When She Makes More: 10 rules for breadwinning women
A few years ago, my little brother moved his family to Seattle. His wife had received a promotion and an opportunity to work at her company’s flagship location. The offer was too good to refuse. There was just one problem: They moved before Tony could find a job.
Tony’s wife enjoyed her new position and increased salary. He pounded the pavement, looking for work. He had no luck. When he was in Portland a few months later, he stopped by my place for a beer.
“How are things going?” I asked.
“They’re OK,” he said, but he paused a moment, which told me things weren’t okay.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Well, it sucks,” he said. “It sucks to have your wife be making all the money in the family. I don’t feel like a man. I mean, I’m proud of her and everything, but I am the one who should be providing for us, not her. Ever since we moved, I haven’t felt good about myself.”
Tony isn’t alone. In roughly one-quarter of married U.S. couples, the wife earns more than her husband, up from just 6 percent in 1960. While this fact isn’t an issue in many marriages — during the time we were together, Kris almost always made more than I did and neither of us minded — for other couples, this can be a real problem.
This dynamic is the subject of a new book from Farnoosh Torabi. In When She Makes More, Torabi explores statistics, biology, and psychology to explain why relationships often suffer when the woman makes more — and how order and harmony can be restored in this new kind of relationship.
10 Rules for Better Relationships
Torabi cites a lot of research (so much research, in fact, that at times, the reading is dry) about how relationship dynamics change when the woman in a relationship makes more than the man. She also includes anecdotes to illustrate some of the pitfalls (and solutions) to common problems, such as shared housework and childcare.
Her book is structured around ten rules for managing money in a relationship in which the woman is the primary breadwinner. Her rules are:
1. Face the facts
To start, couples have to accept their situation for what it is. The wife makes more money. And because she does, risks of burnout, infidelity, and divorce are much higher than with a traditional relationship where the man is the breadwinner. To deal with the very real psychological costs, each couple must recognize the trade-offs they’re making to maintain this dynamic.
2. Rewrite the fairy tale
Torabi says that it used to be that girls grew up “dreaming of marrying a Prince Charming who could provide for them and their children.” To be happy in the modern world, women (and men) must dream of something different. As they date and marry, they have to change their expectations, and look for new ways to achieve an effective partnership.
3. Level the financial playing field
Like me, Torabi believes money management is more an emotional issue than a logical one. It’s important to establish a family financial structure that’s appropriate for your situation, one that’s fair and equitable to both partners. For some, that means joint finances. For others, that means separate finances. Financial chores should be divvied up based on each partner’s strengths.
4. Hack the hypotheticals
To make better long-term financial decisions, Torabi says women breadwinners must consider a series of “what if?” questions. Plan in advance to deal with the unexpected. Consider a prenup (or postnup) agreement. Prepare for the future, including retirement and elder care for your parents.
5. Cater to the male brain
Once you’ve leveled the financial playing field in the relationship, you need to level the emotional playing field. Don’t ignore or trivialize the psychological impact that occurs when men aren’t able to act as “providers.” Both partners should be open and honest about their feelings so that neither becomes resentful.
6. Buy yourself a wife
Like it or not, women do most of the household chores — even when they’re the primary breadwinners. This can quickly lead to resentment. Torabi suggests a couple of ways of dealing with this. First, the female breadwinner can change her expectations. If that’s not enough, establish clear roles for each partner. But often, the best solution is to hire a housekeeper.
7. Break the glass ceiling (but carry a shield)
While women balance the needs of their relationships, they mustn’t neglect their careers. “If you’re a woman making the majority of the family income, you need to create your own ‘insurance policy’,” Torabi writes. Acknowledge and embrace the double standards. Be careful to avoid burnout. Learn to compartmentalize the different aspects of your life.
8. Plan parenthood
Kids change everything. Most people realize this, of course, but many people fail to plan sufficiently for the challenges of children. Again, both partners should negotiate roles appropriate to their skill sets. And both partners need to be flexible and willing to compromise as you make it all work.
9. Grow a thicker skin
Everyone has an opinion — and many folks will criticize you for choosing a non-traditional role. Ignore everyone. Do what works for you and your relationship. If you need to, prepare script responses to common questions. Lend each other support during especially turbulent times (such as criticism from family members).
10. Remember to breathe
Finally, remember that your ultimate goal is happiness. Do what you need to obtain it. Get help when you need help. Don’t let the haters get you down. Do what’s best for your relationship.
I expected When She Makes More to be aimed at helping women level the economic playing field. It’s not. There are no tips here about how to negotiate your salary, communicate effectively, or cope with sexism in the workplace. Instead, this book is targeted at women who have already established successful careers.
“This book is not about feminism,” Torabi writes in the introduction. And it’s not. She’s not trying to push an agenda. Her goal is to provide pragmatic and practical info for couples who find themselves struggling with a specific situation. I think she succeeds. This will be a valuable book for many people.
A Brave New World
Over and over, Torabi stresses the importance of “making it all work.” Framing it like this instead of “doing it all” or “having it all” makes sense. I have some friends who exemplify this notion.
My good friend Mac (with whom I used to write Get Fit Slowly) is a stay-at-home dad. A decade ago, he was a high school science teacher and a baseball coach. After his wife finished medical school, she took a job as a pathologist at a local lab. She earned more in one year than he did in five. When they had children, the choice was easy: He elected to become a stay-at-home dad.
Yesterday, I asked Mac how he felt about Pam being the family breadwinner. “I’m fine with it,” he said. “It works for us and always has.”
But Mac says the reason it works has more to do with their personalities than anything else. “I’m laid back,” he said. “I don’t get jealous of other people. And especially not of my wife for making more money than me!”
Plus, he and his wife have taken turns with the role. During the years she was in medical school, Mac was the primary breadwinner. She plans to retire early, and when she does, Mac will probably resume working.
“You have to remember that we planned this,” Mac said. “We knew we wanted one of us to stay at home with the kids. It would have been stupid for me to have kept working instead of Pam.”
One final note: I think this book can be helpful for other couples too, not just those in which the woman earns more. For instance, after two years together, Kim and I have started exploring the world of shared finances. Who pays for what? How often? Do we share any accounts? How do we budget for a shared future? Reading When She Makes More helped me recognize that some of what I’d been asking for tilted the balance of power in the relationship too far in one direction.
Footnote: In semi-related reading, Brett at The Art of Manliness recently published a thoughtful article called “Why Are We So Conflicted Manhood in the Modern Age?” If you’re interested in gender differences, this is a worthwhile read.
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There are 144 comments to "When She Makes More: 10 rules for breadwinning women".
This post makes some interesting points, but it saddens me that books and articles like this are even needed. (And don’t get me started on the language in title — “rules for breadwinning women”? They aren’t unruly children who need to be controlled.)
IMHO, there’s just one rule: “let go of your egos and work together towards your family/financial goals.”
End rant 😉
ITA. It’s not the women who need the rules. They aren’t the ones with the issue.
I’d like to see a book for men titled “She Makes More, Get Over It.”
Seriously. It’s not actually the case that every time there’s a gender difference/conflict, it’s because there’s something weird (and therefore wrong) about women.
Vanessa (and Johanna and others). This book makes it abundantly clear that it’s not just men “with the issues”. When women earn more, the women have issues too. Torabi goes into this quite a bit, covering thoughts of “Why do I even need a man?”, infidelity, divorce, and more.
I agree with Beth. There should just be one rule: “Let go of your egos and work together towards your family/financial goals.”
Maybe I just need to read the book, but why is not needing a man an “issue”?
Maybe this is an unusual perspective, but I’d rather my partner and I be together because we both WANT to be, not because either of us NEEDS the other (i.e., has no other options).
????
Seriously?
If you’re married (or in a committed relationship) and you decide you don’t need your partner and should just leave (or that it’s okay to cheat on him), that’s not an issue?
Look, neither Torabi nor I are saying that every time there’s an “issue” with gender differences that it’s the fault of the woman. You’re putting words in our mouths.
What we’re saying is that problems do arise, and regardless of who has the “issue”, we need to be aware of these problems and solve them in a reasonable matter. Ignoring the problem and placing blame aren’t productive responses. She’s trying to deal with an existing phenomenon, one that many couple struggle with. It’s complex, and there’s no one one cause and no one right answer.
Uh, yeah. Seriously. Cheating is obviously not OK, but if anyone is in a relationship that’s making them miserable, they should be free to leave. Or, if they don’t want to enter into a relationship in the first place, that’s also an option. I’m not sure I understand why that’s so shocking.
Working through problems to improve an otherwise good relationship is all well and good, but nobody should feel that they HAVE to do that, if what they really want to do is leave.
Maybe I’m off on this, but there are two ways to take the thought, “Why do I need a man?”
I took that statement and thought from women breadwinners as, “Why do I need a MAN?” In other words, why is a man even necessary? I was born in the 70s to two working parents and never equated a “man” to “a person to provide me with money.” Men who are married to employed women may have that same thought–but only if the man thinks a woman’s role is to birth children, clean, and cook.
I don’t need a man–but I need my dh. It has nothing to do his gender–he is my soulmate and my best friend.
OTOH, if you take “Why do I need a man?” as “Why do I need YOU?”, then yes, that would be an issue.
Until recently, I haven’t heard a woman ask that question, in terms of meaning men as a whole. But there are some women who think that way.
I agree with Johanna. I dont “need” a man. I dont “need” my spouse. I need oxygen, food, shelter and water. Im with my spouse because I want to be. I love him, respect him, like him and choose to be here. But I dont need him. And I dont ever want to be in the space that I”need” someone that way. Must be awfully limiting.
And to the other comment that suggested that not needing your spouse would lead to cheating and leaving, all I can say is huh? I’m quite happy and I dont cheat or feel the need to leave. Im not sure how those things even go togehther. Do you think that not “needing” my husband would make me take my vows less seriously or something? I dont understand the logic.
