To wonder why women accept financial inequality?

[OtterlyAstounding]

I see so many posts on here from intelligent women, working full or part time, who have (or had) no idea what their husband of a decade or more earns, had no clue he was a high earner, and who don't have access to his bank account while he does have access to hers.

Women who earn a quarter of what their husband does who pay half the expenses, or pay for everything for their shared children, or run out of money and watch their husband treat himself while she struggles. And not only that, but many of them seem to think that's reasonable and not completely fucked up.

Women should make sure they know their partner's income before they move in together – entirely reasonable, to plan budgeting. If or when joint accounts come up, then he should provide access to his accounts first/at the same time. She should always have a personal savings account (just as he can). And if a couple has children, then he should be paying for at least half of everything (although personally I think expenses should be divided equitably, not equally).

Why in this day and age, is financial control/abuse still so common amongst educated, employed women, and also so passively accepted as normal?

Disclaimer: I'm not talking about relationships where the husband is also abusive in other ways, although I do understand the different types of abuse frequently intersect. I'm more thinking of relationships where he's a selfish twat who doesn't pay for things/share his money, but isn't otherwise abusive. Although perhaps financial abuse is always a sign of other abuse...?

It's more common than you might think
Fine! Then take it that my post was aimed at the 3/4 or do who are not. Is that better?

The problem that I have with your OP is that it seems to be predicated on the assumption that the woman will always be the lower earner. And that is not always the case.

For example, you've said in your OP that, if a couple has children, the husband should be paying for at least half of everything. I earn several multiples of what my DH earns, so I don't think it would be fair to demand that he covers half of the expenses. As it happens, I cover pretty much everything for our household, because that's what works for us.

We don't pool all of our money either. We have our own separate accounts and both of us prefer it that way. We do have a joint account which DH can access but he uses it very rarely. My salary is paid into my personal account, but I transfer a fixed sum into the joint account every month.

I don't think my DH could tell you exactly what I earn - he knew what the salary was when I first took my current job, but he hasn't ever asked me how much it has gone up since then. I would be happy to tell him if he asked. Likewise, I'm not 100% sure of what he earns, because I don't feel the need to keep track of it closely. I do have a rough idea though.

We make all big financial decisions together.

We are both happy with how our finances are organised. There is no abuse. He likes to have his own account and I like to have mine. We both have access to everything we need. There is more than one "correct" way to organise household finances.

I always knew roughly. At least the salary but his hefty bonuses I don’t think I ever knew the amount for. Because he was such a high earner I was never on the mortgages on any of our homes, I didn’t pay for holidays ( unless it was just me and the kids who went), he set budgets for large purchases like cars etc. I agree that it is very, very ofd. At the time I couldn’t quite see it though. I think I have my mid-life hormones to thank for my awakening. As soon as I turned 40 I was like, wtf am I doing?

I don't think some women want to give up their mat leave to their partner because they want to look after the baby themselves. Also as much as the dad might ok at feeding/changing etc the baby, they sometimes have an inability to not put themselves first, so baby is better off with mum who will do this
Then it's not financial equality that is the issue, it's how that woman picked her life companion in the first place. Why aim for a man who can't even feed or change his baby in this day and age? Raise your standards and pick a man who is able to be a good father.

I don't see how that's relevant to my post? You've pasted in bold another post entirely about a completely different subject. Not sure why you did that under a quote of my post.

You can plan things a certain way (like the poster I quoted saying her son would only marry a career ambitious woman), but life sometimes requires flexibility (from the man or woman).

I've always worked and looked after myself financially. I would hate for my earned money to be spent by my husband in a way I didn't agree with.

I wouldn't want to be controlling either. So the only option that works is we both earn what we earn, we put an amount towards the bills more or less proportionate and our disposable income is for us to do what we want with, no questions. I could not be with a man who doesn't earn his money. I understand that many men might feel the same.

@thedogmademessagain, that was a posting error.

My point was more generally that life is long and unpredictable and choices are rarely formed in a vacuum. Surprise pregnancies / and death and redundancies and lottery wins and industries disappearing and mental health issues and on and on and on. I would prefer for my children to know they are loved and supported even if they fuck up or get handed the shitty end of the stick or just want to choose a different path (living off grid, or living extremely frugally / nomadically for example)

Thanks for clarifying. I was a bit confused and wondered if I was missing something.

You can plan things a certain way (like the poster I quoted saying her son would only marry a career ambitious woman), but life sometimes requires flexibility (from the man or woman)
Of course it does, fine if something unexpected happens. If my oh became disabled and couldn't work, of course my money would become ours.

I haven't made life decisions, neither he, based on scenarios more unlikely to happen. Preparing for the eventuality, yes, but not changing my principles based on it.

My late husband and I shared the finances totally. We just shared whatever we had between us.

For me, we got together in late teens in college and we didn't pool finances but everything was always 50 50 because we earned similar. I never expected to be treated or not to pay my own way but I'm also generous and enjoy sharing. My mother always said women should be able be financially independent.

This was ideal for my DH. I didn't realise until after we were married and had a child that he was actually mean with money and had no intention of pooling finances and I had to explain to him that I wasn't paying for the childcare costs myself as well as paying 50 50 for everything else.

