When the women is the main breadwinner...

[FrancinePefko]

Apparently this is the case now in almost 40% of relationships and is heading upwards.
Quite a few books and articles highlight the challenges this throws up.

From Harvard Business Review

We found that wives who believed they held higher status positions than their husbands were indeed more likely to experience feelings of resentfulness or embarrassment, feeling that their status was decreased by their husbands’ lower status position, which in turn had a negative impact on their marital satisfaction — and even increased the likelihood that they were thinking about divorce. Husbands, however, were unaffected by their wives’ status spillover feelings: They only experienced greater marital dissatisfaction and thoughts about divorce if their wives’ were outwardly unhappy with their relationship.
hbr.org/2017/05/does-a-womans-high-status-career-hurt-her-marriage-not-if-her-husband-does-the-laundry

What's your experience?

Only had half a year of me earning, DP not. It was fine. I think any relationship requires both partners to believe the other is pulling their weight and putting effort in. That effort doesn't have to be financial but does need to exist and be respected.

I think that report is bollocks tbh. Its personality at the end of the day. And also what % of life admin and parenting is shared.

I earn more than my partner. Always have, always will - he works for a charity and has a disability. Why should it matter? Someone has to earn more. And I’m fucked if I’m going to take a lower paid job than I have to just to make us both feel validated or whatever. Fuck that.

HBR is rather more trusted than e.g. the Daily Fail. The sample size of the analysis seems to make it fairly robust academically.

Despite these organizational and economic changes, societal norms still suggest that in heterosexual marriages, husbands “should” hold higher job status relative to their wives. When this norm is violated, and wives hold the higher status job, negative consequences can follow: Women are disparagingly referred to as having “married down,” are more likely to be targets of husbands’ aggression, and the risk for divorce increases. With these findings in mind, we wanted to examine whether and how womens’ high status jobs might impact the quality of their marriages and whether wives’ perceptions of, and feelings about, their husbands’ job status led to marital instability.

I'm the higher earner by a considerable margin, and my experience is the opposite to that article - I don't mind the situation, but my husband often displays resentment.

Totally not my experience. I've mostly earned more than more then my husband mainly to being 8 years older and its never been an issue. He's currently a stay at home dad and its all family money

There are plenty of studies reaching similar conclusions, not that these conclusions aren't blatantly obvious anyway. Attractiveness of men is ruthlessly judged on income/status in a way that it isn't for women.

There have even been threads on this same board in times gone by full of women admitting the importance of the earning potentional of their partner.

I think there’s a generational element to how it’s thought of, my boyfriend is also younger than me and has never had an issue with me earning more. Most younger people will have grown up in families where both parents worked, as opposed to my generation (I’m 39) where women often stayed at home, as my mum did) and there was more of an emphasis on men being ‘provider’. Older men ime are more likely to feel all discombobulated about earning less than their wives.

It really does come down to individual personalities and set ups though, my boyfriend is a self employed creative type, therefore earns piss all but he looks after the house and (my) kids and does all the cooking etc which enables me to devote more time to my career which I trained really hard for. It works really well for us

How important is "status" attractive?

If higher earning women feel ‘resentment’, it might be down to all of the studies showing that they still do far more housework and childcare than their husbands, regardless of who pays the majority of the bills.

I earn more than my husband, but we have a split for chores that works for us and it’s always open for discussion. Ergo, no problems like those described.