What about “She Makes More, So Pick Up the Slack”?
Sheesh – being a wife is so bad that it’s unreasonable to expect men to take on some of those duties when they shed their role as primary breadwinner?
Give me a break, guys.
JD-
I think you’re missing the point about the “needing a man issue.” It’s predicated on the idea that marriage is about financial support or security for women…and that therefore, if a woman makes her own money she no longer “needs” a man/marriage. It plays into the insecurities that some men still harbor about their wives making more money than them, and that they “should” be the breadwinners because if “she doesn’t need me to take care of her, why would she stay?”
The truth is, most modern career women don’t “need” a man to support them financially anymore whether or not they make more money than their husbands. So why is it an issue if the woman makes more? The message is “It’s fine to make plenty of money, just so long as you don’t make MORE than your husband. If you do, you need to read books and figure out a strategy for keeping your husband from feeling emasculated. If you don’t, you’ll probably end up cheating/being cheating on and getting divorced.”
When the narrative should be about how men can start separating their self-worth from their salaries.
Marriage is about so much more than financial arrangements. Women “need” (or more accurately want) a man/marriage for companionship, partnership, mutual support, love, sex, child rearing etc…
The idea there is a salary that would render all of those meaningless is ridiculous.
Yet we’re constantly reminded to coddle our menfolk and their ridiculous insecurities.
Rant over.
I agree that men need to get over any egotistical need to be the breadwinner. HOWEVER, women who make more than their husbands also need to take care that they don’t make their husbands feel inferior, like the hired help.
In talking with my boyfriend about what our financial lives would be like if we got married this is something that’s become apparent to me. I would be the breadwinner, and add to that the fact that I’ve been single for 20 years I would be prone to leaving him out of the financial decisions. I would have to be careful not to do that, and to start thinking of my income as OUR income.
So, yes, I do think that women breadwinners need some rules directed at them.
Having said all that, it’s very possible that the title was chosen because it’s eye-catching and not much thought beyond that went into it.
Ooops… I can’t edit my original comment, but I wanted to add that the point about hiring help is a really good one. When both my parents were stretched to the limits working, they hired a “wife” (house cleaner 2x a month) and a “husband” (someone to mow the lawn). My siblings and I did a lot of the cooking, grocery shopping and errands.
The extra help really took the strain off relationships.
Actually, in my case, I’m pretty sure I *am* the one with the issue, and I’m the woman.
If I’m being completely honest with myself, it bugs me that my husband doesn’t make more than I do.
He’s happy with his job, and we aren’t hurting for money, so I should theoretically be happy. But it still bugs me.
Growing up (I’m in my early 30s), I don’t think there was ever any discussion of who *should* earn more in a relationship, but my mum really pushed the idea that I should at least be financially independent. Get an education, use that education, always have a couple of months’ rent in the bank “just in case”.
But now that I’m in a situation where I earn more, I feel frustrated. I don’t think I ever mentally prepared for the fact that I might be the higher income earner and that my career decisions would impact the whole family to the extent that they do.
I figured that sure, I might have a high income… but his would still be higher.
I’m not sure that I’m alone in this. In my circle of friends (admittedly dominated by a lot of young, smart, successful, and high-earning women), a lot of us feel frustrated.
It seems as though men are getting less and less ambitious, less and less educated, less and less financially successful. I married someone with lower income potential and I’m not particularly comfortable with it; most of my friends are just avoiding marriage altogether. They can meet the vast majority of their needs on their own- why get married?
Sorry, that was supposed to be a response to Vanessa’s comment.
Maybe I am just old-fashioned, but I thought that people got married for reasons other than money. Yes, you can take care of yourself financially, but isn’t there more to marriage than that?
I also wonder about your expectation that, regardless how much money you earn, your your future spouse should make even more. What is the point then of women who fight for equal pay? Sounds as if men are damned if they do, damned if they don’t, at least in this regard.
I think that would be the very opposite of old-fashioned. Marriage has for a long time been about money, alliances, and legacy.
It’s true that if you are the primary breadwinner, it means you bear greater responsibility. Your choices at work (and what comes of them) are very important to the family unit’s well being. That may be something some women didn’t expect, not in that way. It’s pressure, for sure.
I have always been the major money earner. My husband is fine with that. Planning is more my thing. too. Also, I’m a better sharer than he is. 🙂
Kate – I’m with you but with a twist: I love my man, and he has just as much, if not more, earning potential than me even though he has less formal education. But it kills me that he doesn’t try to make more. And he could easily do a side gig or two (day job is law enforcement). On the bright side, he’s a natural parent,truth be told, he’s a better mom than I am, a great cook (does all of it) and a fair maid (also, does 95% of it). The problem: It costs us more for him to work, thanks to daycare (and low wages in state government (both our employers), than it does for him to stay home. But he loves his job and is macho so while he’s the perfect spouse, aside from income, he *can’t* be a kept man. I guess the issue is that he never worries about money (he comes from it and says we’ll be fine with inheritance from his parents whereas I don’t) but I handle all the bills, we’re always broke, and I always worry about money. Good thing he’s not a spender.
I’ve talked about this topic with a lot of my friends. Our consensus was that it doesn’t matter who makes more, it’s about pulling your own weight. Regardless if you’re a man or a woman, no one likes to be busting their buns day in and day out, only to see their partner lounging about. Nobody likes carrying around dead weight.
In my view, I don’t care if he’s the janitor or the CEO. (In fact, my husband did clean floors for a year while finishing up his degree.) If his life ambition is to make the world a cleaner place and he finds satisfaction in that, good for him. I respect that. If this is his way of hustling a side job while working towards a bigger opportunity, that’s great. As long as he is moving, as long as he has a goal and is striving toward it, then I’m happy.
But if he’s cleaning floors because he has no goals and he’s not even trying and he’s just drifting along through life, then that’s when it becomes rather disappointing. Because I’M not drifting along. I’m working darn hard over here. I have goals that I want to accomplish, and I want someone to be my partner in all that. I’m not looking for dead weight.
Both my male and female friends agree: it’s not about the money, it’s about character. You can’t expect your partner to earn millions of dollars, but you can expect your partner to do more than just drift aimlessly through life.
Kat, if I still wielded the power to mark “great comments” with a special border and color, I’d mark yours as one.
Great comment.
Great comment Kat. It’s completely about character — it doesn’t matter if you’re the man or woman in the relationship. It’s about pulling your weight no matter what combination that may be of caring for the kids, earning the bread, maintaining the home, cooking the meals. My parents raised me this way and they’ve both held combinations of all those roles while we were growing up. Granted mom was better at some things than dad and vice versa, it didn’t matter who was doing what as long as it was getting done cooperatively. I’ve asked them about this in the past and they laughed and said, “Who has time to worry about traditional gender roles when there is a family to take care of and kids to put through college?”
In the interest of fostering a bit of unity, and cheering JD up, I’ll share my experience with this. Sorry ahead of time for the long post.
For the first 6 years of my relationship with my wife I earned more. We leap frogged eachother, she’d get a raise, I’d get a raise and so on. She recently switched companies, went off contract and got a huge promotion. All in, she now makes about 20-30k more than I do.
At first I was like, sweet!! This is awesome! Now we have even more money.
I was cool with that. Then we compared healthcare plans and opted to take her off of mine. That was the last thing she “needed” me for.
I like to think I’m a modern guy and it wouldn’t bother me but it did. I felt like I wasn’t providing for her and I wasn’t a good husband. I’m not macho guy by any means but I was actually pretty depressed that day.
I told her how I felt and she said, “But you do so much for me. It wouldn’t be worth it if I didn’t have you.” A few hugs and kisses later, I felt much better and since then it hasn’t bothered me.
Now we both have a degree of security and freedom. We presently live off of her salary and save all of mine. Either one of us could quit our jobs if we wanted to. I really like my job, (financial advisor). She hates her job (data annalist) so she may quit and find something a lot more interesting. She’s currently considering some non-profit work.
Sorry for the sermon. I’ll end by saying I feel very blessed to have such an amazing wife.
@Kate,
Perhaps this is just me, but why does a woman want an ambitious man? I want a man with a good work ethic and good character, but I know SOOO many men who are ambitious and they work all.the.time. They are never home and have such a hard time leaving the office at the office.
One of the best things about being a woman is I think we can balance work and home better than men. It all goes back men putting their egos into their work, and there is a real dark side to that.
Amen.
I had a boyfriend who made FIVE times what I make, and that was ONLY his base salary. He was bright, interesting, and caring, but he was a workaholic and that’s what eventually killed our relationship. If we had married, I would have been very comfortable materially, but emotionally? I probably would have started eyeing the pool boy…
Hiring help is good advice, regardless of who the breadwinner is.
The problem here is that women are expected to work the second shift at home and men are not. This is why it’s proposed as an option here– where men may be the ones at home or with more time outside of the workplace.
…As opposed to men learning to pitch in?
Why are none of the points in this article about men changing their behaviors? It’s “cater to the male brain” and “buy yourself a wife” and so on and so forth.
The book talks extensively about how men too need to change their roles, attitudes, and behaviors. None of Torabi’s “rules” directly address this, though, because I think that she (like me) believes that people will be more successful if they have an internal locus of control. Instead of trying to change (or control) others, you’ll be more effective if you take charge by managing your own thoughts and behavior. The book isn’t about making other people do what you want; it’s about being able to do what you want.
What concerns me is that the into was about a male friend that was upset with his situation, and then the rest of the article flipped to how women need to fix it. No responsibility on the other half (you know, the one who is bothered by the dynamic). hmmmmm
Someone to clean and mow the lawn is great … but what about all the other household management chores that generally fall to women? Such as REMEMBERING to call and schedule the cleaner, NOTICING when the lawn needs mowing, plus PLANNING the meals (and grocery shopping) for the week, plus family events, plus healthcare obligations, plus pet care, plus … plus … plus ….