I don't know why but when I was younger I valued men and their opinions more than myself or other women and I really struggle with that now. So I blame myself for not being confident enough to walk away from him, even after we'd had a child. I was so lacking in self worth (despite a loving and supportive upbringing) and fixated on getting into a relationship and having a family that I willingly overlooked the signs that he was mean, mean with money and mean spirited too but was fully committed to our relationship so that was good enough for me.

We will separate eventually but I can't afford to buy him out of the house and he won't leave, despite being depressed and miserable. I hope in a few years I'll be able to buy him out. I now am trying to plan to separate but it's extremely difficult, I have no family support, and despite our own relationship falling apart, the DC love him and always miss him when he's not around. We have tried to separate previously but the DC weren't ready.

I will not be growing old with him, that's the only thing that keeps me going.

But what if your DH got sick and couldn't work? That's surely when the partnership and 'in sickness and in health' kick in?

My friendship group isn't that big. Among us are three people who were widowed in their 40s and at least two families who had to deal with children with serious illnesses that needed a parent to quit or greatly reduce work. So it doesn't seem that rare to me.

@distinctpossibility, I think the point is about expectations. Seeking a partner on the basis that they will support you is in my view very dangerous. Marrying when you don't know what your husband earns and haven't discussed very clearly your future financial situation and making sure you are on the same wavelength is totally irresponsible.

If you do, you can't then moan when things don't go to plan in the way that only suits you.

The push for women to be financially independent and everything be equal gone too far. Now men are benefiting from hoarding their own cash whilst their wife pays half of the bills and does most of the childcare and homemaking.
Some women have an ingrained belief that they need to financially independent without question, never rely on a man. Keep finances completely separate so he can't take what is yours. They then miss the fact thar they are subsiding his career and life style with all the unpaid labour of being wife and mother.
I don't think women shouldn't have the option to work and be financially independent. I think going back to the days they couldn't would be an absolute disaster. But it does appear that in many family situations, men are still benefiting from 'equality' more than women.

Generally women will be the lower earner, and are certainly more likely to suffer from financial abuse. So I'm speaking in generalities, and I'm not worried about men, as they're not my concern.

I have said several times that the household finances should ideally be equitable (if they're not pooled), rather than equal though - something that works regardless of sex.

But yes, if everyone is fully informed of the finances, which are fairly divided/equally accessed, then that makes sense.

Because some women WANT to stay at home with the baby they gestated, even though their husband is perfectly capable of taking care of it.

My husband would've made a fantastic sahd, but I didn't WANT him to stay at home - I wanted to be with my babies. And I don't think that's unusual for women (although of course many are eager to get back to their career too).

Women out-earn their male partners in around 25% of households. There will be more households where partners earn approximately the same.

If we really want to stop women from accepting financial inequality, we should surely be encouraging more women to ensure that they are financially independent.

My friendship group isn't that big. Among us are three people who were widowed in their 40s and at least two families who had to deal with children with serious illnesses that needed a parent to quit or greatly reduce work. So it doesn't seem that rare to me
As I said, you prepare for these scenarios. That's the whole point though, things like that this can happen, so you are much much better off planing to be financially independent rather than marrying, earning little and hoping that somehow, your husband will be happy to share all his money with you and take actions to protect you in case something happens to him.

My experience of 40 years working with many male colleagues is that most would prefer if their wives worked more hours than they do but their wives insist that they don't want to. Of course then comes the debate of how much the men are prepared to help at home. The men say they do and already do a lot, the women say the opposite.

The bottom line is: sort this out in black and white before you go ahead and marry because you are sooooo in love, or worse, fall pregnant 'by accident'...

But society could make that choice less risky. It could be serious about child maintenance, it could be better about return to work after a career gap, it could let spouses pay more into their partners pension with tax relief, at the moment it makes more sense to increase your own contributions if your the high earner. It could structure parental leave differently so its not seen as 'taking' from the woman's entitlement. Give her her year and let the man have his own leave paid also, even if it isnt as long to reflect no birth recovery is needed.

I think this resolution that women must protect themselves financially is very important at an individual level, but its much easier from a lovely professional job with ok health to do that. Society probably needs to think about a bigger range of women.

Because some women WANT to stay at home with the baby they gestated, even though their husband is perfectly capable of taking care of it
And maybe the husband doesn't WANT to be the sole earner.

Why does the woman's want gets to trump everything just because she's the mother?

I'm not sure what this has to do with my OP, really.

Except that, if one stays at home, then one should make sure that they have equal access to the family finances, know their other half's income, have their other half contributing to their pension pot, etc, in order to reduce the risk of financial abuse.

Personally, I felt the risk of staying at home was acceptable and nearly twenty years later, I've been proven right and don't regret spending my children's younger years with them. BUT I also made sure before I did that, that I had a DH who was fully on board with being the financial provider, and kept me in the loop, etc.

So women get a choice but men don't?

But society could make that choice less risky
Absolutely, by encouraging women to be more self sufficient, or at least to take more time and put more effort in choosing her partner she expects to be fully responsible for her for many years to come if not forever.