I earn more than my wife - when we got married we were about equal, but she very much wanted to be the main caregiver to our child and currently works only part-time as a result (childcare costs make full-time work for her uneconomic for us at the moment). I fully support equal pay for equal work but situations like this are the main reason for the so-called gender pay-gap, in my view.
Exactly the same for us.
For my brothers:
Ed (married 1999), they’ve flipped multiple times, including several instances where one of them was unemployed by choice (working on unpaid things that benefitted their situation long term).
Jay (married less than a year ago), he makes more but that’s as of now; she’s looking into getting a job with better salary but specially better hours than the one she currently has.
I never got married, but my earning potential was usually higher than that of the guys I dated (I was an engineer in grad school, they made more than me at the time but several of them were unlikely to ever make more). Those who went into a rant about how “a man must always earn more than his wife” and rebuffed my disagreement never got a second date.
When we first met, he was unemployed, so I made infinitely more than him. It didn’t help that he moved back to the U.S. during the worst recession in 60 years and the collapse of publishing (he’s an editor).
Then he got a job for a nonprofit organization’s magazine. So yay! He was making money and had health insurance again!
Over the next few years, he got a promotion and small but consistent raises, while there was no position for me to be promoted to, and my firm hasn’t given raises, even cost of living in 4 years. About which…don’t start me. So now we are about even.
My wife, by a decent margin. She’s fortunate to work in science somewhere that is very generous to their employees.
I took a pay hit recently while she got another raise, so now I bring home under 2/3 what she does.
But the benefit of my job is that I can retire at 54, while she’ll have 12 years left to work at that point.
I (the guy) earn more and always have. But:
- I’m older than she is by 13 years and have been in the corporate workforce longer (I started this gig when she was still an emancipated 16 year old [criminal]).
- I have a 4 year degree and she only recently completed an online AA
- She started her career in the industry 2 positions below me in the structure
- In the past 10 years, despite having an education and seniority handicap, she has closed our pay gap from 40 to 80% of what I make because she’s fucking
brilliant and tenacious, and is positioned for another promotion placing her 2 positions over me (I haven’t moved because I would make for a poor manager). - I’m laid off effective this coming November and will be earning $0 in salary. I can walk right into a better job making about 70% my current salary, or I can
take the same job at another company for maybe a slight pay bump and all the insecurity, or I can do a career change that leads us to wealth or poverty.
So, all that to explain, Yes. Today we match that model. This time next year, probably not.
I make all the money in our marriage. (male) My wife has worked in the past when we needed the money, but now that we don’t, she pursues other interests.
In my ex-marriage there were a few years where my then-wife made more than me, by a considerable amount. It didn’t bother me, except she seemed to hold it against me. (one of many problems in that marriage). Although I paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars in the divorce, she still acted like I owe her more.
My wife makes about 2/3s more than me. As a counterpoint to Shagnasty. My wife’s “old fashioned values” make it hard for her to spend money without asking. We joke about it but it’s a little weird for both of us. She’ll call me about buying a few items of clothing, and I have to remind her she makes good money a can drop a hundred bucks on some clothes without “permission”.
Add me and mine as a third…
I am paid hourly, and my spouse is salaried. The last few years my spouse has earned more than me, but for 2017, due to the fact that I had greater hours worked, I actually earned a full $53.00 more for the year. Woo to the hoo!
This, but backwards. My wife made more than me from 2006 (a year after we started dating) until 2015, when I was a second-year attorney. I made considerably more by last year, and this year I’ll be the only one making money at all because she is taking time off to develop a writing career. It will still be at least five years and probably longer before I catch up to her in terms of Contributions to the Household; she’s paid probably 75% of the cost of our house, including the entire down payment and nearly all the incidental repair bills and such. Even after I started making more money her contributions were at least equal to mine for a while, since I was primarily paying down student loans.*
I never had a problem being “not the breadwinner,” and she didn’t have a problem being the breadwinner (except once or twice early in our marriage when a lot of house stuff went wrong and she resented being “the responsible one.”)