The life of a dual-earning couple contains a lot of invisible logistics that have traditionally been managed by women. As my career continues to outpace that of my husband’s, and as I start to realize where so much of my mental energy is spent, here’s the conclusion that I’ve come to:
IT’S NOT FAIR. Obviously, this is something for the two of us to work out in the context of our relationship, but I’m DYING for more people to call out this situation for what it is.
I agree Miriam. I make double what my husband earns. I also do 80% of the housework and all the household planning.
It seems that women have continued to manage the household (traditionally) and now finance it as well. (This is from me and my friend’s experience).
I agree. My husband doesn’t work and he also doesn’t do the housework. It has caused huge problems but he won’t budge on the issue. I shouldn’t have to hire someone to do the housework when he is perfectly capable, he just doesn’t want to!
I’m combining two answers here, but this is exactly it.
I’m bringing in more of the money, and doing most of the housework, and doing the vast majority of the planning…
Marriage (today at least) isn’t all about money, but I seem to have taken on WAY more of the responsibilities. Disproportionately so.
My suggestion to those who take on the responsibility of housework, planning, etc. while also finances?
Stop. Stop doing some of it. I understand if children are involved, that makes it much more difficult, but when you’re dealing with another adult, there’s a lot you can NOT do without damage. You may have to sacrifice some standards, but that seems a small thing compared to resentments.
From experience: As long as you continue to do all the housework – then you will be stuck doing the housework no matter how unfair you think it is. Draw a line in the sand, put your foot down, delegate, and stick with your plan. The lazy people in the house will continue being lazy as long as someone else comes along and does the work for them. I’ve had to teach my mother this concept because everyone was piling their responsibilities on her and she simply took it. She felt that if she simply complained, people would take it upon themselves to alter the situation. Not so. You had to take the lead and get the ball rolling. It has worked, but not without a lot of griping and heel-digging. It was all worth it, in the end.
In my family’s case, my siblings and I were teens when my parents were stretched to the max (one was self-employed and working 60+ hours a week and one was travelling a lot.) My siblings and I did a lot of the chores (looking after younger sibling, cooking, shopping, cleaning, looking after the pets, etc) in addition to working part time to save for college.
That little bit of help was one less stress. It wasn’t a cure-all.
Great read, thank JD.
I’ll have to say that as a man, I do enjoy providing for my family. It gives me a deep sense of satisfaction that I am allowing my wife to be a stay a home mom and raising our son. I used to be a in a different position, my now wife made more than me when we where dating. I can’t say it didn’t bother me. It’s not a gender thing for me though. I feel that it is my role in life to provide the financial security. I leave 90-95% of all decisions to my wife, all I care about is where I work and what car I drive, other than that, I am happy to have someone else choose.
Some people label this behavior as chauvinistic, fine, call it what you want. I see this as a partnership with my wife, she helps raise our son and provide a pleasant home in exchange for me working and often traveling far away for extended periods.
I am not limiting my wife, either. She just finished her doctorate (I’ve been her motivator and cheerleader) in international business, and hopefully that will lead to a part time college teaching assignment.
That’s all.
IMHO, couples should make working/stay at home arrangements that work for them. It isn’t wrong for either partner to say “I want to stay home with the kids” or “I want to work to support the family.”
I think society has a long way to go yet, but I like that both men and women have more choice. I think there’s a difference between saying “I’m a man and you’re a woman and this is what we’re supposed to do” versus “We’ve weighed the options and this is what we want to do.”
“I leave 90-95% of all decisions to my wife, all I care about is where I work and what car I drive, other than that, I am happy to have someone else choose.”
See, the thing is, making 90-95% of all decisions – i.e., keeping track of the day-to-day details of running a household – is actually a lot of work. It takes a lot of mental energy to keep track of everything that needs to be done, decide how to do it, and make sure it gets done.
I wonder if this is what it comes down to in a lot of cases. Men are raised with the expectation that once they’re in a relationship, they won’t have to worry about things like the dinner menu and the laundry schedule, so they find it overwhelming and scary when the roles get reversed. It’s not just the sheer number of hours spent toiling in the kitchen or lugging around baskets of laundry – although that’s important too.
Johanna,
I appreciate your viewpoint, and I and I do very much appreciate what my wife does, I realize that it’s not easy to do the work she does (I know, I did it for a while while she finished her doctorate and I worked full time at the same time [albeit, from home]). I’d say that my wife and I have different priorities though. I care about food on the table, she cares about “healthy” food on the table. I’d often get dinner done, but on the quick, which wasn’t necessarily what she’d approve of. I am a very simple person, if you can eat it, it’s probably ok. My wife on the other hand puts a lot of effort into meals, which I appreciate, but I personally would never do for myself.
I think this whole thing is about mutual appreciation. I am glad that my wife tries to keep the family healthy, and I think she’s glad that there is never is a question on how we are affording those trips to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods (yes, there are frugal options, but arguably, healthy food isn’t cheap in the US, I’ve lived it for 12 years now, you can say what you want, but the US is a lot more expensive when it comes to healthy options than say, Europe).
I’ve always earned more than my husband. He has been a stay-at-home dad now for 3 years while I’ve worked full time. And I am so pissed off when I see advice like this that appears to think we’re all daffy women and manly men from the 1950s.
It’s time for people clinging to traditional gender roles to realise that the world is changing fast – perhaps those traditional roles are offensive and outdated – or perhaps they simply aren’t affordable any more. Move on. If you need therapy to handle the fact that your wife isn’t dependent on you – you’re doing it wrong.
“Get over the bullying, it’s just some teasing, it’s not a big deal.” Wasn’t that how it was ten years ago?
So thanks for trivializing honest emotions many people from many different backgrounds may be facing. I’ll keep your comment in mind next time I hear some woman say they want to date a “nice guy” and then end up in bed with a “bad boy” or when some man says they want a woman with a nice personality and then chase after some “hot looking” nasty lady who treats them like dirt. Rationalization beats emotional feeling and millions of years of evolution all the time, right?
The fact is many high earning women lose respect for their husbands and may not clearly understand why while many lower earning men exist with an uneasy feeling they aren’t somehow measuring up. Blame who you want, but the emotions are real and lead to real conflicts and real issues and the first step is for people to recognize the issue and while not blowinig it out of proportion it also shouldn’t be trivialized.
I have always found it strange when I hear about men feeling vulnerable about their wives earning more. I want to say, “You have a good life, you’re not on the streets, you have your needs met. And you’re complaining? What’s wrong with this picture?” Fortunately, I have not actually met many men like this. The men in my life, whether my husband, my male relatives, or friends, are all practical and intelligent.
It’s too bad Torabi has to defensively proclaim her separation from that dreaded bugaboo word “feminism.” I’m afraid I’m used to women doing this (“I’m not a feminist, but…”), but it still grates. Um, what is so frightening about calling yourself a feminist? From my point of view, if you have any intelligence at all, you’re a feminist. Period. Regardless of gender.
If you know a lot of men who earn less than their wives, I am sure a lot of men feel vulnerable about that fact. Whether they tell you that feeling is a different topic. (Frankly, I’ve never heard a man say he feels vulnerable–about anything! This doesn’t mean men don’t feel vulnerable, though)
Men are raised to be “men” and it has a distinct clear meaning to men. I don’t think the same can be said for what it means to be a “woman.” I rarely ever hear the insult that a woman is not a “woman,” but it’s thrown around a lot for men. Being responsible and a provider is a part of that definition.
IMO, it’s OK and understandable for men (or anybody) to feel vulnerable about this. If I was a stay-at-home mom, I would feel vulnerable that all of my income was dependent on my dh.
Back in the 70s, my father took early retirement so my mother could pursue a Ph.D. program and develop her career after being a trailing wife for 25 years. My brother-in-law gave up a tenured professorship to move across the country when my sister got an offer that was exciting and financially rewarding. Another brother-in-law was a stay-at-home dad for three years until the kids were all school-age. He loved it. I’m sure it was hard for my brother-in-law to give up his tenured position, and he did sacrifice (the economy collapsed, and he never found another tenured job), but in all three cases their wives had paid their dues on the household front and the men were mature enough to realize it was their turn.
My husband is very open about his vulnerability.
My wife took a job about 3 years ago resulting in her earning about 10-15% more than I do (depending on whther she earns the quarterly bonus). She also works roughly 50% more hours. her paycheck is nice; it’s the complaints when I am enjoying my weekend and she is plowing through a stack of reports and performance evaluations I could do without.
Dude! Maybe she’d complain less if you made her a sammich. Seriously.
OMG, thank you El Nerdo.
I’ve outearned my husband for a decade now, to varying degrees – twice as much, three times as much, now six times as much. (It will go down to twice as much next year, when he gets a different job.) Honestly, I bridle at the idea of there being “rules” for breadwinning wives. He and I have equal responsibilities to ourselves, to one another, and to our children. It’s both of our responsibility to be able to support our kids. If we want a certain lifestyle, it’s incumbent upon each of us to be able to pay for it. My sister and I have always taken it for granted that we would have to work to support ourselves and our families.
Our marriage isn’t problem-free – I don’t think anyone’s is – but any problems we do have are completely unrelated to who makes what money. Our paychecks are completely fungible, everything goes into one pot, and there is no delineation between “his” money or “my” money. When one of us gets a raise, there are high-fives and Champagne. When we moved for my job and it took him a while to find work, we cut back. He has a career – a calling, really – that he loves that is unfortunately not terribly well-paid; I have a career that I love that, fortunately, is. We’re lucky to have each other.
My wife’s salary passed mine up perhaps a dozen years ago. It’s never really been an issue. We both have worked hard to support our family and lifestyle, and we share in the big financial decisions, though she lets me deal with the details, since she doesn’t find the enjoyment in playing with figures that I do. If her salary ever got to be six times that of mine, like the situation described by Lizzie T above, it would just mean we could slam away that much more money in savings, and retire much earlier. No conflict there.
