Manage Your Life

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Making More Money Than Your Man

What would it be like if you made more money than your husband or your boyfriend or your father? For some of you, you are already in this position. For others, what once seemed like a faraway possibility, is now closer in view.

According to a recent article in Time, 75% of the job losses during this recession have gone to men. In order to pay the bills and support the family, women are stepping in to work longer hours and, those who took time off from their career to raise children, are re-entering the workforce – many of them as business owners.

Before the recession, Sarah Janosek, a 47-year old hospice nurse and mother of three daughters in Austin, TX, brought in roughly one-third of her family's income. Once her husband lost his job as a software engineer, she became the principal breadwinner.

So what happens if the balance of earning power is tipped toward the woman? How will this change the relationship of the couple?

wife

wife


For those of us who grew up in a generation or a household where it was expected that Dad was the one responsible for bringing home the money to support the family, and Mom was the one responsible for cleaning the house and raising the kids -- the idea of the woman now being the main breadwinner can be daunting and frankly, disorienting.

One friend, who is close to earning a lot more money than she has been, revealed to me that she keeps tripping herself up because she doesn’t like the idea of making more money than her husband. When I asked her why, she told me that she didn’t want to lose respect for him.

I asked another friend her opinion on the subject, and she told me that she was afraid that her husband wouldn’t feel like “a man” if he earned less than she. “So what would this mean to you if he felt like this?” I asked. “I'm afraid I might lose him,” she replied -- sounding surprised to hear herself say this.

Could it be that some women are afraid of their own achievements because there is an old tape playing that says, “My marriage will dissolve if I make too much money.”

We often hear about Hollywood couples breaking if off not too long after the woman gains more spotlight and cash flow than the man. Hilary and Chad. Reese and Ryan. Halle and Eric… to name a few.  Whether there is any connection between the bigger earnings and the breakups is hard to prove, but word around town is that it was a factor.

back-dating-scene

back-dating-scene

I have a friend who is the CEO of her own company and is re-entering the dating scene. One day at a women’s gathering, she asked our opinion about whether she should avoid talking about her work as she goes out on dates. “Why would you do that?” I asked. She replied: “Because I don’t want him to feel intimidated.”

With this remark, it started to dawn on me that as modern and as ambitious as many of us women are, there is a lot of old belief system knocking around and perhaps knocking us back.

While many of us ache to earn more, charge higher fees, and bring in more money for our time spent on work, can we get comfortable with a role reversal? Are we willing to let go of old belief systems and truly respect a man who makes less than we do?

And finally... can we as women own our own earning power?

Tabby Biddle is a writer and editor specializing in helping women entrepreneurs get their message out. She is the Founder of Lotus Blossom Style, a yoga lifestyle company based in Santa Monica, CA.

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Comments 1 of 1
  • Ann's Avatar
    Posted by Ann Sun Sep 20, 2009 4:15pm PDT

    This is going to happen more often in the future. The problem is sociological but is seen by society and many men and women as some genetic flaw in Males. If this false premis is allowed and women and men do not get the social cause, the increase in Female power and lack of Male power will lead to a very large, defensive gulf between men and women. Women falsely feeling superior and men falsely feeling inferior.

    The nineteenth century belief Males should be strong heavily adversely affects Males from an early age onward in three large areas.

