Should DH's job come ahead of mine because he earns more?

[OpalFruitsAreBetter]

Both DH and I work full-time with two primary age DC.

DH is the main bread-winner by far - he earns over 3x my salary plus share options etc. It's a demanding and often stressful job, but he is something of a workaholic and he is chasing a promotion.

I recently took new role at a 50% pay cut due to burnout, general unhappiness with my job and the fact neither of us had enough time to devote to DC as we both worked way in excess of our contracted hours. My new job has a much better work-life balance but it's still full-time and I have a team to manage, deadlines to meet etc.

Part of the 'deal' with DH in me taking a lower-paid job was that I'd be able to pick up more of the day-to-day work of managing school pick ups, running the house etc. But I feel like DH has started treating it as if I don't have a job at all and arranges his schedule with little consideration of what my commitments are. For instance, I always have to try to fit my office days around his and never the other way round.

This is starting to cause tension but his trump card is always that we can live without my salary but we can't live without his. Which is true. And my workplace is much more understanding of the demands of being a working parent, which is also true.

So do I just accept that my work has to fit around his?

YABU - he's keeping the mortgage paid so his career comes first
YANBU - just because I'm paid less doesn't mean my job doesn't count

This, his job comes first, he is the one earning the money to keep the family living the way they are. He pays the mortgage and bills. You said you can live without your job, you cant live without his.

However, and its a big one. He shouldn't be a dick. He should still discuss things with you, even if you both know before the discussion that what he needs for work is going to be the outcome its still nice to feel listened to. Rather than "Im in the office Monday and Thursday this week" he should be saying "It would be best if I could be in the office Monday and Thursday, does that work with your schedule".

You both know youll make it work but you feel better about it and on the rare occasions you cant he should be wiling to suck it up now and again

Well if he was behind it then I think he needs to be more respectful of the terms of your employment - by asking you not telling you. As I am sure he would notice if you lost the income totally. But is he feeling the pressure as he is chasing promotion?

Even if he earns more, him arranging his life without ever checking with you is disrespectful.

I think he is expressing himself very badly, but I would try to rise above this and have a non heated conversation with him. I wonder if he hoped that when you took a 50% salary reduction it would alleviate some of the pressure not just for you, but also for him in terms of being responsible for childcare arrangements. He could also be feeling the stress of being the main breadwinner- before if one of you lost their job, then there was still a high income from the other, now the financial responsibility is more on him.

If you’re not prepared to throw more money at it at least for school holidays, then I am not sure what the answer is. In previous years most parents worked in the office all the time and just had to make and pay for arrangements around it, so the dilemma is nothing new.

Yes I think that always needs to be a discussion, and of course if I’ve planned to see a friend but his biggest client needs an urgent meeting then his plans trump mine and I’ll rearrange.

But he’d never just assume that he gets to announce something like that without a conversation about whether I can rearrange. Sometimes my plans are important, and he won’t always know how important.

I'm not saying this is the case for OP, but at my workplace the next rung up from the £150k level is around £200k, and the difference between bottom and top end of bonus at that level is also like £30-40k.

I wonder if that affects how people think about it? i.e. DH's promo/raise he's gunning for might very plausibly match OP's entire current salary.

Anyway, I wanted to recommend to OP the book "Couples That Work" by Jennifer Petriglieri - it's explicitly aimed at couples where both have "career jobs" where they both care about their long-term careers (vs just having a random job that pays the bills). She explicitly structures the book and talks about how shifts in family life change the dynamics.

IIRC, many of the couples she studied (she is a professor at a well-known business school so many of them had MBAs etc) were similar to OP in that they started out with pretty similar incomes/goals and found that ambition attractive about each other, but then one partner's career took off (often, but not always, his) and the other grew resentful.

I found it really practical because it showed different models that weren't just "big job, pin money job and that's how it is forever" or "we are both 100% equal and neither ever steps back".

@Furlong1I think you can disagree with me without being rude.

Obviously it's only possible to work without pay if you have other income or means of support.

Working just for career maintenance/pension/skills because your childcare bills temporarily match your pay isn't the same as volunteering.

Not that there's anything wrong with volunteering.

In any strong, equal relationship, there will be times when one partner's doing more and times when the other is.

Earning less than your partner doesn't make you a lesser human being.

Missing the point somewhat!

I’ve followed this with interest. DH and I work in the same industry, I earn 100k and DH earns 190k. I’m the more annoying one changing office days as I’m client led so need to be in when the client wants me, whereas DH is back office so has two set WFH days.

@OpalFruitsAreBetter we struggle to find wrap around care for the holidays and agree it’s a sledgehammer to crack a nut to hire a nanny for it. We take it in turns to do drop off and pick up, and work it out and both our employers are flexible (to an extent!). Your DH was being unreasonable as it sounds like it was just inconvenient as opposed to there’s an urgent meeting I really need to be in is there any chance we can figure something out?

If you want a comfortable roof over your head, clothes for your children, cars, holidays….then yes his job trumps yours. Does it not?

No you totally missed my point. They earn over £200k per year between them - ergo they can afford childcare whilst they work. Problem solved.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Just because having a decent income affords you some choices, it doesn't mean the solution to every problem is chucking money at it.

I've run out of inspiration for feeding the kids, should we get a personal chef?

Sometimes the trains are cancelled, should I hire a chauffeur?

My house gets chilly in winter, should I throw £20 notes into the fireplace to keep it warm?

This is not a problem that I need to spend the majority of my annual income to solve, not remotely. As a PP said it would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It's an annoyance that should be solvable by a certain amount of compromise from both DH and I, the question is just what sensible compromise looks like given the disparity in our earnings.

