How do Men cope when their DW or DP EARNS MORE than them???

[drosophila]

Just wondering. I know some people in this situation and I think it is having an effect.

How much of a man's self esteem is tied up in being the main or sole breadwinner?

aha, not just me then thought not. have been pondering coming back to this today, especially as there have been a number of posters today "agreeing" with me - thought i hadn't said v. much! either i said more than i thought or have struck a chord! but then thought - it's a big subject for me and i need to come back and do it justice.

this is, imvho, a threatening discussion for many of us for many, varied, complex reasons.

thank you v much to the lovely mnetter who sent me such a kind note last night

anyway, broke cover to say thank you to sunchowder and all the other female main earners for coming and sharing their views. we're a ground-breaking minority. let's hope it's easier for our daughters!

sunny, you have been searingly honest, more than i have dared to be - thank you

Ah thanks BK, I didn't want you to think you were alone in this at all...maybe I should have changed my name for this, but hopefully no one with see this and hurt my loved ones with it. And yes it was honest, is there any other way then? Your posts did strike a chord with me and I did think your posts were brave. It is difficult for me to imagine how it will be for my daughter. I am brutally honest with her also, at times I am sure I am much too complex, but I want her to have the benefit of my life experience without "tarnishing" hers if you know what I mean...

1 in 5 women earn more than their other half. I'm not sure if that is including those with children or not and it will become more as time goes on. I think families and the media images etc we get presented with still condition girls however to expect a man to support them and girls expect to get choices men don't expect, to stop work and look after their children and when that can't happen some women aren't happy with it but objectively and morally it's completely fair. I have never been supported by a man and not sure how I would feel about that. I got married at 21 knowing I would earn more and except the first year I always did. Women paying out to men on divorce is getting more common too and that's complex because women still tend to keep the children so it's not quite the reversal of the usual position.

I have read most (though not all) of this interesting thread and I posted earlier to say that I earn more and it doesn't bother us. I really don't think it does although I did feel pressure when dh was a sahd and I was the only earner, that was a bit scarier than it is now as we now both work ft oth and I do prefer it I think.

Dino, it did occur to me at the time that if we were to split up he'd get custody because of being a sahd and that was a horrible thought (although I didn't think we would split and we didn't although we had our moments after a year and ahalf with no sleep, I can tell you)

I wonder if I/we aren't bothered about our pay inequality partly because we lived in penury for a lot of the time we were together (first four year in fact) and it wouldn't be the end of the world to go back to it really? I'm musing aloud here. We don't have a mortgage or any large outgoings (other than those we create through doing things and being extravagent) and so if I went and worked in a shop tomorrow (nothing wrong with working in retail btw, just using it as an example of a job that would pay less) we'd cope. OK, so we'd lose our BUPA, 2 cars, holidays, eating out, blah de blah but it would be ok. And so although I do HAVE to work because we don't have a trust fund or anything and although I have a reasonably stressful job, it wouldn't matter that much if I was made redundant tomorrow. It wouldn't be ideal, but it would be copeable with.

The other thing that makes it ok for us is that Dh is younger than me and so we have a plan that involves him earning a lot more in the next few years and us swapping roles in terms of major contribution to the household finances.

I also wanted to thank sunchowder - your reflections on how you grew up actually made me realise that my fears of not having an independent income are directly the result of my mother being SO dependent on both her husbands and how it affected us growing up.

I completely understand why you would have fallen apart after sending off that letter.

I should have said earlier, that although I do have moments of "why couldn't I have married a proper earner", I feel lucky that my partner does not feel threatened by my being a high earner (not for long of course) as I have had relationships fall to bits before now because I was "over-ambitious". I also think that being attached to someone that is not wedded to money can be freeing if you are not too attached to your lifestyle. This is what I am struggling with at the moment.

