Does it matter to you how much your partner earns?

[brusslesprout]

Not wanting to start a debate or anything like that just a general musing really if this is a really important factor for everyone?

I wonder when looking at the bigger picture does it make the relationship better/easier?

My bf doesn't earn much which bothers me a little sometimes but on the same merit has no debts or bad spending habits as he's always had to be careful.

Growing up my Dad had quite a well paid job but isn't too good with money so still is in a lot of debt when he should be relaxing into retirement.

So yes does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

I disagree about the holiday thing. I've found as my husband has moved up the career ladder he can take leave whenever he wants and although he has 6 weeks leave he can easily take 8. I found when I was working it made holidays more difficult. Getting Christmas and Easter of was near impossible and I only got 5 weeks.

I have learnt quite a bit from mum, actually. I have no idea how much, if any emphasis she placed on my dad's earnings when they got together but he ended up going to prison and their marriage ended as a result of that. Due to the circumstances, as well as the sudden loss of earnings, she also had no chance of any maintenance towards any of us.

Although she'd had some years out of work when my siblings were small, she'd kept her teaching career and although it's not amazingly paid as she's never wanted promotions, it was enough to survive on and keep the mortgage payments.

If she hadn't had a career of her own, I have no idea if she'd have managed or how different life could have turned out. So although she's by no means well-off, having a way of supporting herself meant that when she really was up shit creek - she had a paddle

I think you might be right creamy re the corporate world. I'm so used to beng limited to the times when the Courts don't sit. DH has to plan outside that 18 months to two years in advance and even though he blocks out time it doesn't always happen if something he really wants to take on comes up. He's also self employed, so doesn't get holiday pay. Although in line with Puddles arguments he has no need to work nowadays at all for money but he loves it and it is his life and his soul. I just like the discipline and routine of work and of being purposeful. Am lucky because I get about 9 weeks.

After 24 years married to a high achiever and facing the real prospect of becoming Lady Amann I was so glad I still had my career which enabled me to leave and support myself when it became intolerable. No amount of spending money, expensive holidays or status make up for living with someone who treats you badly. I am more than happy with my lot now.

I hope the youngsters who think marrying well is enough to secure their future don't come unstuck later in life. I harp on to my DDs about having a good education and being able to stand in your own two feet. But I am old and cynical!

I'm not sure how this thread managed to turn so quickly into a bash the SAHM thread, but I have heard it all now. Do people honestly think I should go to work in order to be more bloody interesting conversation to a CEO over dinner?!! Wtf?!!! Who thinks like that?!!

Is your degree not wasted if you get it at 21, then don't ever work?

I don't think it turned into a sahm bashing thread. Nobody said it was wwrong or bad to be a SAHM. I did it for 8 years to provide the DC with love and early nurturing but I think I and they are more rounded from being and having a working mother.

Whereas I think my kids and I are more well rounded for having me around full time. Different strokes and all that.

And as for not being a SAHM bashing thread, there were enough boring clichéd comments for me to disagree. Being described as the female equivalent of a cocklodger is hardly complimentary, is it?!!

"Do people honestly think I should go to work in order to be more bloody interesting conversation to a CEO over dinner?!! Wtf?!!! Who thinks like that?!!"

No-one in RL that I have ever come across!

Feel a bit like weighing in for Puddles here. I also thought as Zee - who on earth carries on working purely to 'appear interesting' to CEO's and other men? Honestly!

If people are happy leave it be and just accept that not everyone equates a career with brains or interesting conversation. Some of the most boring people I know bang on about their jobs and how they have to do what someone else tells them all of the time/what was the point in me getting a degree if I can't use it, etc. I'd hate to be stuck on a table with some of the people on here and feel quite sorry for Bonsior being pecked at for being honest enough to say she doesn't work and uses her time to keep her house. She might be painting rusty shutters and building an outhouse for all you lot know!

I know that if I didn't work, I'd have more interesting conversations, because I'd have time to read more, go out more, travel more, meet more people.

My job is fairly interesting and I do get to travel and meet people, but many jobs are boring.

I don't think it turned into a sahm bashing thread.

I don't think either.
The comments about "fanjolodgers" were about people who said their husbands earning more enabled not to work. Full stop.
Nothing about being a sahm.

Yep, the offensive women are out in force again who can't understand how anybody could dare to disagree with their choices in life.

Having enough income to never have to decline something on cost grounds is important to me.

Currently my wife wants to move house and this will be a huge increase in mortgage.

She know that to get this she will have to go full time from her current Part time position.

Until she does we are not moving.

So money therefore is important to me!

It was a comparison with cocklodgers and just as offensive.

It depends on how it's taken, and it depends on whether the woman does contribute a fair share while at home, or just takes advantage of the money her husband earns.

Choose how you want to live, but a woman who spends her day doing not much (shopping, lunching, meeting friends) while her husband works does not earn much of my respect, in the same way that a man in the reverse position doesn't.

