When my husband accepted his new job offer in 2021, I was proud of him. He'd been courting the opportunity for more than a year and was finally escaping a job he felt crushed by. I was relieved and excited to get my happy husband back. Plus, the money would help cover the expenses of our growing family.
But I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit apprehensive, too, as his salary would now be three times the $35k I was bringing in. Would the stark difference in our pay change our relationship?
The difference in our income had started to grow a few years before
In 2016, we barely scraped by on our combined income, and he was making only about a third more than me. We wanted to pay off our college loans, live comfortably, and start a family. That summer, he got an offer that would help us achieve those goals and jumped at the chance.
Our wage gap started to grow. He now made roughly double what I did, but I wasn't concerned at first because it would mean better opportunities for me, too.
Five years later, our college debt was paid off, we had started searching for a house, and our son had just had his first birthday. And as my husband accepted his new job offer, our discrepancy in pay grew — he was now making three times as much as I was.
When he went back to work, I was in charge of childcare
When my husband started his new job, he returned to the office for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. For a blissful year and a half, we both worked from home and took care of our little one during the day. Now, childcare from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. would fall solely on me.
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I worried about whether I'd be able to balance work and caring for our son and wondered whether day care would solve the problem, but it didn't take long to realize it wouldn't be financially feasible. Full-time childcare for our 1-year-old would consume most of my take-home pay. That disappointing knowledge made me want to quit my job, but we couldn't afford that, either. The bills I paid were important, and dropping to one income would put us back into the barely-scraping-by category we had fought so hard to get out of.
So, I did my best to make it work. On the surface, it seemed as if I at least partially had my life together; my work was always done on time, and my child seemed to be growing and thriving, but inside, I was a mess. I felt as if I was letting down my boss or, worse, my child. I never left the house except to visit the grocery store or the doctor. My life was childcare and work.
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I started to attach my worth to how much money I was making
Deep down, I wondered whether I was truly worth only a third of what my husband was. The house was always a disaster, I was making deadlines at my job just under the wire, and I worried my split focus was making me a failure as a mother. I felt as though I wasn't doing anything right and didn't deserve my own salary, let alone the six-figure salary my husband was making.
I decided that if I didn't bring monetary value to my marriage, I needed to be a better mother and housekeeper. I tried taking on more chores, more child-rearing, more everything. But each day just felt like a losing battle. The strong, independent woman in me started to lose her voice, crushed by stress, daily duties, and unending self-doubt.
I quit my job and talked to my husband about how I was feeling
One year after my husband started his new job, I quit mine. I was tired of the stress, self-pity, and mom guilt. I shifted to working part time as a freelance writer. Though I make nearly the same amount of money, I sacrificed benefits such as paid time off and my 401(k) match. Still, freelance work renewed my enthusiasm, and the fact that I could set my own schedule more than made up for the loss of benefits.
The most important thing I did leading up to this decision was talk to my husband. I explained why I needed to make the change and how my own insecurity made me feel like I was failing our family. He was horrified to learn that I felt so unsupported and agreed that we should do things differently.
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We started by putting our little one in part-time day care so I could have dedicated days to focus on work. While the cost of two days a week put a strain on our budget, I desperately needed the mental break, and we knew our son would benefit from the socialization. We also agreed that our marriage was just as important as our finances, and we began going on weekly lunch dates to connect with each other.
Things aren't perfect. I still worry my husband will resent me for my lagging financial contribution, and there are days when I still beat myself up for not doing enough. But I'm finally able to see my contributions have value beyond the monetary. I've raised a happy, healthy 4-year-old, and there's no price you can put on that.
Correction: September 2, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the percentage difference between the author's income and her husband's when he started his new job. The percentage has been removed.
