I just snipped this part because it is really the answer to the whole thing. Marriage, especially today, is a completely equal partnership in all ways. If one person who is making the lion’s share of the money is saying or implying that they are now “more equal” than the other person, then you have broken the first rule.
That money is the property of the marriage and how it is spent should be discussed on equal terms. It goes downhill otherwise. Although msmith537 got warned (for another thread) for his comments, they are true. Do you want to control the money in your house only for your wife to be resentful to you for doing that and then see your emotional and sexual relationship suffer? If you don’t want to be single and enjoy that money, you should respect your wife and what she contributes.
Do you think “she controls the vagina” is basically saying “you should respect your wife and what she contributes”, just in a snarky way? That’s how I read your statement here.
Basically. I was focusing on the sexual aspect since, you know, it sound funnier. But it kind of applies to everything. presumably most people don’t want to make the other person miserable.
OTOH, I have no doubt that there are high powered, or even upper-medium powered men who prefer a sort of Stepford “trophy wife” who looks and acts the part, does the housework, organizes the social gatherings and doesn’t complain while the man makes his money.
My wife and I have our own individual accounts and then we have a joint account. The bills and joint expenses (going out, groceries) are paid out the joint account. We both put in like… 75%-80% of our paycheck into the joint account (there is a spreadsheet). And then we have our individual accounts for if we want to make personal purchases. No one has more say over the finances really (the spreadsheet helps - we both are involved in editing it when needed). Now there is definitely an understanding that our personal accounts can be called upon if needed. It’s a bit of a compromise because I came into the marriage with a lot more money in my personal bank account and I like buying random stuff from time to time and I didn’t want to have to ask every time and she didn’t want to feel like she was the fun police.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the finances get more and more merged as the years go on.
My husband and I work full time, but he makes about three times as much as I do. We put all our money into one account and he pays the bills and manages the money. I have carte blanche to spend as I please, but that works out well because I’m not a spender and of course I would discuss anything sizable with him anyway.
I do the lion’s share of the housework, but he does the lion’s share of the yard work. I meal plan and cook, he does dishes. He fixes things, I hold the flashlight.
Sometimes I do feel that things belong to him more than they do to me, because he paid for them, but that comes entirely from me. In his mind, it’s all our stuff.
For us, part of it is the small space and 2 small children constantly taking out all their toys to play with them.
But most of the mess in our house is due to the fact that my wife is a hoarder, descended from a family of hoarders. Like there’s no reason we can’t throw away this stack of magazines (unless she wants to recreate makeup from 2005 or read about how “Whitney Houston ready to live life!”). I routinely threaten to divorce her and take 5% of our stuff with me.
We’ve never had a problem after 42 years of marriage though I’ve made almost all of the money since I got out of grad school. We have one checking account and one set of credit cards. It helps that we are compatible about spending (we don’t) and check with the other for any large expense, even though we have enough we don’t have to.
I think the root cause of the problem when there is one is the undervaluing of the contribution of the non-working spouse, both in things they do that can be bought (like housecleaning) and things that can’t be bought, like enrichment of the kids’ upbringing and other stuff, like not leaving work early to pick up kids.
That’s just from the financial aspect. But really I wouldn’t want to be in a one-sided relationship, even if I had the power. That’s awful.
Very difficult; there are very few truly 50/50 relationships. In fact, a lot of relationships, including friendships, involve power struggles and competition on some level. It’s a question of whether the relationship is so far out of alignment that one person or the other feels taken advantage of.
Even then, I’m not sure that it follows that the income earner gets the final call.
For instance, my dad was an oil co expat, and my mother a SAM as she was unable to work in most countries we lived in. They discussed the impact on the family of every assignment, and my mother got veto rights, which she used for a proposed Saudi Arabia assignment, unhappy with the impact on her life (and that of two teen girls) that a move there would have, given the womens’ rights situation.
An extreme example perhaps, but why wouldn’t a equal partner get a say in something that affects their life so significantly? Surely it comes down to, as others have said, a mature discussion about what’s best for the family unit. If finances are impossible without a move, then that argument holds water; if it’s just that one partner wants to move, a negotiation has to happen.
Whether your believe they should or shouldn’t, the reality is that the one bringing in the income has all the economic power. In fact, the spouse only gets to enjoy the benefit of their lifestyle because of the working spouse. That needs to be respected.