My wife makes twice as much as I do. I do all the cooking, laundry, lawncare, and housework. We’re not tied into our gender roles and see ourselves more as a team just trying to get things done; we’re making it work.
I think the problems arise for men when their wives or partners don’t make them feel appreciated, don’t respect them, and in subtle or not so subtle ways, make it clear that they don’t really need them. You have no idea how important this is psychologically to a man. I suppose ‘breadwinning’ was traditionally how men fulfilled that need, but it’s true that that model is beginning to fall by the wayside, and men are not sure how to go about putting something in its place.
Even though I make less, my wife provides words of affirmation–not to ‘stoke my ego,’ but to let me know she values everything I do for our family, that I provide in other ways, and that she really does need me and loves me. This goes a long way, and i appreciate it as well. It also helps to keep resentment at bay.
Any other men care to comment? I don’t want our voice to get lost in the crowd.
Indeed. My wife and I have joint finances and share all the work in the household. We’re a team. Some times she makes more, some times I make more, some times we make the money together, and we may have our areas of specialization, but we’re here for each other and we both put our shoulders to the wheel. It’s about cooperation, not competition.
Totally agree with you. It’s important for couples to appreciate and encourage each other, period. This applies to both men and women. Oftentimes, if someone doesn’t get the appreciation they want at home, that’s when they start looking elsewhere for that type of attention.
It’s when we feel unappreciated, especially for the menial or daily tasks we do that usually go unnoticed–that’s when resentment can start to build. Even if it’s my responsibility to drag myself out of bed every morning at 6am for work, I still appreciate it when my husband says “good job being a trooper this morning.” Likewise, even though he’s usually the one who sweeps the garage, he still appreciates it when I say “wow, the garage looks great.”
I think “thank you” and “good job” are some of the most important words in a relationship.
I honestly don’t know what I’d do if my wife made more than me. I’d like to think I’d be OK with it, but who knows?
I think the most likely conflict would come up if either of us had a great opportunity come up that required relocation. Who would sacrifice their career in the short term? Would it go with the higher earner? If both of us were high up on our respective career ladders, how would we deal with that?
Honestly, I bet a lot of the struggles are the same if you had two career-driven people in a marriage. Money may just be a secondary thing.
Tony sounds like he needs to deal with his insecurities.
I think it takes a strong man that is secure in who he is to appreciate and not feel threatened by a woman who makes more than him. Luckily, living in Boston, I know many women who make more than their husbands and do not have “traditional” family structures. I make a lot more than my husband and we honestly share the household chores and caring for our son equally. He has never been unsupportive and has always appreciated my ambition.
I really was annoyed with the points made within the book. It is not women making more that leads to infidelity and divorce. It is the fact that people are getting out of the house and are stressed to the max and that child care costs and societal costs are high.
I do find it difficult at time to balance work/family life but I also know I am not stay-at-home material. I think the bottom line is that women should have choices and options and today, women are attending high education at higher rates than men and will continue to earn more income and move up their career ladders. Men need to get with the program and realize that their roles have forever shifted in society.
I am happy to see more men being hands-on fathers, pushing strollers, cooking, even raising the kids while their wife works. This is how it should be. I have always hated gender stereotypes and hope my son will look to his father for guidance and grow up becoming a man that appreciates and supports his future wife and her goals and career ambitions whatever they may be.
As someone who grew up in a home in which my mom made more than my dad, and now I make more than my husband, I have to admit: I don’t get it! It just doesn’t seem that complicated to me to have the woman makes more. I can’t imagine needing an entire book about the subject!
I think I file this “problem” under the general advice, “Don’t marry a douche” and Wil Wheaton’s law (“Don’t be a dick”).
Agree with previous commenter (Louisa) that the slam on feminism is unwarranted, either by the author of the book or by J.D. Roth.
For JD to say that the book isn’t feminist and then say — it’s true, it doesn’t have an agenda is a problem for me. Of course the book has “an agenda” it’s not a feminist agenda. And like many commenters, I wish it WAS a feminist agenda. The advice would be very different than what’s here.
It bothers me that the list includes so much advice for women about how to deal with men’s feelings.
I’m not saying there aren’t relationship dynamics when the woman earns more. (I have been the top earner and have in both my adult relationships, including my marriage.) Helping couples adjust to a world without the man as provider woman as care taker gender roles is something everyone can benefit from. Feminists already challenge these roles, but it doesn’t mean it’s always easy to do so.
Whoa whoa whoa. Who slammed feminism? Not me and not Torabi. She and I both strongly support feminist ideas. Her book (and this blog) are informed by feminism. But we’re both trying to keep politics in the background because we recognize that readers of all stripes need this info, whether they agree with our political views or not.
Hi JD–
I’d say that if a couple is facing challenges because the woman earns more, what they need IS feminism.
Patti
🙂
AGREED!
I remember an example from a class my husband took in college – I think it was from The Second Shift – that illustrated that as long as the couple was in agreement about who should be the breadwinner their marriage would be OK, even if that was not the reality. That is, a marriage will be strong if the couple shares the same values regarding career and earnings – doesn’t matter if they want a male breadwinner, a female breadwinner, alternating, or irrelevant.
I haven’t had to face a “she makes more” situation in my marriage yet – my husband and I have always earned approximately the same amount of money (though precisely, he earns about 3% more than I do) – but it’s likely that we will next year. The biggest potential discrepancy between our near future incomes is that I could earn about 3x more than him for a year or two, and then the difference would shrink or he might earn more. Neither of us cares who earns more so I think we’ll be okay no matter how it shakes out (per my comment above). My husband had the example of a breadwinning mother his entire life so I don’t think he has any hang-ups there.
Even though I don’t care who earns more money in my marriage, I do care about ambition and career track. I have married an ‘equal,’ education-wise, and I don’t think that I would have married someone with considerably less education or very limited income potential. Though I haven’t read When She Makes More, I would imagine that situation causes more problems than couples who have similar ambition and education and just happen to be in career trajectories that give disparate salaries.
The language bothers me a lot here. “Buy yourself a wife”?!?! I’m completely on board with hiring a housekeeper if it helps make things easier, but using the term “buying” a second wife suggests:
1. A wife’s true job (and purpose) is to cook and clean.
2. Women can be purchased. (!)
3. Any married woman who doesn’t cook and clean to the husband’s liking is failing in her duties as a wife.
I’m disappointed that an normally intelligent blog like this would endorse a book or a viewpoint that is so demeaning to women.
I agree with the language comment. This book is addressing an unfortunate reality that is the fact that people get bent out of shape when they have expectations about who should be earning more. We may not like it but it’s true. But to say “buy a wife” or “cater to a man’s brain” no matter how tongue in cheek it’s meant to be is just reinforcing all the stereotypes/expectations people are trying to break away from. It seems like she should have known better.
I know for certain that I’ve heard women proclaim that they need a wife when they find they have too much on their plates. So, with some quick Googling I found a business, owned by a woman, called “I Need A Wife Services.” Part of her pitch includes the phrase “No one can take care of you like a wife not even a personal assistant.” To her, and to me, too, the term wife describes someone conscientious and hard-working and it is not meant to be an insult.
You can continue to let the language enrage you, or you can try to see it from the POV of the author, who supports feminist ideals as JD has made clear.
Good grief, JD!
What advice would you give to same-sex couples? I shudder at the thought!
You’re missing a pronoun there, so I don’t know how to respond to this comment.
That said, you’ve made a great point. Often when I hear discussions about gender different, I too think, “What advice would we give a same-sex couple?” Kind of removes all the baggage and makes it easier to see what’s best.
I’m not married, but my mom ALWAYS made more money than my dad. To my knowledge, this was not a big issue for either of them. I don’t think my dad ever felt like less of a man, or that my mom felt like she didn’t need my dad. This is not to say that they didn’t fight about money; they had this idyllic suburban dream and, I now know, were seriously over-leveraged in order to achieve it. But, their roles as spouses and parents didn’t really depend on who brought home the bacon.
The language in this article really bothers me. “Buy Yourself A Wife”?!?!? I’m all for hiring a housekeeper if it makes things easier, but phrasing it in such a way implies:
1. A wife’s primary duty and purpose is to cook and clean.
2. If she’s not doing so satisfactorily, she is failing at being a wife.
3. Women can be purchased.
A wife is the female half of a marriage. It’s absurd to think that because she is making more money, the marriage needs a second wife.
I’m truly disappointed to see what is usually such an intelligent blog endorse a book/viewpoint that is so damaging to women.
Yes. This language bothered me as well.
The entire article is absurd, but that use of “buying a wife” is so misogynist.
Agreed. “Buying yourself a wife” implies that the role of a wife is to do all the junk no one else wants to do – as in a servant/hired hand. Someone to dump the unsavory and undesirable responsibilities onto(cleaning the toilet). I don’t know if I agree with hiring a housekeeper in all situations. If you live with someone lazy – this is just shelling out money to enable their behavior even further.
All in all, if a man (or woman) is insecure – they need to do the work to resolve that. My parents have a marriage with a lot of insecurity and no amount of effort on the wife’s part eases the insecurity on the husband’s part and vice versa. Treat the problem, not the symptom. Seek a counselor and resolve the problems that are creating cracks in your marriage.
Nice problem to have! 🙂
This book must be geared towards people middle-aged and up because the idea that couples should need a book of advice when the woman makes more money is laughable.
Most young women are not growing up with a “Prince Charming” fantasy anymore. And it’s quite obvious that this book “isn’t about femninism” because the idea of “buying a wife” is ridiculously offensive. Household chores are a reality for any adult, male or female. Maybe once upon a time they were divided by gender but most young women today certainly don’t believe that housework is solely their domain.