YABU but with the qualification that he doesn't get to be a dick about it. I also don't understand how your role is now full time and yet still pays only half of your previous one. I presume it's not the same company/type of role? I also wonder if you want to maybe keep your eyes open for something different for when the kids are older. I won't lie, I would resent his attitude and also the fact that he earns so much more when you also work full time. I only put that YABU for the purely practical reason that his money is what keeps you all afloat. I don't think that you are actually unreasonable.

You need to have a very serious conversation about this. If he earns so much more then you can afford to hire a cleaner, ironing service, gardener etc so the graft of running a home doesn't all fall to you. And consider getting an au pair or finding a couple of reliable back-up babysitters - maybe a retired neighbour or SAHP who you like - who would be able to pick up the slack at short notice. He needs to be equally comfortable arranging this as you are.

He needs to hear that you cannot and won't let your career fade to nothing while he gets more and more powerful, because that imbalance too often results in the man thinking the woman is freeloading and if the marriage collapses, she is left with a checkered CV and entrance level salary.

You still have to behave professionally in your work place and can't break your contract to convenience him, so alternative solutions must be found and he is equally responsible for them.

Well yes to a degree but the issue here is that the level of compromises are not agreed upon by each partner equally then you’re going to keep running into friction.

The maths answer to your question is that the work priorities of the person earning £150k are always going to trump those of the £50k earner because the implications of losing £150k per annum are much worse.

Therefore rather than having ongoing arguments about working top trumps, for the one day a week you have to go into the office it seems sensible to try and find some additional childcare that yes will come at some cost and inconvenience to organise.

We have a dog walker three times a week although there is someone wfh pretty much every day . This is because the stress and heated discussions around whose job was more important when we both absolutely had to go in were not worth it, for what boils down to a logistical problem. Although granted dog walkers are a bit cheaper than childcare.

Up to 5-10 years ago most of us with office jobs had to go in every day and made our arrangements around it. Having to sort things out to allow both of you to go in once a week on the same day when needed shouldn’t be such a huge issue.

IMO the answer to some of these is ‘yes’ to be honest. If there’s a logistical issue and you have the income to come up with a creative solution then it’s something to consider. You can’t both prioritise everything all the time and if you both have to be away from home at the same time then your childcare solution doesn’t work. I have high income friends who have hello fresh subscriptions and cleaners and take taxis often and all sorts of things to help them manage their lives. So I do think it’s worth looking at it all again and seeing what space you can create with the money you are lucky to have.

There's a different both in the seniority of roles and the sectors I'm working for - I took a significant promotion and moved into a better paying sector for the £100k job but both elements of that were, in hindsight, a mistake.

I'm working below my potential at the moment and am actively looking for a more senior role. However the max I could earn in this sector right now is probably about £65k-£70k, so an extra £15k-£20k pa. That's the difference between a good bonus and poor bonus for DH or totally dwarfed by his potential earnings after a promotion.

So we have had discussions about whether it's actually useful for me to be looking to move role again at the moment - I really love the job I do now, even though it's not got the status of a big job title or pay I'm getting useful experience and it's really rewarding work. And importantly I'm not at risk of burning out again. And notwithstanding the tensions I'm talking about here, broadly it works for our family in a way that my old role didn't. I never want to be in a position again when DH and I are both working so hard that DC are basically fending for themselves because we're both glued to our laptops.

Hello fresh subscriptions, cleaners and the occasional uber are all stuff we pay for. That's costing us about £4k-£5k pa total. That's a different order of magnitude to £2k a month on a nanny isn't it?

@OpalFruitsAreBetter sure? But that's not really the point. If things aren't working for the family, then you need to look at everything again. It doesn't seem to be working to have two people with intense jobs and inadequate childcare. You either need your husband (and his workplace) agree to contractual days at home or you need to adjust your work arrangements or you need to pay for something else or... I don't know. I have no idea what options are on the table with this kind of money but it seems like you shouldn't both be stressed out about childcare every week.

I think your husband does need to communicate better and does need to respect you more, but I have no idea if he's 'allowed' to just say no to going into the office on demand. As I said, my husband and I can't do that - any contracted hours of work we need to be prepared to work in the office, at any notice period or none at all. So if that's the situation you are in, than something needs to change.

All those posters saying his job comes first because he earns more than OP - I wonder how you’d feel if your kids teacher was constantly off school because her banker husband had an important meeting to attend. Or your operation was cancelled as the specialist nurse was off work as her lawyer husband had to go into the office.

Of course salary is an important factor but it shouldn’t be something that trumps every other consideration, in every circumstance, all of the time.

Sure there's stuff that isn't working that needs to be dealt with, that much is obvious. I just object to those people basically saying "why is this even an issue because if your household income is £200k obviously just throw money at the problem and it goes away?".

If there was the equivalent of uber for childcare when I could just click a button and pay for an extra 30-60mins of childcare when I needed it then I'd be all over it. That's not a thing that exists. The idea that the solution is paying for a nanny is completely disproportionate.

I'm not a teacher or a nurse but I'm doing objectively Important Stuff (not to overstate it but...trying to save the planet!) and some of my meetings are quite high-stakes.

The other week when I had one of those high-stakes meetings (that had taken months of work to set up). I had flagged to DH well in advance that I was going to be out of the houses so school runs fell to him that day. And again, low and behold, DH ends up with a conflicting meeting at the last minute and it falls to me to call in a favour with neighbours to look after DC.

DH frequently works late or goes out after work without informing me whereas every time I need or want to do something which prevents me doing the school run I have to see if it fits in with DH and even after he agrees I can't rely on him upholding his end of the bargain because "something's come up".

Basically this shouldn't be a problem if DH just showed a bit of simple respect for the fact I still have a job and a life.

I do not think he was 100% behind you reducing your salary as much of what you stated is passive aggressive. Maybe he felt he had no choice to say it’s ok rather than meaning it.