Do you care what your Partner does for a Living?

[Aquarius1234]

Do you or would you care what your partner / boyfriend/ girlfriend does for a living?

I don't and I'm in late 30s. I probably was judgemental in 20s. For no reason, just false assumption, like thinking trades people earnt low money, which isn't true.

Another example, someone might be embarrassed if their boyfriend was a bin man or bus driver.

Once you have the initial conversation s out the way, I don't think it matters at all.
It's not like your going to work with them.
(If you are that's another conversation)

Yes on the basis I want, and want my kids, to have a great quality of life with options. Charity work is noble but can wait until retirement or be don't voluntarily if they really care about making a difference.

Options in life require a strong take home pay,
As does a good pension in older age require prioritising from that stron salary.
Achieving mortgage freedom hugely improved our disposable and life options for food, holidays etc
Holidays every year for the kids
Being able to just buy stuff without having to watch the pennies is liberating.

Money does buy happiness I'm afraid so absolutely it matters, generally people who disagree are those that earn less.

I don't care what the job is, but I don't want to struggle for money or count pennies so he needs to earn roughly as much as I do.

In my 20s I didn’t. We were all starting life and doing jobs that fitted around other commitments and aspirations. Now I do because if the guy in his late 40s is still working at Pret-a-Manger, I am questioning what he did with his life and how he is going to support himself in older age.
No problem with tradespeople though. My partner is a builder and he is extremely knowledgeable and skilled and took 25 years to perfect his craft. He loves his job and is handy around the house.

I wouldn't care if someone was a binman. I'd care very much if they were into mlm.

I also wanted a partner with a degree of professional ambition, I wanted someone to build a stable life for our dc with. I wanted us to be able to share financial responsibility for our family.

Sounds harsh, but yes, it really matters to me.

I find clever, successful men in clever, interesting jobs attractive. I like people with intellectual and professional energy, and that's usually correlated with a successful career. It is also important to me that a partner could provide a good standard of living for me and our children. I have no interest in struggling for money or in the pressure to bring in most of the money,

Most of our friends are similar, and have married people like them. Where this didn't happen, it's not generally worked out.

Luckily, I found an excellent DP who is all of these things.

Yes this probably. Otherwise no.

I do care about being with someone who has a good work ethic though. Although that said, DH retired early! But he worked his arse off for years in some pretty horrible jobs and in a few very difficult locations so that counter balances things I think.

Don’t care about the actual job, but they’d have to have at least some drive to get up in the mornings, work hard and make a decent living to support their families. I earn a reasonable living myself but would not be in any mood to subsidise him!

I suppose I used to be snobbish about tradespeople but not anymore- I know a few and they’re all far more comfortably off than we are! And I’ve run a business myself and know exactly how hard it is

I'd find it hard to be with anyone who worked in an abattoir. I'm a hypocrite because I love eating meat. I'd also find it hard to be with anyone who is traffic warden because I hate them, even though I know they are just doing their job and they don't make the rules etc.

I don’t want a partner who works shifts, I’d want him to be happy in his job, I don’t particularly want him away from home huge amounts of the time.. Binman sounds fine!

Yes I do. It's not about money. I have turned down men (when OLD) whose morals around work don't alight with my own, so marketing for a tobacco company and certain defence engineering roles. I wouldn't want to be with someone who worked for a gambling company either. I am attracted to a thirst for knowledge, drive to apply that, ethics and ambition. If someone is doing an interim role that's fine, and I would never have an aversion to hard or dirty work.

I do require people to be motivated enough to have a job that they have some interest in and can do effectively. I find men who are flaky and disorganised a real turn off. And as others have said I have a highly tuned radar for a potential cocklodger. Been there, got the t-shirt.

But I certainly wouldn’t exclude particular categories of employment or make stipulations such as “only graduates” or “only doctors”. I think that’s a bit twattish and snobby. Also short sighted.

If I was in the marriage market again (which I am not) I would actually probably be turned off by a lot of mega ambitious high flying jobs (bankers/tech entrepreneurs etc). Men like this tend to have quite set ideas about what they want from a partner and be quite controlling and uncompromising. My partner earns a lot less than me and tbh I probably prefer this.

The last thing I would want is a man who thought he was bringing home the bacon and could therefore throw his weight around and be the boss at home.

I don't care what anyone does for a job, as long as they have a good work ethic, aren't lazy and work hard however I had to admit DH has a low paid job (way under national average) and I do wish he earned more to take the pressure off and so we had more for treats etc. I feel like it's all on me to provide for the family and now in my 40s having to climb the career ladder further.