Xenia - unfortunately I think the seeds are already sown. I don't think coming back to work after a short leave would do anything to change hearts and minds in a conservative firm like mine and to be honest, it would cost me too much emotionally to miss the first six months of my only baby's existence.

www, my love, it is ok not to mind

This thread has thrown up a lot of stuff about daughters and fathers relationships.
Do any of you ever remember doing that Trust thing with your father as a child? You know, where you stand in front of him and fall backwards into his arms. I remember my dad being fascinated by how trusting I was.

My father was not a high earner - middle management civil servant - but kept a family of 6 on one income for 20 years while my mother was a SAHM. Financially he was completely dependable, and has left my mum comfortably off so that she could get her hip done privately without worrying about it.

Maybe I would have had more ambition if my dad had been less dependable and supportive.

ha ha ty, bk, but I read this while I was eating my breakfast at 7.15am this morning (didn't have time to post)and I pondered on it a bit today and worked out why I didn't think we/I did!

xenia are you familiar with the concept ceteris paribus (sp?) it means "all things being equal". but of course you are, as a lawyer. so all things being equal....

oh i give up!

not everyone wants to go back to work after 20 mins and then spend 15 seconds per day with their children!

you would get further with your "gender neutral" argument if you attempted to address the reasons why for e.g. so few men take up part-time or flexible working options, why (as a poster lower down observed) there is an undercurrent of necessity for many of the female main earners...

surely anna8888 must have some new insights to offer at this point?

www, and am grateful for a post on not minding which is not along the lines of - you made your bed - you shallow materialist - what makes you expect a free ride

plus - it is simply ok to not mind - for whatever reason...

i also think that in certain circumstances - it is ok to mind...

that is why mnet is so great - the pondering

i earn nearly twice as much as dp does and it has caused a few problems over the past few years.we were paying half each on all the household bills while i pay for all our food, luxuries, days out etc, but then he decided he wanted an allowance from me also.whihc i did take exception to. im still paying off my student loans, credit cards etc and what i have left i use to pay off my debts, but he would rather have it and spend it on himself.

i relate to how you are raised and how you deal with your earnings. my parents always has seperate and a joint account. whereas his parents, his mum worked nights whereas his dad was a sahm.
i would hate to be fiancially dependant on him and have the need to be able to support myself and my ds1and2 if he wasnt around.

at dh who wanted allowance!

Although, strangely, if he had just wanted a more favourable distribution of the household financial responsibilities, which would have given the same effect, I would not have been shocked at all.

"not everyone wants to go back to work after 20 mins and then spend 15 seconds per day with their children!"

Most men do or have to and they love their children hugely. So is it that they have to - their wicked wives who aren't prepared to make that sacrifice and do the boring awful work for 40 years force the men to have to do that?

"you would get further with your "gender neutral" argument if you attempted to address the reasons why for e.g. so few men take up part-time or flexible working options, why (as a poster lower down observed) there is an undercurrent of necessity for many of the female main earners..."

Main reason is women marry up, even today although not the higher earners attracted to this thread but that is not a representative sample. I think most women marry men a little older - so already usually a pay differential and most women subsciously look for a provider because they want to be able to afford more than the 6 weeks you get at 90% pay when you have a baby. Also our culture derides many men who do that whereas women are praised for sacrificing their lives on the altar of their children etc

May be despite my feminism I was subconsciously a necessity case anyway having had the stupidly to marry someone who would earn so much less and then rip us all off on the divorce.

Xenia I really feel for you in having gone through such a horrific divorce. No criticism of women that go back to work quickly from me. I think it is deeply personal and not a political issue as to how much time either person in a marriage or relationship spends with the children. I am a strong advocate of reasonably priced childcare being available to all as I think it is a woman's right to choose and not be forced one way or the other by finances. For us, on a personal level, we have tried for a long time to have this baby and we have decided together that we want to really try attachment parenting and I want to spend most of the baby's first year with her or him. I think this is a choice that I am entitled to make.

but xenia on this thread if no other, we are exploring the other side of the argument...

"Main reason is women marry up, even today although not the higher earners attracted to this thread but that is not a representative sample."

so fhs why not save your scoldings for the other threads?! they are not needed here!