    The first area of concern: society's belief, Males should be strong allows much aggression toward Males (differences as early as nine months) “Psychology of Sex Differences”. Here I am referring to more commanding more abrupt, harsh words, less positive eye-contact, more intimidating eye-contact, more physical treatment and more harsh physical treatment. From this aggression this creates much higher average stress that makes learning information age skills much more difficult. The lower the socioeconomic bracket the more amplified the stress and so more allowed aggression toward those Males. The increased aggression Males receive, creates four bad things for Males academically, mentally, emotionally, and socially: 1. It creates higher average layers of mental frictions (redefined from higher average stress) which inhibit thinking, learning, and motivation in mental areas. 2. These higher layers of mental frictions also create improper pace and intensity in approaching mental work (apply too much effort when approaching new material) and higher tension that hurts motivation to learn. 3. The aggression Males receive and less positive (nurturing) attention also create the higher average stress, which then creates the nervous energy or over activity. 4. This extra aggression Males receive creates the Male ego or defensive cushion that the Male develops from an early age to protect them from the aggressions they receive from society. This Male ego or defensive cushion has the negative consequences of further alienating the Male from “any” various mental, emotional, social, and academic supports they “might just” receive from society and create additional stress. When Males hear firm or hard words from others like teachers or others their minds are thinking defense and not thinking about learning and enjoying the learning process. When boys are talked to it is often with firm short commands, not the soft, kind, ease of nurtured stability necessary for mental/emotional stability. Everyone should test this out in to see for themselves. The combination of high layers of mental frictions and defensive cushion are working to create an impediment to learning that accumulates in harm over time for men.

    In addition, the more unstable and tension filled society becomes, the more open-ended the release of stress by parents, peers, teachers, etc. upon boys of all ages is allowed and society’s gross tendency to look the other way. Now with the media stepping in to attack Males of all ages more so, this is leading to more open disrespect and more harsh treatment of Male of all ages. This could lead to some very angry Males in the future with less regard for themselves and for others. Since Females are still regarded as “to be protected” when times become more unstable or harsh, such release of aggressions due to stress is still not allowed by society thus protecting Females from the increased abuse. With this differential treatment, Females will continue to do well where Males who undergo more harsh treatment (due to any additional release of aggression) will tend to slide back farther academically and also economically. This could be responsible for boys facing more hardships growing up and suffering more so academically in recent years during more harsh times.

    The Second area of concern: In society today, men are given love, honor, respect, and support or the essentials of their self-worth only on the “condition of sufficient” achievement, money, power, status or image. Again, this is all a part of the nineteenth century belief Males should be strong. This is what makes Males so competitive. Males are continually vying or competing for the essentials of feelings of self-worth from society. They must fight through the still present, nineteenth century confrontations allowed by society upon them from an early age to achieve those benefits and feelings of self-worth. Those Males who do not achieve in school or other like areas will not only not receive sufficient love, honor, and respect from teacher, parents, and others for this lacking, they may receive more neglect and even more aggression from those persons. Again, society allows this window of aggression upon Males to make them tough.

    Males who can achieve in the classroom will do so. He will receive sufficient love, honor, respect, and support for academics and will continue to put forth more effort. When a Male Child is not showing a measure of achievement in school, he will tend to receive more neglect, abuse, and ridicule from parents and “teachers” than the Female child. This signals to the Male Child that he will not receive the essentials of self-worth in academics. He will then push himself in areas such as games, sports, and other pursuits to receive love, honor and respect (self-worth) from his peers. Over a period of years, this leaves Males far behind Females in mental, emotional, social, and academic knowledge and skills.

    Third area of concern: In addition, generally Males “are not given” - kindness, ease, gentleness, and stable - mental, emotional, social, and academic support, attention, knowledge and skills (unless by accident). Society in its ignorance from the nineteenth century belief Males should be strong considers such attention and support as coddling the Male child. Society still holds that Males should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. As a result, Males are not given the tools to develop many mental, emotional, social, and academic skills. This greatly cuts down on their motivation to develop those skills. The combined effect of society only rewarding strength and power to face aggression; neglect in many social and academic areas; not rewarding but acting with more aggression toward Males who attempt to develop mildness, kindness, goodness, and care for others are hurting many Males. Over a period of years, this is leaving many Males grossly unable to compete in the information age, which requires a slow accumulation of many complex mental, emotional, social, academic skills and talents.

    This is creating the ever growing international Male Crisis that will only get worse for Males and then get much worse for Females when Males begin to take back with interest, their power and status. I feel society will continue maintaining this mistreatment of Males until a critical point is reached.

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