Wives as Breadwinners Resent Husbands
Here's some bad news for wives with high-paying gigs: A survey conducted by women's website BettyConfidential.com found that "most women in this role are simultaneously proud of themselves and resentful of their husbands."
The site's editor, Nicole Christie, notes that women who rake in more money than their husbands find it a blessing and a curse—causing "a gap between husband and wife that's difficult to bridge."
One woman, a 43-year-old investment banker, had this to say in the release:
"I have financial independence that my mother never had," she says. "But I do resent my husband because there are so many household chores, community events, and school events that the 'woman of the house' is expected to do." She finds it helpful that her husband works full-time as opposed to staying home, yet says workmen at the house won't discuss repairs with her and that financial consultants defer to her husband, assuming he is the breadwinner and household decision-maker.
The issue of female breadwinners and stay-at-home dads has recently gotten heated airtime at Penelope Trunk's blog. Rebel Dad, a site for stay-at-home dads, was featured on NBC's "Today Show" last month.
One problem with this brouhaha is that it masks how very common female primary breadwinners are. A few years ago, researchers at St. Louis University looked at Census Bureau data between 1996 and 2000 and found that as many as 20 percent of women earned more than their husbands. A BLS report showed the figure reached about 25 percent in families where both partners were working in 2003.
Last year, a professor at Queens College in New York found that full-time working women in their 20s in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Minneapolis earned more than men of the same age range.
Tags: careers | money | relationships | working women | marriage
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Reader Comments
Misleading title
I found the conclusions drawn here to be misleading. It seems that the implication is that high-earning women can never be happy with lower-earning spouses... but what it seems to me that the REAL problems are two issues: 1) That when women are working, men fail to take on their full share of the day-to-day tasks required to run one's life, and 2) That as a society we still operate under assumptions that women don't "understand" money -- apparently not even when the woman in question is an investment banker!
Bottom line, women can't do it all by themselves. Marriage is supposed to be an equal partnership, not a division of labor (where the woman does everything!). The modern woman changed long ago, but the modern man needs to catch up.
a nightmare
I am recently remarried and my new Canadian husband cannot legally work. We discussed the issue before he made it to the US and he was not worrried because he said he had plenty of money in trust and did not have to. Well now that he. Is here I am struggling to keep the lights on and trying t o figure how to keep my home. It has been terribl as my husband said all him money is gone. Now I feel like he was not honesyt and I have a sick feeling everyday. I am now supporting my daughter and my new broke husband. The major part is his dishonesty and I have lost a lot of trust in him. Our future is a blank and ewvrything is left for me to decide. Not only do I have to work my ass of but I have to make all decisions for everything. I don't feel like he is may husband ...more like a 13 year old son.
RJ, you didn't read
The woman's problem in the article isn't that he makes less. It's that he still isn't getting off his a$$ to do his fair share of the chores and people still don't respect her because she's a woman.
It probably wouldn't even be an issue if he did his fair share or more of the chores, and if people coming to do work on her house and others actually respected her as a knowledgeable and successful person.
But, reading again your post, I suspect you are a troll.
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