Bad feeling about my earnings in marriage

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Can anyone help me think about this. When I met my husband I was on an average/low salary. He is a decade older and earnt more. I then had two kids and had a year of leave with each, then went back part time. Meanwhile his earnings have skyrocketed. Now, post pandemic I am left in a very uncertain position on a contract that soon ends while he is at his peak. The pandemic was hard for me: childcare, bereavement and serious illness. I am applying for jobs.

There’s a mood in the marriage that I’ve seriously let the side down with my career/earnings. That I am earning too little, that I’ve made us poor.

What do you think? I did choose to look after the kids part time (this has paid off massively in terms of how they are) and I am also just younger, less ambitious, less capable of stress and endurance jobs….

I’m trying to work out of my husband is being unfair making me feel like this. Thanks.

I should add that we are not poor, he is a very high earner.

Surely you didn't make the decision to stay home by yourself? You will have saved a ton on childcare costs so there's your contribution for starters. Sounds to me he's just trying to make you feel inadequate

I doubt his earnings would have sky rocketed had he had to carry 50% of the childcare burden.

Know your worth, but also look at how you can becomes more secure and independent financially - not to keep him happy, but to safeguard yourself.

Yes, I am doing so now. I’ve realised we might not be quite the team I thought we were.

Eh? But you are a team working together, so both your earnings should be shared (in some form). It’s not him versus you.

Does he not value your contribution to looking after the DDs whilst this gave him the opportunity to flourish?

I think he is definitely being unfair. Not everyone is a high flyer.
Did you both not discuss and agree how things would be?

If he has 10 years over you in terms of seniority and earnings and you were on an average/low salary to begin with, the inequality in earnings has been baked into the template of your marriage. Now that you have dcs and gone pt, surely he will expect your earnings to fall even further behind his.

This way of setting up your home was always going to facilitate his earnings pulling even further away from yours and yours falling behind. Did he actually expect you to make up the ground?

What exactly does he say to you that makes you feel like you are not pulling your weight. Yes, it feels like the goalposts are being unfairly moved but what was the understanding at the start of your relationship as to what you are expected to contribute to the family kitty in terms of your earnings?

We did discuss it but we always had different ideas about it. One of my main life goals had been to look after the kids more and I really wanted it, but for him he would have had a wraparound care lifestyle with us both as a couple who sometimes saw their kids. If you see what I mean.

I am a single parent, but my view about marriage is that it should be a partnership. So your part of the partnership has been having DC and taking maternity leave and part-time hours to look after them. So your husband has been able to pursue his career without having to worry about childcare and parental leave. You have basically done the unpaid labour to allow him to progress with the paid labour. So I think there should be recognition of that.

I personally would not take on board the stuff about being less ambitious and less competent with high pressure jobs. Firstly, all sorts of competencies are needed in the workplace and within teams, and secondly, how do you know because you have taken the hit with your career to bring up the children?

You have come through a lot - raising children does take up time, and illness and bereavement are emotionally and physically draining, so be gentle on yourself. Your husband should be supporting you, not devaluing your contribution. He had a comfortable and happy home presumably, and he has been able to progress professionally. He has not done it all himself. He has done it because you have picked up the domestic load and supported him with unpaid labour.

Honestly, if he values his marriage, then he should be valuing both of your inputs. Speaking as a single parent, I am sure it is much, much easier to progress professionally while someone else is doing the home and childcare, just as I am sure it is much easier to do the home and childcare when someone else is doing the paid labour. As I say, a partnership.

He sounds awful. This is very unfair.

Sorry it took me so long to write that I cross-posted with your updates

It sounds like there might be a lot going on here. When you say "mood in the marriage" what do you mean exactly? To me, t sounds as though money/jobs/earnings are a way of bringing deeper things to the surface.

Yes, thanks everyone. There’s a lot of nuance but I think what made me post is that he’s angry I’m comparatively unsuccessful even though there are these mitigating factors. Also we were always different- I’m more a bring the kids up in a cheap rural house type, he prefers to work round the clock.

Maybe he feels the pressure of having to keep the high flying job to maintain your lifestyle? Maybe he feels he signed up to something more equal but now just feels like it’s all on him? Did you ever talk about who would look after your DC?

Look at it through a different lens - equality of effort.

Is there / was there equality of effort?

This will tell you what you need to know.

I always said I would look after them myself. We didn’t have a lot of time to plan, we had the first one in quite a rush.

My lifestyle is extremely frugal. We have no mod cons, I spend almost nothing. Yes, there was equality of effort or if anything I did more.

It sounds like you weren’t really in agreement at the start as to what you both wanted in terms of childcare responsibilities and career projects. If that’s the case there must have been tension previously when you were at home with the kids and he was out working? Why would he only raise it now. I think to move beyond this you need to have some serious discussions and put the past behind both of you and agree on a way forward. He’s definitely being unreasonable about your contribution to the children that is clear; but if he wanted wrap around childcare and you didn’t acknowledge his feelings that’s a bit on you. I don’t know- it’s a tricky one. If you aren’t in agreement on childcare options who gets the final say? I don’t know. Sending you a hand hold in any case xox

Do you spend nothing/live so frugally because you don't feel you can spend? Does he make you feel you dont have a right to decide how to spend household income?

How are finances split?

My husband is the same! I also went part time after having my children and would like to stay that way whilst they are little (youngest isn’t at school yet). I can understand what he is saying, I have a degree and should have a job that uses it, but i am really happy in my job, it is flexible hours and works really well with having children. We are comfortable, certainly not poor, but he also makes out like we don’t have enough. My husband is in the military so that makes things difficult, he works long hours and is often away for weeks at a time. We don’t live anywhere near my family and I have very little support here so my argument is I would struggle working full time when I do all of the house chores, raising the children and walking the dog, especially if he is not around.

@sjxoxo Thanks. I just don’t think I could ever have agreed to wraparound childcare, it wasn’t for me- I had a strong feeling about it.

Not knocking it for anyone else though! It was just a job I really wanted to do

What has your husband actually said or done to make you feel like this?
There seem to be several related issues here making it difficult to ascertain what is 'fair'.

Recently (and especially as his career reaches astronomical levels) he’s started to say I have ‘taken him for a ride’ with reference to my staying at home with the kids/working pt

He's an arse isn't he

I also should say he LOVES work and voluntarily works every spare moment for no extra pay just because it interests him. It’s his passion.