Since we have had so many enlightening question about the sexes lately I figured I would jump in.
How do the women rate the salary of a guy?
Is there a low point at which you would decide that you can go out with a guy cause he has no future.
Now I realize that many of the women on the board are serious professionals, who don’t care if the guy has a good job to “support” them, but would you feel wierd if the guy was supstantially less of a wage earner?
Would you get envolved with a guy who is a little below your normal cut-off system if he is really rich?
I’m really just curious. I don’t need any reassuring posts about how women don’t care about that 
for my entire sex, can only go with my personal expectations. Back in my dating days, salary wasn’t even a factor. when I married, I married a man who earned about 1/3 less than me, bothered him a lot more than me (reason # 2,308,983,381,837 we’re divorced today) Current (and for the past 14 years) SO, well, when we first started, he’d been self employed poverty victim, I was gainfully employed, we’ve gone through various stages where he earned way more than I, took me to Chicago, out for fancy dinners, etc. gotta admit I liked it. But, he’s since gone back to self employed poverty, and I’m generally treating these days.
But, bottom line, the relationship is a partnership. don’t know how others feel.
Money is really not a factor to me when it comes to relationships. I mean, I’d like for the both of us to be able to afford a roof over our heads and clothes and food, you know, just the basics, but I would not turn a man away just because he doesn’t make a lot of money.
Hubby is not employed at the moment, so that makes me the it-girl around thehouse. But given his profession, when he does work it’s for triple what I make.
Cause of friction? Not really, I worked for years while he was in school, no big deal.
Would I date a geek who had large Benjamins? How embarrasing, but maybe…
A man’s salary means nothing to me as long as I can be sure that at some point he does not become a liability to me. I know that sounds a little mercenary but I really don’t care. Other than the fact that my X husband drank to much he was also not the least bit ambitious. And blind driving ambition was not even what I was looking for in a husband. Just wanted a guy who would pull his weight financially. He has improved now that he’s older. Actually his current wife doesn’t even work. Which is also not what I would have considered ideal for myself either.
After the separation I dated a man that worked with me. His salary was better than mine. He was good to me, we had fun but there were other issues that kept the relationship from developing further, we parted ways. The next BF was nothing less than a sociopathic little parasite. He almost completely ruined my life. The man simply would not work and when he did, his money was for him to have fun with and mine was also use as he saw fit. I also dated at this time for a short while a very nice fellow. He had never been married and had the largest income of anyone I had ever dated. He was very sweet and generous. But I realized rather quickly that I would never be able to feel for him the way he wanted me to so I ended it. I could have hung in there and enjoyed the benefits of his wonderful income but I couldn’t. He was a great guy and I wasn’t willing to use him in that way.
Now I date a man that makes less money than I and has not had the foresight to accumulate much in material things. He’s definately an underachiever. He ran around and had fun for years, married very badly for awhile, and has just decided in recent years that he needs to settle down. He’s a decent, kind natured, and generous fellow. He treats me well and we genuinely like each other. I don’t plan on marrying him or living with him. I don’t plan on EVER marrying or living with a man again, so it’s nothing personal. There was a time when I thought that I’d love to be married again. It was really all I knew how to do after 17 years of marriage. But I’ve changed and as long as I am able to enjoy some kind of companionship then marriage for me just no longer seems necessary. As long as this one doesn’t start borrowing from me or becomes a liability to me then we are fine for now.
Now when I’m talking to my daughter the situation is a little different. I tell her that at 16 even though she may like boys and long for some kind of relationship with one, her priorities must stay focused on her education. I explain to her that she must continue on and develop some kind of career so that she is able to be self supporting. Love and romance can wait. Then when it is time she can choose any man she wants because she will be independent and free to love who she chooses. But I also tell her that it is always difficult in an intimate relationship to be “unequally yoked” (Biblical term I know but it often does make a lot of sense.) There are problems inherent in any relationship when your religious, educational, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds are vastly different. Love is not often enough to make up for these kinds of disparities. I tell her though that good character and shared ideals are probably the most important thing to look for in a relationship.