This book sounds like it would be laughably old fashioned if it weren’t so offensive.
An older target audience was the general vibe I got too, in terms of the timeliness of the book. Think of the number of middle aged men that lost jobs and couldn’t get jobs of similar stature or pay (or any jobs) in the last recession. Hasn’t it been called a man-cession for the fact that most of the recovery went toward women more than men?
That probably changed dynamics in many relationships – relationships that might have been set in their ways for 20+ years (as is the case of my own parents who experienced their own man-cession). I think that’s the type of people that actually need tips (hell, they might need counseling, too… but the book is much cheaper), rather than the younger folks like Mr PoP and I who have been on all ends of the earnings see-saw in our relationship and a change in who is earning more from one year to the next is barely worth a passing mention at tax time.
I do not believe it is my domain, but unfortunately, I am the only one that will do it.
Yeah – while this article is great and gives great tips for a legitimate problem, in an ideal world there wouldn’t be books like this because we wouldn’t need them. The pressures of masculinity can be very problematic.
This discussion has been on my mind all morning. I’m frustrated by some of the responses to this review. Why? I’ll tell you.
For one, there’s the response — explicit and implied — that Torabi and I don’t support feminist ideals. This is nonsense, as anyone familiar with our respective bodies of work will attest. We both support strong women and gender equality.
But that doesn’t mean that either of us are willing to ignore real-world realities. We can’t write personal finance advice for some idealized future in which there are no differences between men and women. These differences exist, on both mental and physical levels, and they’ll continue to exist until humans become androgynous, asexual beings.
Rather than deny these differences, I believe it makes more sense to talk about practical ways to work with them by playing to each gender’s strengths. Why focus on the weaknesses? Let’s talk about what we’re each good at.
And rather than deny that certain problems exist, let’s confront them and find solutions. In this case, in about a quarter of American couples, the woman earns more than the man. That itself is not the problem. What is a problem is that members of both sexes can experience psychological and emotional stress because of this situation. You don’t experience it in your relationship? Great. You don’t think anyone should experience it? Also great — but unfortunately, not reality.
Torabi has conducted a lot of research and talked with a lot of couples in an effort to discover what works and what doesn’t. Maybe some of her suggestions sound sexist. I guarantee you that’s not her intent. Her intent is to share what works so that men and women can enjoy lasting, loving relationships.
To become offended because she states up front that the book is not about feminism is to miss the point. If you and your partner are strong feminists, then perhaps you don’t need this book. (Although I’d suggest that perhaps you do. Many of Torabi’s anecdotes come from couples with very liberal ideals who discover that their political ideology crumbles in the face of reality.)
This book is targeted at people like my brother Tony, whom I mention in the start of the review. This book is meant to help people like him and his wife navigate rough waters. They’re not feminists, not by any stretch of the imagination. If Torabi were to overtly push a feminist agenda in addressing this issue, she’d not only be ignoring what works in the real world, but she’d also alienate her target audience.
This issue — and most gender issues, to be honest — shouldn’t be about blaming men or blaming women. (Elissa’s comment in #52 makes me so tense. The pressures of femininity can be very problematic too.) Instead, it should be about achieving desired outcomes. I think some of the comments here from people (both men and women) who have actually experienced this situation are enlightening. They show that there are issues that need to be dealt with, even if we wish there weren’t.
I agree that we need to address the issues of the real world and not the ideal one. It’s true that not everyone is a feminist and that marriages can have real trouble if there’s a sudden shift in who is earning more money- especially if the shift goes against cultural norms. The sentiment behind that is appreciated, but I maintain that the author’s way of addressing the problem is damaging and demeaning to women.
Instead of “buy yourself a wife” how about “find unconventional ways to resolve common tension spots”? Instead of “cater to the male brain” how about “don’t trivialize your spouse’s emotions”? (Or are the husband’s feelings more valid?)
The language used IS anti-feminist.
That is my problem too. This book may have some great concrete advice but the language used immediately leads me to the conclusion that the author believes that it is up the woman in the relationship to ease the transition in gender roles.
The language is where I fell down too, starting with the title. I noticed that the title was “rules for breadwinning women” but the actual advice was “rules for better relationships” — the latter indicating the give-and-take of a relationship while the former implied behaviour modification for the woman.
I think the issue is important worth talking about, but the language geek in me wonders how much the word choice is polarizing people. I wondered if the language was meant to be inflammatory — why “buy a wife” rather than “hire help”?
I also wonder if couples who are homosexual experience similar issues. Who are the “married couples” in the research? (If I’m not mistaken, people who are homosexual are not allowed to marry in some U.S. states.)
Hi JD,
I think the challenges to this post about the book and feminism are more nuanced that you are allowing here.
For instance, I don’t doubt your personal commitment to equality. I have been reading GRS since about 2008 and your work in other areas– you write honestly about your relationships. I am not questioning whether or not *you* care about equality by raising these challenges.
Those of us who are addressing the issues with the book are not denying differences or pretending they don’t exist as you state above. I acknowledge the issue exists and is a problem for some people where the woman earns more. I am challenging the framing of the advice.
You are stating that the author’s suggestions (even if they might be sexist) are based on what works. I have no reason to doubt that the work is well researched. What I do question is her framing of the advice, at least as it’s written in the blog post. Many people have pointed out that buying a wife is not helpful, while buying cleaning services or other household help is. Why does the author choose this language? IS it required to be palatable to a general audience?
I think that the audience of the book, like Tony, can handle the advice framed with ideas about equality. That is, helping people see that there are times when women make more money, challenges the ideas that you had when you were growing up, but the world has changed, does not need to be threatening. In fact, we should really set the bar for the general public SO MUCH HIGHER.
JD, I think you inadvertently highlighted the biggest problem with your post when, in your comment defending it, you said that we need to play to “the strengths of both genders.”
Genders don’t have strengths or weakness, not even statistically. PEOPLE have strengths and weaknesses. Many people who are in marriages where the woman out-earns the man ARE playing to their personal strengths — as the comments have made obvious, there are plenty of men out there who are awesome at managing a household and a family, or even are awesome at something career-wise that just doesn’t make a ton of money. It seems like by and large those folks are just fine. The folks who have trouble seem to be the people who either have a problem handling the difference between their reality and their expectations or whose life doesn’t play to their strengths. Their problems are totally legitimate and worth talking about. Where you go off-track is assuming that their problems are about the income imbalance and that they apply to everyone where a woman out-earns the man she’s involved with.
It’s funny, because I earn fundamentally all the income in our marriage — three years ago my job took us out of the country, and my husband can’t work here for visa reasons – I actually agree with quite a few of your suggestions. Our home life got a TON better when we hired a gardener and a housekeeper, and we’ve definitely had to work through our own challenges with other people’s opinions. I also have to manage my career a lot more carefully and directly than I would otherwise. But boy-howdy… if you and the author are trying to get market share from folks like me, you really chose the wrong way to present the information. The fairly explicit statement that there was something wrong with the way we’ve organized our life makes me not only uninterested in the book, but likely to give it a negative recommendation to my friends.
Anne +100 on this comment:
“JD, I think you inadvertently highlighted the biggest problem with your post when, in your comment defending it, you said that we need to play to “the strengths of both genders.”
Genders don’t have strengths or weakness, not even statistically. PEOPLE have strengths and weaknesses”
This also bothered me: “They’re not feminists, not by any stretch of the imagination. If Torabi were to overtly push a feminist agenda in addressing this issue, she’d not only be ignoring what works in the real world, but she’d also alienate her target audience”
JD, what, exactly, are you, your brother and his wife defining as a feminist that is so offensive or potentially alienating? Last time I checked:
Feminism = Belief that genders are equal.
What’s so hard about that? PS that means that feminism doesn’t pre-determine a “man’s role” either.
Marcella, if you think I find feminism and feminists offensive and potentially alienating, you haven’t read a thing I’ve written. This comment goes to exactly why I find so many of the comments on this article so very frustrating. A group of you is putting words in my mouth, words I’ve neither written nor believe.
Also, I happen to believe that Anne is wrong that genders don’t have strengths and weaknesses. Are you trying to tell me that you don’t believe women, as a group, don’t possess different qualities than men, as a group? And that some of the qualities in each group aren’t strength and some aren’t weaknesses? Yes, I understand that groups comprise individuals. But groups also possess characteristics, statistical and otherwise.
I think, J.D., that there is are as many differences within a group as there are between groups — and therein lies the difficulty.
I do agree that women as whole have certain qualities — we can bear pain far better, for instance — but the danger with saying that “women have these qualities” and “men have these qualities” is that it can reinforce stereotypes and overlook the experiences of individuals.
For example, women are seen as being more nurturing so people make fun of a man who is nurturing for being effeminate, and a woman who isn’t nurturing is seen as is unwomanly. Same with being tough. It’s expected of a man, but a woman who is “tough” (especially in the boardroom”) is alternately praised and dissed for being “masculine”.
I have seen some research that suggests women invest differently and they run companies differently — and those different approaches are assets. There are efforts to get more women into STEM careers, and I do think that’s a positive step.
But I will never buy pink lego. The regular kind worked for me when I was a kid 😉
“This comment goes to exactly why I find so many of the comments on this article so very frustrating. A group of you is putting words in my mouth, words I’ve neither written nor believe.”
JD, here’s an alternative perspective. You could view all this feedback as helpful and generous, and be grateful for it, rather than reacting with a tone of irritation and defensiveness. Who knows, maybe it’ll generate a best-selling sequel. You (and Torabi) are responsible for the language and concepts you use. If we don’t understand you, then maybe you weren’t clear enough. Maybe for future readers, you need to go back into the editing process and rewrite it.
You just made me roll my eyes, Most of comments today are rather ironic given the content of the post.