Nor does either of us have a problem with the fact that she’s not working now, though she occasionally worries that I think she’s Not Contributing Enough. I don’t; in fact, I spent a year talking her into quitting her job because I worried she was going to have a breakdown.
*We don’t really keep track of that stuff as such. We had a pre-nup of sorts when we married: if we break up, she gets to keep the house and the mortgage (which was solely in her name because I didn’t have any credit), regardless of how much it’s worth and/or how much we owe. I will be solely responsible for my student loans, and whatever quantifiable value my law degree has as an asset.
My Mom didn’t work when married but did start getting Social Security from early jobs. She suddenly felt a lot more comfortable buying little treats for herself (and I mean little – fabric and crafts, etc., nothing substantial) when before that she would hem and haw over every non-essential purchase decision. 
I answered “the man does”, but that has only been true for the last couple of years due to me getting a promotion. Prior to the promotion, she made more than me by a couple of thousand per year. When we first met and starting living together, I made more than her by several thousand dollars per year. Both of us are in public safety, the difference was the counties we each worked in. Once she got a job in the same county, she caught up with me and passed me within a couple of years.
It’s never caused any issues in our relationship.
When I was working we were about equal. Especially when I got yearly fixed amount raises. My husband got a raise whenever the not-for-profit he works for had enough in the budget. Towards the end I started outpacing him because my job switched to merit raises instead of across the board raises. I profited handsomely from this change.
Now I’m just a messed up drain on society, so hubby makes more.
I work and my wife stays at home and looks after the kids; so, yeah, I earn a lot more than she does. I know, I know - Patriarchy!!, but hear me out…
My wife never earned as much as I did, despite being a Cambridge graduate. While she was hard-working and conscientious when she did work, she was never ambitious and was only ever promoted once (without even asking for it). When baby #2 came along we looked at her earnings and the cost of childcare and figured, What would be the point? Pretty much her entire salary would go to nursery/pre-school (Americans: kindergarten), and she wasn’t really that fussed about her job anyway. Now - if I may paraphrase on her behalf - she likes that she is able to spend so much time with the kids, but sometimes misses daytime conversation with adults (that isn’t entirely kiddy-related). I can relate; after spending a *weekend *with the children (who are 11 months & 3 years old) I am exhausted - I couldn’t imagine doing it full time.
It may be that once the kiddies are both in (free) full-time education and that little bit less demanding she might dip her toe in the waters of paid employment once more - but it would most likely be part-time/flexible hours type deals. So, yeah, I see myself as the primary breadwinner for the next 18 years or so.
I currently earn more than my husband does. For many years we earned roughly the same amount. We have the same degrees from the same grad school and the same profession (academia, even the same field). But my current position allows me to supplement my base salary with additional responsibilities that come with a nice premium.
My husband made more for the first 11 years of our marriage. The year before we got married, during my last semester of college, we decided to let me not work until graduation so I could focus on school, and he paid all the bills. I kept meticulous track of what I “owed” so that I could eventually even things out.
In year 11 he lost his corporate job. I’d been doodling along being self-employed, but when he lost his job I ramped things up and have been the breadwinner ever since. He never really found a job that pays comparably to that one, though he did continue to work in various jobs. Now he basically brings home the health insurance and a modest paycheck, and I pay the rest of the bills. I make about 2½ times what he does, and roughly twice what he made at that corporate job.
I think I’ve more than made up for that last semester.
The issue has never been “Who makes more?”. The issue has always been “Are we - collectively - making enough?”.
Some years she has, some years I have.
-shrug- doesn’t seem to phase either of us. It’s a standing joke with us that one of us will pull out a wad of bills to pay for the pizza and the other one will sweetly say," ooooh, thank you for buying me dinner ! "
She’s the bomb.
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When I was married, she did. Part of the reason we’re no longer married is she liked to throw that fact in my face whenever we had any kind of disagreement (we actually worked similar jobs, but I was 21 and she was 27 when we got married and it was basically a matter of more experience on her side). I’m fairly certain I make a good deal more than she does now.