Needs2know
I crave stability, so for me it’s not the AMOUNT of the salary, it’s that his work in is a field that is not volatile and his ability to keep working isn’t uncertain.
That said, we have no idea what my husband is going to do once he is no longer bound by contract to his current employer, and that bugs the crap out of me. He’s qualified to do a lot, but we have no idea what he’ll end up doing or how “in demand” he’ll be in this area. Sigh. Oh well.
Well put. Mind if I borrow it? 
I made more $$ than my ex, and it definitely caused some problems. I remember being particularly mad at him when he made the decision to take a $6/hour job doing general labor at a construction site instead of using his degree in Math and teaching to get a job. I felt let down - he took the job without thinking “Can I pay the bills with this job? Can I keep up the lifestyle we jointly want to live?” He just assumed I’d pitch in more from my salary, and got mad and insisted that construction was his calling in life and he loved it and he wanted to “follow his heart” and I should be supportive.
Interestingly enough, the job he loved so much lasted exactly as long as it took me to tell him about a job opening doing software testing at my company. Software testing then became the “job of his dreams.”
After we divorced, I cared a lot more about what kind of skills & job a guy had than I did in my dating days previous to my marriage. It’s not so important to me how much $$ a guy makes, but it is important that he have a skillset and a job. It’s OK to being doing general labor at the age of 20 or 23. It’s quite another thing to be doing it at 35.
It’s more important to me that the guy be doing something that he loves. If he’s got a job that doesn’t pay a lot, but he loves it and it’s going to get him where he wants to be, then cool. I’d rather date someone poor than someone who has money but is miserable in his job ANY DAY. Of course, I’m not really in the marriage market yet, so that could change when it’s time to consider actually paying bills with someone. I’ve dated the CEO of a company and a graduate student whose net worth seemed to consist of a large jar of bus quarters in the corner of his room. Furthermore, if a rich guy told me his salary in order to impress me, I think it would be a huge turn-off.
My husband right now is a stay-at-home dad. I work, but I guarantee he works twice as hard as I do. He was a delivery driver (part-time) when we met: he went full time after he graduated college. If money mattered to me, we certainly would not be married today. What mattered was his love and his devotion. Money problems can be worked through.
And it helped that he was devastatingly handsome. 
I don’t really look at dollar figures so much as if the guy is happy doing what he is doing, if he is ambitious, has a goal for the future, at least has a plan for the future that sort of thing.
Well put. Mind if I borrow it?
I am not single, but if I think back to my single days, or forward to a day where I might be single again (god forbid!):
I, too, don’t have a specific dollar figure in mind.
What is important is that he is employed and has a sufficient income to cover his needs and his style of living.
Beyond that, it is a big bonus if he either enjoys what he’s doing for a living, or if not that he has a goal or plan for figuring out what he really wants to do.
I guess, though, that I can’t stress enough that however much he makes, that he does not live beyond his means.
As long as the two of us together can afford to live, the actual amount of his salary means next to nothing to me. What is more important is how he relates to what he does. Is he happy laying brick, or is he a miserable CEO? If he’s in an entry-level position, is he ambitious and looking to climb up the corporate ladder, or is he perfectly content to keep that no-brainer job in the mailroom for the rest of his life? Money is important, but once the basic needs are met, what becomes more important is a man who loves what he does, and who has a certain drive and ambition to succeed at it. Our monetary situation can always change in a moment with a tragedy or a windfall. What’s really important is the character underlying the career choices.
Generally, the more a guy makes the less time he has to be with the woman because he is busy making that money…eh?
Like most of the other women here, what matters to me is: can he support himself? does he have a work ethic? does he have plans for the future?
Those are so much more important that the actual amount of money a man might make.