I think it is more of an issue than most men would let on to, and I think you ignore it at your peril as a woman.

I wish it were different, but I think that while men are predominantly judged on their earning capacity and women are predominantly judged on the children/household, it will continue.

And it is up to us to challenge that preconception if we want/can. Personally, I feel that to take the driving seat, as I am about to do, is a big risk in your relationship. Yes it depends on the man, but I think you can't underestimate the subconcious influences on men. I think it does have an effect on their self-esteem, that they can overcome but it is there. The same subtle influences are at work on women (career women as well as SAHM) as regards what our role and responsibilities are.

Just as it is hard for most career women to hand over the household and family role, it is hard for men not to feel responsible for the breadwinner role. Not ideal, but true.

Kiteflying, I don't see how you can get out of the financial aspect of returning to work. No matter how reasonably priced the childcare, it is always going to be uneconomic for some women to return to work.

I do know women who have nevertheless returned to work when their children were babies, despite no real financial gain, by the time taxes, travelling, clothes for work and childcare are taken into account. These women say they work because they prefer to do so, or for career reasons - ie future earnings.

I think couples should be free to choose to be a double income household, but it's not a human right, imo. Human rights, to me, are about freedom of speech, not being tortured or killed and not being imprisoned without due process. All sorts of privileges these days are claimed as human rights.

Things only change if people like CH and others show it can work. In some countries it is easier for men to be seen as nurturing carers - like bits of Scandinavia. When I was in Sweden last year plenty of men left early to collect from nursery. And it's even harder in many much more macho cultures than the UK.

kf, I understand that. Bit different for me spewing forth fairly large numbers of babies in ones and twos in my 20s and beyond - just a different way of doing it.

Cloudhopper - fantastically put; I agree absolutely. dh is incredibly cut out to be a SAHD, but he does at some level find it undermining - sad but true. And I wish I could be/have been a SAHM - not, in my case (I think) because of overt social pressures (I have had my fair share of those, but I feel I can cope with them quite well), but because right now nothing seems more fulfilling. Because of the way my work has been I've been at home around ds a lot despite working FT, and feel I've had a foot in both camps - which I'm very grateful for, but tbh has been exhausting. Our ideal (as far as the limits of our situation allow) is to share both childcare and earning, and we hope to arrive at that situation soon. I do feel we are - not entirely by choice - 'pioneering' ways of living and sharing responsibility as a family that will become more common in the future.

By the way, Xenia, you compared the issue of mothers returning to work soon after childbirth with the fact that fathers have always been expected to do so.

Can you really have had so many children and not feel that childbirth is a major upheaval for a woman from which she needs time to recover? The body doesn't really return to pre-pregnancy condition for 9 months post partum imo.

And breastfeeding - didn't you do any of that? Takes time to establish, and needs to be done at night for some months.

I'm all for fathers leaving work early to collect from nursery, but they don't give birth and they don't breastfeed.

They don't give birth or breastfeed, this is true, but in Sweden it's now mandatory for the father to take at least three months of the shared parental leave so what I've seen quite frequently among my friends (even before it was the law) was the woman doing the first six or nine months, and then the dad taking a three to six month stint.

Where I worked, it was the norm that everyone left at 4:30 (except us) to do the kindergarten pickup or whatever. Part of a culture with a different approach to the work-life balance I think.

Xenia, you say "Also our culture derides many men who do that whereas women are praised for sacrificing their lives on the altar of their children etc " - I disagree, dh got huge kudos and praise for being a sahd. Still sexist because it was along the lines of 'oh isn't he good?' when my view is what, good at looking after his own child/ren, well so he bloody well should be.

I agree that things won't really change until MEN start asking for part time/flexible working/compressed hours in order to accommodate family arrangements, including childcare. Because of the sexist society we live in while it's mainly women asking for and getting these arrangements then nothing much will change imho. Except that women will continue to be discriminated against for this reason. And men won't because they don't bloody well ask for it. So we're back to division of labour in a household to some extent I suppose I'm staying.

Gotta go to work now!

I'm saying, not staying