JD, I understand your frustration, but I think you’re being tone deaf here. I know that GRS tries to be as politics-free as possible, and I think that’s helped the community have some really interesting discussions. However, I think there’s a difference between knee-jerk politics, which DOES shut down discussions, and exploring the history of gender roles and how they have changed over the last century, which can be immensely helpful. I feel like what you’re perceiving is the former, and what people are for the most part talking about is the latter. This is a very contentious area, and simply declaring oneself free from politics does not make the politics go away.
We have all these leftover expectations for how we fit into the world, most of them inherited. I guess I’m just not sure who IS the target audience here…people who are experiencing stress because of outdated gender expectations but who are too sensitive to handle the idea that it doesn’t have to be this way? I mean, sure, that’s a definite segment of the population, but “hiring a wife” is just a stopgap. The dismissal of feminism, for me, just seems like ridiculous pandering to a group that probably actually needs the basic ideas of feminism more than anyone.
From my perspective, many of the comments here have been knee-jerk political and have ignored the history of gender roles in our society. It’s precisely because of that history that Torabi disavows feminism in her intro. Can’t you see why that strategy is important for reaching an audience that, for whatever reason, finds the feminist movement negative?
If Torabi were to have declared, “This book is based on feminist principles, etc.” she would have alienated a large portion of the population that needs to read this.
Just the other day, I was interviewed by a fellow who asked me about my favorite books. I mentioned Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. “Huh,” he said. “I’ve never read it. It’s…” And he paused.
“Too religious?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” he said.
“I understand,” I said. “But when I read it, I just ignored the Bible verses. If I’d let those stop me, I might not ever have got out of debt.”
Ramsey’s overt Christian message has prevented him from reaching a lot of folks who need his message. And if Torabi were to proudly proclaim that she’s a feminist, she’d alienate a lot of folks who need to hear her message.
Torabi doesn’t have to “proudly proclaim” she’s a feminist. But there’s no need for her to carefully distance herself from it, either. She (and you) are the ones who brought up the issue, after all. Why say what you’re not? It sounds defensive and raises the shackles of many, as is obvious in this dialogue.
The problem is that for many feminisim = feminnazism because too many self-proclaimed feminists think that in order to raise up women you have to tear down men. And THAT, IMO, is why writing the book from an obviously feminist perspective would turn off a lot of people, women included.
(Why women? Because of the brand of feminists who criticize and ridicule women who want to wear pretty, girly things.)
As for the language – I am not turned off by the “hire a wife” phrase. For starters, I remember my mom declaring that she needed a wife because she needed someone to get the dry cleaning, do the grocery shopping, etc. And, if you’re targeting a couple who have a traditional gender role mindset but the wife makes more then that phrase will reasonate with them.
“But I work too long to do the cooking and the cleaning, and he tries to help out but he’s not good at it.”
“Maybe you should just hire a wife.”
Pause.
“Really? That would work?”
“How much time do you spend arguing about household chores? How much is it worth to you to spend quality time with your husband and have a peaceful weekend where you’re NOT doing housework?”
“Sold.”
JD, come on.
For a guy that has spent a lot of the discussion on this topic complaining that people are misunderstanding you, I can’t believe you just wrote that. What we’re saying is knee-jerk, politic reaction? Did you actually write that with a straight face?
Why not consider that we have thought long and hard about these issues. We are well aware of the gender roles and norms society places on us; we’re often on the losing end of these.
Many of us are saying that as feminists – yes, people who believe that genders are equal – we find the advice provided in the book gendered and unhelpful. We’re not saying the book as to be all “Feminism 101 – Men, you’re doing it wrong”. But you can’t proclaim you’re a feminist in one sentence, and in another say it’s a good thing that the book doesn’t simply present the idea that nobody’s role in life is defined by gender, because that would be an alienating idea.
Why not take these comments and consider that “hey, maybe these ladies have a different POV to me. Maybe I can listen and understand their perspective instead of telling them they are making knee-jerk (read: wrong)’reactions'”.
JD says “This book is targeted at people like my brother Tony, whom I mention in the start of the review.”
But, no, it isn’t. It isn’t about Tony finding ways to deal with the “issue” of his wife making more money. It isn’t about he can find ways to deal with his insecurities or his fears. It isn’t about how he can find ways to untie his self-worth from his salary. It isn’t about how he can see himself as part of a partnership where WHO makes the money is insignificant so long as you have shared goals for it.
No, this book is targeted at Tony’s wife. Teaching her how to keep her husband and his fragile ego built up so her marriage won’t fail because she had the nerve to be financially successful.
A book for Tony would be a productive solution to the problem of identity/income/self-worth for men in our culture. This book is not that.
This book perpetuates out-dated, sexist notions. Supporting the idea that women can work is not the same as supporting gender equality. This book is clearly the former, not the latter.
Thanks JD for comment #54. I have been getting frustrated with the responses as well, and couldn’t put my finger on it.
When I was dating, it seemed that the topic of money would come up on the first date only in two very specific contexts: 1. The guy made a LOT of money and was hoping that would impress me, or 2. The guy didn’t make a very high salary and was asking how much I made, hoping that I didn’t make more. Personally, I thought that discussing salary on the first or 2nd date was always a bad idea, and I was kind of weirded-out by both of these situations.
However, I did find it interesting that salary ratio was a major dating factor for at least a couple of guys — in fact, one of those guys noticeably cooled off after learning that I made more money than he did. I wasn’t making very much at the time, so I can’t even imagine how little he was making…I figured that eventually he was going to have to either change his dating criteria, start making more money, or just limit himself to dating interns.
Wow, I don’t know what to make of that.
I meant that literally, though not that I thought that he should be out chasing teenagers. It’s DC, so there’s plenty of mid-to-late 20-somethings who are doing internships while working part time at a paying job. My point is that it’s rather limiting to deliberately chose to work in very low-paying (but rewarding) field and then feel insecure when potential dates make more money than you.
I’ve had similar reactions on dates in the past. I’ve never disclosed how much I make unless it was a serious relationship, but the guy has. And it’s weird. They were so proud of making X thousand dollars per year and I just didn’t have the heart to tell them how much I make. It definitely did not impress met at all when a guy made $100,000 less than me, but he was so, so proud of it. It just boggled my mind.
I dated someone a couple years ago who really did not like that I made more money, even though we both made well over $100,000. I thought it quite silly, but he wouldn’t let me pay for a thing and that’s just not okay in my books. We are a team of equals. Thankfully my current boyfriend is on the same page. We still split meals either 50/50 or by what we ordered and we’ve been together almost a year.
I saw that type of thing, too, when I was on the online dating site. For those commenting that income and man as the breadwinner is irrelavant in this day and age I don’t see that happening. Among my close circle of friends, yes, but enough of our society is still tied into that notion that a book attempting to deliberately bust those notions is needed.
My current boyfriend also noticed that when he went on first dates it was sort of expected that he’d at least offer to pay for the entire date. He would also get the cold shoulder from women when they discovered that he still rented instead of owning a home. (And, for a place like Boston this is STUPID. We have such high housing costs and so many grad students that a thirtysomething renting isn’t at all strange.)
I’m part of Generation X. My current boyfriend was raised in a feminist household but even HE had to struggle with the fact that he won’t be a high wage earner. Similarly, I grew up watching my mom hold the family finances together but even I didn’t really think I’d make more than any potential husband. Yet, for both of us, the traditional gender roles still seeped into our minds and affected our assumptions about relationships. Obviously, we’ve got past them, but that took some active thought.
I’m from the school of ‘if he asks me out, he pays’. I also never, ever asked a guy out. If he’s interested he will ask, if not, then no. I was taught that but I also learned the hard way. I’m a late GenXer but was raised to “let men be men”.
Its a bit ironic given my mother was the one to carried the load at home but maybe that’s why she wanted something different for me as unpopular as it may be.
I was raised the same way!! Mom told me that girls do NOT call the boys… Having these different schools of thought floating around can make things funky when dating. “If I don’t offer to pay will he be miffed?” “If I offer to pay will he be insulted?”
I went with the rule the the person who asks pays. But, having those traditional dating rules in flux can lead to some awkwardness.
I think age and generation has a lot to do with it as well. My DH was raised by a Depression Era, WWII vet and he would spin in and levitate out of his grave if my DH were to ask me to “pay my share” while we were dating. ‘That’s not he he raised his son.’
Thank “hey Zeus!” I am single. I agree with what one commenter said about younger people not being as anxious about who make more than whom. Everyone is just trying to survive and if you are lucky enough to find someone who makes that goal easier (whether because they earn more, or bring something else to the table), then that is enough.
Personally I don’t need to make more than a spouse. I just am the type of person where I feel like I need to make at least enough to support myself. I think it makes a little more sense for anxiety and questions of self-worth to creep in when one person is not making ANY money and is truly counting 100% financially on someone else…but if you are making enough that you could take care of yourself and your household, then anything else should be considered bonus (no matter who is making it).
For me it’s more important that my spouse is doing a job they feel called to do and they aren’t there just to be there. I don’t like complacency…life is too short for that. As long as he truly enjoys and does the best at whatever he does and his earnings are not putting a strain on goals we both agree we want, or a strain on me. If I’m working 3 jobs to pay off our house like we both agreed we wanted to do, and he’s selling skim boards at the beach because it’s fun and he enjoys making them…we will need to have a talk at that point.
To me it’s not the amount of money that would bother me…it would be the amount of effort and if we are on the same page or not. I personally love the idea of an ebb and flow type of a deal that I’ve seen some couples do. They switch off who works part time and full time. It puts them both in eachother’s shoes.
There’s only one rule and men need to follow it: Man up and realize women are your equals.
Like J.D., I have to admit I am a little flummoxed by the turn this conversation has taken. I know there are multiple commenters making multiple comments, so I can’t necessarily claim this with absolute certainly, but it seems to me there are a lot of contradictions floating around.