I agree the work ethic is more important than the actual job. But for relationships to work you need interests in common and I'm not sure how much I would have in common with a binman or bricklayer.

Not so much types of job, but work style and having similar energy around it is important to me. For someone to settle down with I think I unconsciously avoided alpha types who would expect me to throw my career under a bus when we had kids and to do everything. Or who were workaholics and did very long hours.

With regard to my values, the most important thing to me is a good work ethic and the ability to reliably pay his way, but when I was dating I learned that it also mattered to me that he found his job meaningful to him.

I care about a person's ethics and the values by which they choose to live. A person whose chosen career involved them living by values I couldn't share or bring myself to tolerate, wouldn't be the person for me.

I'd care if it was something I thought was unethical.

I think it more boils down to money than the actual job. A fellow teacher was telling me not long ago that she would never date / marry another teacher as they don’t earn enough for her to go part time after having a baby. If they were to progress then the hours are too long. I’d never given that any thought as I don’t know any men who would say that they wouldn’t marry a teacher because they don’t earn enough.

I’d absolutely judge someone who was a pimp, hitman, drug dealer or loan shark. Or a Tory politician. I also wouldn’t date someone who was habitually unemployed because they couldn’t be arsed to make the effort. Oh, I’d also ditch anyone who started telling me about their “cryptocurrency job.” Fuck that. Basically, for me it’s about ethics.

Not sure what’s wrong with rubbish collecting or bus drivers. Both are vital roles and the people doing them are going out earning an honest living and from what I can understand, neither is an easy job a lot of the time.

My Exdh had a good job when we met, he then left said job and flitted from role to role, generally in manual labour/minimum wage type jobs. I'm not sure if it was the roles themselves or the lack of ability to stay in a role that bothered me.
My now dp has a good job, has been in that sector always and I admit I have way more respect for him.
I don't have to worry about having to carry him financially when he decides he can't be arsed with going to work this week.....harsh but true.
So yes, I guess it does matter to me, less so the role, more so the work ethic.

I think that the research shows that women marry across or upwards (i.e. the minimum is the same level of achievement).

'Hanging onto coat tails' is a strange phrase. I am not sure exactly what it means. In my experience, women rarely marry 'down' with someone who is less achieving than them, as someone on the thread pointed out earlier, it might be fine when you are young and in lust, but a mortgage and kids changes that attraction instantly. Does 'hanging onto coat tails' mean that women do expect a certain level of 'provision' from men, especially when they have children? If so, I am all for that. I do think roles become very gendered when you first have kids - women can't work for starters and need a man who can provide for her and the child in the first months/years, so I am not sure what is wrong with that?

There's a big difference between judging somebody and not wanting to be in a long-term relationship with them though. You want your partner to be someone who's an ideal match for you, not just someone you don't actively judge!

Presumably we'd all reject most people as a partner on the basis of all kinds of things, some trivial, some not trivial (e.g. physical and personality attributes, political views, to name but a few). For me, my ideal partner has certain things in common with me. Some MNers seem to think it's awful to rule out a relationship with any man unless he's a criminal or something. Nope. We don't owe any man a date, never mind a relationship. And we can choose a partner on any basis we like. Judging by the relationships board, women should be more choosy, not less.

Not particularly.

I would care if he had the type of job that would significantly impact me as I wouldn't want to be a trailing spouse, a vicar's wife, a military wife or similar.

I wouldn't be keen on being with someone who did shift work or very antisocial hours or worked away for long periods but it wouldn't be a deal breaker.

Due to my career anything illegal or borderline illegal would be a deal breaker. Same with anything politically dubious.

His salary or status don't particularly bother me if there is some drive and pride about him. DH earns very little but is incredibly talented needs to use his talent. I am very proud of him. Years ago I went out with a guy who worked on the sales desk at his favourite football club, that was a turnoff, he'd just gone full time in his Saturday job and never progressed, no ambition, no drive, no plan, no real job satisfaction, just coasting along on minimum wage.

I wouldn’t not date someone who is a bin man or a bus driver because of their job.
I wouldn’t date any of the ones in my first paragraph. And I do judge all of those roles harshly.

We don't owe any man a date, never mind a relationship. And we can choose a partner on any basis we like. Judging by the relationships board, women should be more choosy, not less.

^ I agree completely with you on this. It’s just never occurred to me to not date someone because of a legit job they have. I’ve ditched plenty who I find annoying/creepy/horrible/because they smell… all legit reasons imo.

No, its where someone has a high achieving spouse and despite not having achieved something specific themselves takes on the spouse's status eg nco/officers' wives in the forces (very common at one time). WAGs might be a better example.

Edited to add: and hang on to that spouse for that achievement despite every good reason not to.