How to get over it if your wife or girlfriend earns more than you do

I considered writing a “How to help your husband or boyfriend cope with you earning more than he does”, but that puts the onus on the woman to make amends for her success and good fortune. Which is ridiculous. So instead, I’m addressing this post to men in relationships with women who earn more than they earn.

Consider how silly it is to worry about this. We live in an economy where two incomes are necessary to keep a family in good financial health. Even if you don’t indulge in every toy and luxury out there, necessities like housing and near-necessities like college for the kids are far more expensive than they were for your parents. You should be thrilled the money’s coming in, not upset over who’s earning more.

Consider the quality of the people telling you to feel embarrassed about this. In my experience, the sort of people who try to shame men about earning less than their female partners are the sort of people who need a laugh-track to know when something’s funny. Dim-witted people who can’t think for themselves and borrow their ideas pre-digested from others are not the opinion-holders you should concern yourself with pleasing.

The idea that men should support women was bad for women and men. Just a few decades ago, women pretty much had to rely on men to pay their way. This may sound great to you, but you’re forgetting that a lot of men weren’t very good at keeping employed and/or liked to control women via their finances and some woman still had to marry them because they couldn’t just say, “Screw this, I’m going to become a lawyer” because they couldn’t attend law school, let alone expect to be employed. Meanwhile, men were expected to work outside the home even if they weren’t particularly ambitious, weren’t able-bodied, or would have been better at staying at home with the kids (a lot of men are). This old system was unfair to everybody. So relax and be glad times have changed.

You’re afraid your spouse is going to use money to control you. Now, this – unlike the other fears – is a legitimate concern. If your female partner is constantly using her higher income to make you feel bad or get you to acquiesce to her in decisions, that’s not right (anymore than it was when husbands did it) and you should discuss it with her. But if you’re just experiencing a generalized feeling that she could do those things because you’re freaked out by the idea of her earning more than you, then you need to reconsider your ideas about how things work. Salaries are a little bit random. Certain industries just don’t pay more than a certain amount. Others pay very well for fewer hours, but you need six figures to get the necessary degrees, which you/your parents may not have been able to afford. Neither earning more nor less than your partner makes you a good or bad person.

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Posted in Personal Development on January 22, 2008