at home.

whilst I don’t doubt that it can work, I think for me i would be forever worried that new man would turn into Cocklodger 2.0

My brother earns well and he only ever dates really slim extremely good looking women. He won’t date anyone who doesn’t meet that criteria but doesn’t care a jot about what they earn as he has no money concerns. He is very shallow.

I think high earning money want to date attractive and ideally younger women and aren’t bothered about what they earn.

Financially successful men are not looking for a financially successful woman. They are looking for, and can attract, a beautiful woman

There are many high earning beautiful women. I don't know many high earning men who would consider a partner based on looks alone or if they did, they would tire of them very quickly.

I wonder if two alpha very highly career driven people (any combination of sexes) doesnt make for long term harmonious supportive couples? Even less so after children.

The qualities that make them successful in a career might only work in a partnership if the other person in the marriage is the one who is more flexible with their work. It would depend on the job, but the assumption is that the more well paid it is, the more important, and less flexible it is.

The old saying, Behind every successful man is a woman, can easily be reversed for the sexes.

A female relative of mine who earns a high six figure salary is happily married to a part taxi driver. They have switched traditional roles .

There are many high earning beautiful women. I don't know many high earning men who would consider a partner based on looks alone or if they did, they would tire of them very quickly
My DH earns a very high salary and among his single colleagues good looks are the number one (by miles) attribute they are looking for. Their bonuses alone are a few times than the average salary so they simply don’t need a high earning partner who has a stressful job.

A high earning 35 year old guy will either have been snapped up long ago, or probably looking to date a 25-30 year old woman.

OK I'll bite. I'm not a ridiculously high earner but I earn well above the national average and I have never yet dated a man who has been on the same salary as me, let alone higher.

I don't deliberately seek out low-earning men and I would certainly avoid a man who I thought had cocklodger tendencies or was lazy or unmotivated. But I don't gravitate towards wealthy men. Partly I guess because I'm fairly highly paid, statistically there aren't that many men in my pay bracket so it's a simple numbers game.

But also I am also hugely turned off by men who think earning a lot of money endows them with status. As a general rule (and there are obviously exceptions), I find that industries where people are very highly paid, such as banking, hedge funds, corporate law, accounting etc, tend to attract a high proportion of wanky men with high self-regard and certain expectations about where women fit into their lives. I find the whole culture a massive turn-off and in general I find City types and posh blokes massively sexually unattractive. Unfortunately these are the men who I come across professionally and I've had to go out of my way to exclude them from my dating pool.

I also think at some level I probably prefer blokes who aren't totally obsessed with furthering their own careers and have chosen people who are more relaxed, more accepting, have more free time (and thus potentially less ambitious). Very ambitious men tend to want women in their lives who are fairly passive and happy to take a back seat and accommodate their needs as a priority. My dad was highly ambitious and it meant my mum spent her life playing second fiddle to him and I don't want to end up like this.

Does this make me a hypocritical wanker? Maybe.

Not true in my experience but then many of the high earning women I know are not in stressful jobs and live very luxurious lifestyles.

To be honest if you are good looking man, not a complete arsehole and on a massive salary you probably could afford to be pretty selective insofar as looking for a woman who is very pretty, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, shared values etc rather then just tick the 'looks' box only. I could not think of anything worse then dating someone who is very good looking but about as interesting as a bag of spanners.

The answer is that a lot of high earning men don't want a financial equal. Depressingly.

But surely, as has been alluded to already, if you are on a very high salary and are seeking someone on a similar financial footing you are really reducing your available dating pool to something very small indeed.

Yep. Met at university, been happily married for many years.

Personally, I think having looks or money as the key thing you want in a partner are equally shallow.

So high earning men going for model beautiful women= shallow
And high earning women going for high earning men= shallow

No wonder so many people in LTRs are miserable. The societal tradition influencing women to look for a sugar daddy and men to look for a sugar baby is a recipe for failure. The only difference between the past and today, is some of women are high earning. Attitudes haven’t modernised.

This.

they want a support system, not an equal partner.

I also think for men there’s an element of financial control. A lower earning woman is less likely to leave them, they can control spending- not always in an abusive way, sometimes it can be more about managing spending.

possibly the same for women to an extent, but I don’t think women are socialised into that “head of the household” mentality.

Agreed. Also, when woman makes 150k, and man makes 50k, it's 3 times less, but does it mean he's low earner or less successful? Might be scientist or so. Still interesting career, just salary isn't inflated as woman's. I think maybe at some point money doesn't matter that much if you're financially comfortable by yourself. Otherwise well off men would never marry low earning women.

As long as someone has a job and works hard, I really don't care how much money they make. Personality and (sorry) attractiveness are what matters to me.

I would refuse to subsidise a man's income though.

What do you mean by "hobby job"?