The fact is that someone can go to work and work a full day only if someone else is looking after the kids, cleaning the house, and arranging all the house admin. In effect, the working spouse only gets to enjoy the benefit of their lifestyle because of the spouse that stays home. Obviously situations differ without kids involved.
You can see this highlighted when it comes to life insurance - the insurance company I used to work for would generally recommend life insurance that covered the non-working spouse for the cost of childcare and household management until any kids turned 18, else how else would the surviving spouse be able to continue their earning capacity while having to take on this role as well.
The statement also suggests that unpaid work has less economic power. Might be worth considering the impact of the 1975 Icelandic women’s strike - it seems to have less power only because we’re doing it. We stop doing it, and things quickly fall over. (I say this as a full time working parent, who still does more than her fair share!)
Analysis commissioned by the Victorian Government’s Office for Women has found that unpaid work and care in Victoria was worth $206 billion in 2017-18 , or the equivalent of half of Victoria’s total Gross State Product (GSP).[1] This captures the economic value provided by household and domestic work, caring for the ill, disabled and elderly, caring for children and volunteer work.
Sure, but the amount of money that person can earn and the lifestyle that person can lead will be different if they also have to take on household duties.
Agree. So in terms of childcare costs, at a rough $35/hr (what I used to pay for a nanny, including workcover and super) *50 hrs a week (allowing for a 40 hour working week + commuting) * 48 weeks is around $90K.
You can either choose to put the kid in childcare/hire a nanny and be out of pocket for that, or the family can decide that one parent will stay home and save this cost. It may be an invisible economic contribution, but it’s very real.
My wife and I met when we were teenagers and had exactly zero money. Not from family or jobs.
At least part of our compatiability comes from our lack of materialism. Neither of us have ever hankered after fancy cars, houses or clothes or other fripperies.
As we started to earn seperately and still lived seperately, we each kept our own money and did with it whatever we wanted. There were times when one of us was broke and we either went without or the other paid. Never any resentment or problems as I recall. Even on early dates we split bills where we could.
Then when we bought a house, moved in and married we both got pretty decent but modestly-paying jobs and at that point we drew up a sort of verbal contract. That was to the effect that our wages would forever be “our” money. The house could be bought and run on either of our wages independently so any other wage coming in was a bonus.
Practically, whilst we were both earning, we calculated how much our joint lives cost to run (mortgage,bills,food etc),took that amount and pro-rata’d it to our wages. Each then put the relevant amount into a joint account. The rest we had left we could do with as we wished but any large joint purchase (holidays etc.) we planned to save for in the same pro-rata way. Any large individual purchase was left to the trust and conscience of the individual.
It was a kind of “veil of ignorance” situation (though we weren’t familiar with the concept.) We couldn’t know at that point where the jobs would take us or what periods of unemployment would occurr so the system was set-up not knowing how or if we would individually benefit.
Fast forward and we have indeed seen massive variances with wage discrepancies, multiple redundancies, career breaks etc. The system still holds after nearly 30 years. I may be making 80% of our income now but it always was, is and will remain “our” money. I can’t imagine the stress that would come from it being otherwise. We have never…and I do mean “never”, fallen out over money issues.
Of course all of the above works because of the inherent compatiability regarding our relationship to money and stuff. Some couples wish for flashy things and material items but we always said that all we really wanted out of life was to have a couple of holidays a year, eat out without worrying about paying for it, and to be together. It has always been about “joint experiences” rather than “owning things” and that seems to work for us. There was never a power imbalance regarding money because money per se never held any power over us in the first place.
Let’s flip this around: if your wife were the one making 80% of the income nowadays, would the system still hold, especially if this had been the situation for several years and were likely to be the situation for the foreseeable future?
a) As a male, would your ego be bruised?
b) As a female, do you think would your wife resent you for not keeping up?
I ask because in my experience, I think minor discrepancies don’t seem to matter to either gender (I can’t speak to gay marriages). But I’ve noticed from life experience (both mine and others), and read, that when the male earns considerably less, it’s problematic as it tends to not align with cultural expectations.
That really depends on the people involved and maybe the exact situation. I earn a lot more than my husband does (over 40K) and have for years. Whatever problems we have aren’t due to the income disparity - but that’s also because due to different fields, I can earn my current salary working 40 hours a week. He could earn as much as or more than me - but it would require much longer hours.
And if I had ever earned enough that we could have lived the life we wanted on one income , we both would have been fine with him being a SAHP until the kids were school age.