Given what I've said about wanting women to live more interesting lives beyond husbands, work and kids (assuming that's a free choice they could make if they wanted to), I actually don't give a stuff if women work, as long as they make provision for their survival if their relationship breaks down or the main earner loses his income because of economics, illness or death.

I agree that work itself doesn't define whether someone has value or can make interesting conversation and being somewhat long in the tooth, I have a very different approach now to life than when I lived to work.

So now I'd just prefer it if women actually thought about their choices and considered the wider perspective about why men's lifestyle choices are often much more economically rewarding and where outside interests are concerned, more personally satisfying.

I see on the Relationships board every time I'm on it some poor woman who's in a shit relationship who gave up her low-paid job because it made sense for her to be the main childcarer. It's often inappropriate to bang the drum at that point about why she was the low-paid worker of the two in the first place and why no-one advised her to make provision for when the wheel came off big-time with some plank who's now wasting the family budget on prostitutes, lads holidays to Amsterdam or another woman.

Every time I see one of those posts from a woman who says 'I don't work and am completely dependent on him for money and childcare so I can't leave'...I inwardly scream.

And yes I know some men would prefer not to be workhorses and consumers of the corporate pill, so that's why the current set-up disadvantages those men too.

Overall, I absolutely hate the default setting that men will work and women will stay at home, because men are paid more and women are assumed to be the natural child-carers and oven-cleaners. There are large swathes of men and women who this default works against in terms of their personalities, abilities, skills and interests and it especially doesn't insure people against the curve-balls that life has a habit of throwing later on in life.

Joy use your loaf. Think about what we've said about choices never being made in a vacuum.

I just wish people would think about this stuff instead of sleep-walking into a lifestyle that has become inevitable because of constrained and restricted choices earlier down the line. And getting snippy and feminist-bashing when someone actually gets them to think.

Well said, Leaven.

But did it matter to him that you had a good work ethic? If not, it's worth thinking about why.

I'm under no illusions that my choices were constrained to an extent so any that I made had a context and backdrop to them. DH has often said the same.

Yes, people make choices all the time. What I notice is how many people think they are free choices made without any constraints or restrictions, which is patently untrue for most of society.

I accompanied DH on a work trip once - I fancied a trip to Krakow - a city I spent quite a bit of time in, in my yoof. I wanted to revisit my old haunts, have lunch in a restaurant I remembered, speak Polish. One thing I categorically didn't want to do, was the fucking wives' programme (DH's female colleague was told her husband would not be welcome). I work full time, but don't think any CEO would find my conversation interesting, really.

DH has had periods of not working and being supported by me. It was not a happy period for either of us. And probably not helped by me acting the macho man and coming in and shouting "Where's my fucking dinner? FFS, what have you done all day? The place is an utter tip!"

NearTheWindmill in response to your earlier post Yes I do realise that woman are capable of working while planning wedding, organising some to decorate homes, have babies and running a household. I just choose NOT TOO.

If you and your husband's families are so ver wealthy why is his salary important to you though.

My Partners own personal wealth is important to me as I wouldn't want to be with someone who didn't bring to the table what I bring to the table in terms of trustfunds/familywealth. This may sound shockingly shallow to most people but not to us. Why would I marry someone with considerable less personal wealth than myself to then have to split it if something goes wrong? Rather cynical I know but extremely realistic.

Also why are your husbands paid earnings important to you but yours are not to him. That would concern me in the equality context and as the mother of a son and a daughter. I would be concerned for my son if he were to marry a girl like you and I can assure you that he'll be quite a catch. I hope he marries a girl with aspirations beyond his inheritance, his salary and her social life. I don't mean that to be harsh but to be realistic. I also think it very sad that you will have such limited experiences to share with your own daughters shoulkd you have them.

I don't think you understand I HAVE MY OWN MONEY, I don't need to have handouts from my husband.

Your social life is lovely now but in 20 years you will be a lady who lunches possibly on the odd macmillan committee. I know lots of ladies like that and there's a big difference to being a socialite at 26 and 56. When your DH is CEO of something or other wouldn't you prefer his clients to want to talk to you at a function because you are part of the real world rather than as a duty, stifling a yawn about the Summer Exhibition or a ball you are organising because you are the CEO's wife.

This is hilarious in its entirety, your seriously implying that to be remotely interesting a woman must have a career? Don't be absurd. I guarantee I have more wit and charm in my little finger then you will ever have. Having a career does not make one automatically interesting/clever/witty it all boils down to the individual.

My husband does not need to 'become more senior' it's a family firm.

Jealous? Of you? Hardly darling. You sound like a bitter older woman who thinks they need to impart their ill gotten wisdom on someone who is most likely half their age. As for looking 'imperiously' at me during a ball, you wouldn't be permitted to any balls or functions I personally attend.

I would like to reiterate one point. I do not under any circumstances think it's wise for a woman to be dependant on a man without any form of income if you do not have any personal wealth or savings which are separate from your partner.