On the one hand, we just want men to “get over it” and their feelings of insecurity; yet on the other, several women have freely admitted that they secretly or perhaps quite explicitly are frustrated with their lower earning spouse and his supposed lack of ambition. Turn your expectations around and admit how angry you would be with a man who criticized a woman for wanting to “just” earn whatever amount they did or wanting to “just” be a housewife. As far as I’m concerned, this is a rather crude view of employment and work that equates income with value. We should not do this to anyone.
Any man reading this stream of comments will be validated in their feelings of insecurity and leave the discussion feeling very deflated. Is that really what we want? Is that progress?
Plus haven’t we learned that no one ever really “gets over it” without much reflection, therapy or whatever else is in order? That appears to me to be the point of the book or at least J.D.’s take on it. In essence, even as a woman I leave this discussion feeling deflated, because as women we appear to expect sensitivity to issues of femininity and feminism yet don’t appear to want to give men the same courtesy. There might be centuries upon centuries of reasons for this, but it nonetheless is halting the discussion rather than moving it forward.
Thanks Jane! I try not to ever take life to seriously(Groucho Marx is one of my hero’s) so when everyone’s undees get in a bunch about something that is NOT life or death My inner Groucho comes out. Yes men and women do have physical and mental differences and we do react to outside stimuli in different ways. Why are some people flapping their arms and doing their best Jackie Gleason imitation about that? In modern society, as a man, I cant speak about my view on womenkind without the PC police getting on my case. Yet, daytime TV, print media, the Web, etc. can tell me as a man what is wrong with me. Personaly I don’t care either way what is said about me as a Man, I care about what is said about me as a Human. So as far as I can tell nobody blogging here is sitting in a mud hut, eating less than 500 calories a day, and wondering how am I going to feed and cloth myself tomorrow so I don’t see our right to bitch too much in the USA. As I will never join a club that would have a man like me for a member, I am not going to let myself get dragged into a what I consider a non starter. Cheers! P.S. Tongue firmly planted in cheek in this post! P.P.S. sorry for some of the fat fingered spellings etc. I’m in a hurry!
Yes. This. Exactly this.
Seriously? This?
“…we appear to expect sensitivity to issues of femininity and feminism yet don’t appear to want to give men the same courtesy. There might be centuries upon centuries of reasons for this, but it nonetheless is halting the discussion rather than moving it forward.”
The two things (sensitivity to feminist issues vs. masculinist issues) are not the same precisely because of the “centuries upon centuries of reasons.” History matters! It matters so much. Any group of people that have been systematically disadvantaged for centuries (as have women in the workplace) should be treated differently. Criticizing a man for “just” wanting to be a housewife has nowhere near the same tone or historical weight as criticizing a woman for the same. The same reasoning is why it is so much worse for a white person to appear in blackface than for a black person to paint their face white. History and context matter enormously. Without that as a baseline, the discussion can’t move forward at all.
Of course we need to be sympathetic to the challenges men face in this situation- as good, kind people. But to demand that the two issues are treated equally is a disservice to women and history.
As a student of history myself, I agree with you, Leslie, but I was nonetheless disturbed by the oft-touted “get over it” tenor of many of the comments, as if men’s insecurities and problems are just all in their heads and not at all related to the outside world and the expectations they face in daily life both from women and from society at large. This is especially galling when there is ample evidence that certain wives do actually look down upon their lower earning husbands. It’s clearly not just in their heads.
As women, we can’t have it both ways. We can’t excoriate men for adhering to traditional perceptions and expectations of how male/female relationships should or should not function and then simultaneously reinforce those patterns through our own comments and attitudes.
I was not suggesting that male and female issues should be treated equally as much as I was trying to point out the inconsistencies and contradictions. A history of oppression and inequality doesn’t give women in the present a free pass to engage in inconsistent or hypocritical reasoning.
In a history class, men’s and women’s struggles should absolutely not be presented as comparable, since it would indeed do a disservice to women and history. But this article was about interpersonal relationships, and in that scenario, yes, they should be considered equally. If you want to maintain a healthy relationship, the complex emotions and concerns of both parties need to be considered and given equal weight.
Thank you, Jane. Well said.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
Just because you’re part of a historically oppressed group doesn’t give you the right to categorically dump on every single member of the historically oppressive group. you’re just swapping out one form of bigotry for another.
Wow J.D.! I cant believe the s#%t storm that this thoughtful post brought up. You did right in your initial post and I don’t understand the great maelstrom that it has touched off. Everyone please take a deep breath and settle down, me thinks thou doth protest too much. J.D. and I are off the first generation where women started to really work outside of the home and speaking for myself I though many of the issues that we are talking about were hashed out 20-25 yrs. ago. I guess I’m lucky I don’t care if I don’t make the most in our household, we have separate accounts anyway, but we all pull together for the common household good. “Many hands make light work” goes the old saying and that is what I try to practice in all aspects of my life.
On a different note I would say that there is a real burr under the saddle for a lot of you dear bloggers out there. Just sit back and reread this whole article and the responses, wow. Ok flame away, I have my Nomex Underoos on so I shant get too crispy. I’m going to work in a little bit so I wont be able to respond for a couple of days, Should be interesting reading!
Thank you, J.D. for this post today. It really means a lot to me and came at the perfect time.
I have always earned more than my husband and he is wonderful around the house (sharing in the cores, etc…), and I was even fully suportive when he wanted to quit his well paying job and get a $10/hr job to fulfull some creative passions. Even though I was completely burnt out at my current job (still am and fully understand the burn-out situation in the post), I was some what resentful that I had to be more careful about changing jobs, since I am the “breadwinner” in the relationship. Even after I came down with the shingles and hair loss from stress at my job, I felt that I could not change jobs since I was being paid so well.
Last year, a job that my husband did want was offered to him, but on the condition that I go with him (we work in the same industry). It was not a company that I wanted to work for, so I turned it down. Note that my husband was doing the same job at another company, so I did not feel that it was a situation where he desperately needed to move and I was fully supporting him in getting a $10/hr job in an industry that he has a passion for.
Yesterday, I was cold called by another company, asking me to come in for an interview. Unlike the other one, it was one that I would consider and I called up my husband, excited that based on my reputation, I was being considered for a job. He did not really respond, somewhat the silent treatment, but I figured it was because he was busy. I assumed when I came home at night, it would be discussed, but he did not bring it up. This morning, we car pooled to work together, and I assumed he would bring it up, but he did not. Whenever he has new job possibilities, I help him with his resume, give him ideas for a cover letter (something I did just this week) and am excited for him.
I think he does feel emasculated by the situation and I am considering buying the book recommended in the post. He does not have a competitive personality, so it is not an issue where he feels that more people want me for a position than him. We have always discussed that when we have kids, he would quit his job and stay at home (plus, he has a more nuturing personality). Now, I am wondering how it will effect him, because I believe the financial issue has always been there, but I have overlooked it until now.
My husband is just as contemporary and forward-thinking as anyone out there, but I think it is naturally engrained in their biology of the male role provider.
I never wear make-up or high heels, but that does not mean that every once in a while I do not want to dress up, have the car door opened for me, and get flowers (which my husband does quite well)! Just as I am sure that men would like to sometimes feel like they are the one in charge and the “breadwinner.” Stereotypes came about for a reason. I am not saying that you have to follow them 24/7, or like them, but that does not mean it does not have some basis in fact.
Thank you again, J.D., this post meant a lot to me today and will probably be worth more than all of the money adive I have aquired from this blog!
I have to admit, when my husband surpassed me in earnings this year for the first time since we both started working, I had a moment of existential angst. I guess it goes both ways.
Wow!! Obviously a whole lot of smart people who read this blog must live in a bubble.
These are the opinions expressed by two people, an author and a blogger.
But to weigh in. When hubby and I got hitched I was a single mother with no degree of 2 tweens. He was a professional, but junior in his field. We made about the same salary going in to our marriage. He had more debts than I, we both owned our own homes. His worth more – bigger mortgage, mine not worth as much, but lower mortgage. We sat down for a discussion with lessons learned from previous relationships. After a balance sheet analysis we realized that we were basically had the equivalent bottom lines.
Flash forward and quickly past 10+ years of adjusting to a blended family (kids & pets) and I still make more money that my husband, but I also started work in high school and have 10 yrs experience on him. However, while we had tribulations through the first years they had more to do with blending of personalities and adjusting to a partnership.
I’ve had health issues over the past 3 years and as an earlier poster said, the food on the table may not have been what I would have cooked, but it was there. He had a horrid job for 5 years that stretched him professionally and personally prior to that and he did not complain once about the fact that the house may not have been as tidy as he likes to keep it.
Our 2 year plan is to get ourselves to a place financially where I can take a career gap. Originally, the plan was that I would retire 5-10 years before him, but we’ve decided no time like the near present. We’re both on the same page with that. Yahoo!! And in the interim we will continue to do what we do. I work 36 hours over 4 days a week with a 45-60 minute public transit commute each day. When I get home, the dog has been walked, there is something planned to eat that night and lunches are ready for the next day plus most of the laundry is done and he’s already either worked out or on his way to working out. He works a 5 day/35 hour week with a 10-15 minute commute each way. On my day off I make sure that our social calendars are coordinated, the house is reasonably clean, the laundry that I’m picky about is done and usually I make sure that I take time for my faves: yardwork in the summer and quilting the other 3/4 of the year.
His income has reached it’s maximum ramp up time….his next move/promotion will likely result in sizeable increases and mine has like reached it’s height other than COLA.
Neither of us are too concerned about who makes what amount. (Note: all of our friends and family firmly believe that he’s the wallet.) It just doesn’t matter. Much the same way I don’t think it matters much to him if I cut my hair short or leave it long. As long as you’ve got communication skills it works out in the end.
