If your DH is a high earner, what do you do?

[Bakereld]

Hi all,

I'm wondering, if your DH/DP is a high earner (let's say £70Kish plus), what do you do?

Do you work part time? SAHM? Fulltime with lower/equal pay etc?

How did you decide on your working hours - was it to do with childcare/ or your DH wanting you to have less stress etc?

Thanks :)

@DrHWeasley

Earn more than him 🤣

Me too 😂

In all seriousness, I value financial independence a lot, and it keeps the relationship equal without all the pressure on one person financially. I wouldn't like to be the sole breadwinner, he wouldn't either, and having two incomes keeps options open. We have discussed each dropping down to four days at some point if it's possible

@Bakereld

Hi all,

I'm wondering, if your DH/DP is a high earner (let's say £70Kish plus), what do you do?

Do you work part time? SAHM? Fulltime with lower/equal pay etc?

How did you decide on your working hours - was it to do with childcare/ or your DH wanting you to have less stress etc?

Thanks :)

What's your reason for asking, OP?

It might help if you elaborate on what your dilemma is.

Part time self employed though I now earn over half of his salary so he wants to bin his job and join me 😁

Dh high earner - we had twins nearly 20 years ago - worked out I'd need to earn £50k to make it even slightly worthwhile and given dh travelled a lot on business and I didn't enjoy my job - that didn't make much sense. So I didn't work for a long, long time - couldn't think about what I wanted to do and I wanted to be there for the kids - dh and I played to our strengths and our goals - as stereotypical as it was it suited us both.
Then dh left his job and set up a new business - I wanted to get involved so I started helping out with the odd thing and soon I was picking up more and more responsibility - I really enjoy it and the boss is great - he genuinely is brilliant to work for and we get to choose a team who are also genuinely brilliant to work with.
No regrets on how I did it - while all my friends are getting ready to retire I'm having my second wind and very much feel energized by it.

We're both very high earners but he earns around double what I do. I work four days in a very full on job. We'd both like to retire early.

We spend good family time at the weekends and I just couldn't have done the SAHM mum thing. I'd suck at it. Having said that it seems more tempting now the kids are both at school.

@DrHWeasley

Earn more than him 🤣

Yup me three

DH is an architect and owns a large and successful firm.

I out earn him ten-fold.

Fortunately the fact he is a high earner has never given him the impression that I should pick up the slack.

Also a high earner, although my income has been stagnant since DC where as his has tripled
I have huge flexibility with my job and am have very little desire to work any more than I do

I’m a SAHM, I have a six and three year old, when they both go to school I’m planning on doing some volunteer work so it can work with the children’s school hours and holidays.

Irritating gender bias in the OP aside, surely the family dynamic is worked around practical issues rather than earnings? One partner could have an easy commute, or work from home, for example, and therefore it makes sense for them to do the nursery runs or start cooking dinner whilst the other is travelling home. So the person who earns more could possibly be doing more in the home as well.

I stayed home so he could focus on his job, worked well for both of us as I had time for my hobby ( horses ) & he didn't have to worry about anything other than his job.

Another "earn more than him" answer. We both work full time. Pre-COVID I travelled a fair bit too. It's a juggle but we manage, with the assistance of some very expensive childcare.

Full-time but with lots of flexibility for drop offs and pick ups. Agree with the poster up thread who said what my husband earns has no bearing on my own career.
He could lose his job for starters…
I could be a SAHM but don’t want to be. I don’t find my life stressful but I am incredibly organised

I took early retirement and live a life full of dog walks, voluntary work and lovely lunches while he works his ass off. He could retire but he is a bit of a workaholic and is choosing to keep working.

I work 20 hours per week in a job I mostly enjoy, which pays the bills. His wage is our money, we have always put our wages into a joint account Our lifestyle has grown with .our income. We are both happy with the way things work, which is the main thing, isnt it?

I also earn more than DH 🤣

Practically speaking we had a few years where I was bobbling around about the same due to maternity leaves and

I am a SAHP. I always knew If I ever decided to have children I wanted to be at home for the younger years of my child's life, so that what I've done. I love it and wouldn't change it for anything p,

@Teaandjam

whore?

so in your opinion SAHPs are whores?

I work 4 days per week

I “down-graded” my job prior to having DC, but am still what would be described as a higher earner by most people outside City high-fliers .

what I earn is nothing compared to what I could have earned had I not stepped down, but I work mostly from home, have a certain amount of flexibility as to my hours and very very rarely have to work at a weekend.

For me, 100% worth the sacrifice, but I’m glad I do still have a career (of sorts!)

We agreed to focus on his career after I became pregnant with our second. I then went very part-time (a few weeks a year) until we moved to a more expensive area and I went half-time.

We decided to do that to ensure we could raise our children ourselves and ensure their needs were met. We were very fortunate to be able to avoid using nurseries and compromising their care and education.
Whilst at home, I studied as well and got post-graduate qualifications and continued to get enough work practice to be able to return when they were older. I returned when the youngest reached sixth form age and am now also a high earner (but not as high).

I'm not sure juggling the competing needs of children and managing a household is less stressful, to be honest. Its different.

[quote ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba]@Teaandjam

whore?

so in your opinion SAHPs are whores?[/quote]
The poster didn’t even say they had kids. Calm yourself down. They clearly didn’t say that.

I also outearn him. His job has no bearing on what I do apart from the fact that he's a teacher so no flex on drop off / pick up. On the plus side holiday childcare isn't an issue.

Part-time, bringing home about 20% of our combined income.

@RedPandaFluff

Irritating gender bias in the OP aside, surely the family dynamic is worked around practical issues rather than earnings? One partner could have an easy commute, or work from home, for example, and therefore it makes sense for them to do the nursery runs or start cooking dinner whilst the other is travelling home. So the person who earns more could possibly be doing more in the home as well.

Yes, this. I earn only marginally less than DH but I work 4 days a week and have stable hours so I do childcare drop-off etc. I enjoy having a day of fun a week just me and our preschooler. When she's at school I'll go ft and will outearn DH by about 20k, but will still do the bulk of the child related stuff. (He does a lot of cleaning and batch cooking so we do have a pretty even home workload mind you)

Director of Dh business I do around 2 hours of admin a week and look after our dd with another one due in October I've always been a sahm it just works out better for us.

SAHM

Will be going back to work once we've finished having babies, just part time.