Sum total of this long-winded parable is that if you’re not honest right with your partner and yourself from the get-go it’s gonna come back to haunt you. Further to that life is everchanging, so if you’re life is evolving then you and your partner had better sit down and get your thoughts and emotions to evolve to.
Phew!!
Good article, but I take exception to the comment that the female breadwinner needs to hire a housekeeper. If the woman was a stay-at-home mom, she would be doing the housework. Why is it STILL her responsibility when a husband is staying at home? Shouldn’t he do the housework since the roles are reversed?
If the husband is staying at home, yes. But, if he works a fulltime job then expecting him to do all the housework is also unrealistic.
Ideally both should do a fair share of the housework in that situation. However, this isn’t an ideal world and there are husbands who simply won’t do the housework. Similarly, there are wives out there who feel that unless the housework is done to their exacting standards then it isn’t really done. Either of these could lead to tension, and sometimes the easiest way to get around it is to hire a housekeeper.
Feminism is the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
It makes me sigh to see it referred to as a political agenda, rather than a basic human right.
+ 20 million to this comment.
Yes. THIS. This is what I don’t think J.D. gets. Feminism is not just ‘politics’, and an author claiming their book does not espouse its principles is not going to make me think better of said book.
I think that any situation which challenges societal norms can cause stress. Although it is becoming more normal for the woman to earn more, it is still part of the traditional fairy tale to have the man bringing home the cash. I think you are right, it may help to re-write this misleading fairy tale. Ultimately, I think the key is communication. Both parties need to be honest with each other and willing to modify things as needed to make the other person more comfortable.
You have GOT to be kidding me. Is this The Onion???
I have a totally different take from this article. I’m a pathologist, wife, mother, and all that. I didn’t just find a job in a local lab after medical school. I completed a 4 year residency and 2 years of fellowship and worked my butt off to find a job at all – eventually in a different state. Then reimbursements are cut by the government, and I’m laid off. 18 months later I am now making more than my husband, but I’ll bet it’s much lower than the pathologist mentioned in the article. The way medicine is now with huge tuition, huge opportunity cost, falling reimbursements, a person needs a benefactor to pursue this career. My husband made it possible for me to become a physician.
I think….this is the consequence of Gen X. It’s rather new and requires conversation, regardless of what labeled generation we are on. I get it, it will get easier as generations establish and move away from feminism as a goal (because it’s just here), but we Gen. Xers do have some subtle hostility towards it and we have huddled over campfires with bottles of wine to try to define and amend it. The author must be a Gen Xer. Believe me, many a girl-chats about this exact topic have been had amongst mine, because mine is the perfect example of 5 educated and determined women, raised by 50’s housewives, now in the saddle– all making 6 figures. We have brought home the bacon and all secretly wished for polka dot dresses and child rearing. Well, until true rationalization sets in! Our husbands have been the stay at home dads and /or the lesser wage earners. Our conclusion….we wanted it this way. We got it. Now, shut up! Equality is just around the corner and this conversation will most certainly be mute for the Ys the Zs and whatever comes next.
I agree with you that GenX seemes to be on the edge between old-fashioned ways of thinking and being completely liberated from those ways.
I have a some friends who are my age who feel that the husband should make more, but then I have other friends my age who are completely done with that type of thinking. And I think that being raised by Boomers (or older) who might still have those notions affects how we feel about things.
For example, my mom believes in equal pay for equal work, but she thinks men should do yard work. And they should pay on dates. And women shouldn’t ask men out – that’s the man’s job. The result? I feel awkward asking a guy out on a date, even though I know it shouldn’t bee a big deal.
In my views this is Good article, but I take exception to the comment that the female breadwinner needs to hire a housekeeper. right?
I do too. Its not like cleaning up the house is a difficult thing to do. Mostly it just involves cleaning up after yourself and then some home maintenance once a week. Divide it up and you are talking 1-2 hours per person each week.
If you think you cant do that because you are working too much, then you need to either work less, or admit to yourself that you just dont want to.
Trust me, not everyone finds housecleaning an easy thing to do.
The more comments I read, the more I wonder what would happen if we stopped talking about “men” versus “women”. Whether we like it or not, money = power and control. We equate income with self-worth and the worth of others. (An engineer is “worth” more than a teacher, for example.)
The bottom line: If there’s a situation where one partner feels their contributions are worth more or less than the other, that’s something they should work through.
Beth, I feel similarly. This is an interesting subject though it does not apply to me. I’m not one of the growing statics of high earning women so even the subject can make me feel “less than” if I let it. Money will always equal strength, power, intelligence and control. If you don’t have money, there’s something wrong with you. Even many PF blogs affirms that.
Your last sentence hits the nail on the head and it should apply to both parties.
“If there’s a situation where one partner feels their contributions are worth more or less than the other, that’s something they should work through.”
So true. Feelings of inequality or inadequacy can come from either person, in any work arrangement, and you need to address them.
Nobody is immune to insecurity.
I would be delighted if my wife started earning more than I do, but since she is a public school teacher and I’m an engineer(exact scenario described in a post above), that will never happen. My wife often makes comments about how she feels she does not contribute to the family, etc, etc, etc… and I have to assure her that she does plenty. I’ve also had to have the “I need you to help with the household chores more” conversation with her. I’m pretty sure if my response to her in these situations was “get over it, and then go cook me dinner” like some of the feminazis suggest telling their alleged deadbeat husbands to do, I would be facing a verbal firing squad(and rightfully so) by most of the commenters of this article.
Men who aren’t the primary breadwinners do face plenty of societal mocking(mostly by other men, but some women too) for their role, and unfortunately, most people don’t have the internal confidence to laugh off these remarks, so they turn to their partners for reassurance that they are wanted and needed. Insensitive remarks at the wrong time could easily lead to the end of the relationship.
I don’t know why many of you look at this article like I look at someone watching TMZ, but its not that outdated or offensive.
I am definitely not the target audience, and I chuckled a little at some of the advice it gives, but it was still interesting.
Interesting topic and apparently quite controversial based on the number of comments here. Thanks for the good article.
Personally I found the day that my wife suddenly got a high paying job to be incredibly liberating. In fact, we both were offered steps up in our careers in the same week – and mine would have involved a move, while hers meant staying in place (and me still having the job I had but hated).
In the end there was no real need to debate. If I had ‘insisted’ and we have moved, any career unhappiness that she faced would land right on top of our relationship. Instead, she started making more than me, and that freed me up to think seriously about getting out of my soul sucking office job and find something else.
Now we go back and forth (I have a business/job combo). Some years she makes more, others I do. We have always split the family and home care duties (she cleans the bathroom probably 70% of the time, I cook and do dishes 60% of the time etc etc.).
Seriously, men who have an ego issue about their spouses need a reality check. That is a goddamn gift from the gods – a partner who can and does make lots of money. There is no reason outside obsolete gender role foolishness to get angsty about it – as long as you keep contributing to the best of your ability.
And women who make more – good for you. Don’t get a big head about it – life changes all the time. Work out a balance that works for your relationship and be comfortable with it. It is not possible to have both the freedom to pursue your career and interests that all people deserve, and also have a guaranteed breadwinner to ‘take care’ of you.
We have a great situation where men and women are becoming much more equal in opportunity. This is an unalloyed good thing. Our goals in a marriage or relationship should be to maximize happiness for both people, and work within the financial constraints of that goal.
I exclude the occasional deadbeat who watches tv and smokes pot all day, then expects his wife to come home and make dinner etc. Kick that douche to the curb.
Good advice! I’m a little jealous of your wife.
Most women I know who are in relationships earn much more and work more hours than their husbands/boyfriends and they also do the majority of the housework. Some are stressed out and some are happy with their partnership. To each their own, I guess. What must be especially difficult to adjust to is if both partners enter the relationship working and earning about the same and then the husband loses his job, quits his job, or his hours are greatly reduced and then he never gets back to the equal footing. Especially if he doesn’t do any housework while he’s got more time out of work. Or at least volunteer or do something useful — the thing that irks me is the sitting around doing nothing and expecting the wife to work full-time AND take care of the house while the husband is idling about.
I’ve found a very reliable litmus test for predicting which couples will have problems in this situation: if the woman is working and the man refers to his time alone with their children as “babysitting”. Sorry, buddy, but in that situation, it’s called “parenting”. Guys that do this seem to be the ones to pitch a fit when the wife surpasses them in matters of career.
I’d also love to know the dynamics of this issue when dealing with a child-free couple. Without the gender-based dependencies that pregnancy and parenting cause, would it even matter?
How about when your husband was laid off several years ago and has been under employed (20-30 hours a week) ever since, making 1/4 of what the wife is. Although he’s frustrated and embarrassed, he doesn’t try to pick up a pt retail (or other job) to help out and sporadically applies to jobs via email only, not utilizing his network (out of shame/embarrassment). He also won’t see a therapist to work thru his shame issues. Wife is tired if missing out on things because of husband not pulling his weight.
I think that everyone commenting here, needs to go watch this Portlandia episode that parodies exactly what everyone is talking about here (starts after the credits/ghost skit and continues through out the episode):
http://www.ifc.com/full-episodes/portlandia/3267235885001/sharing-finances
It is stupid that this is even an issue. Why would you ever date someone who takes your accomplishments as a personal slight or who fails to do their fair share of the chores? Those are basic minimum expectations for me. I have zero interest in someone who’s not emotionally supportive, has hangups about my career, or is childish about housework. You’re partners, you’re supposed to cheer each other on and help each other out, fer chrissake!
This book isn’t a helpful guide for dealing with this at all. If you have any insecurity about your relationship, be it gender role, monetary, or otherwise, one or both partners should be seeking counseling and working on communication to resolve those issues. It’s certainly not an easy task and no one should give the impression it is, but it’s really all that can be done to keep the relationship together and growing. The advice outlined here is advice for how a woman with an insecure partner can enable him until the whole thing implodes.
A better book:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/207590365