I know everyone has a different dynamic in which their marriage works for them I’m curious to how everyone has things worked out.
I’ll go first! We got married young, it was a shotgun wedding (marrige because of unplanned pregnancy), but we’re given a house that was in my side of the family so we live there with no mortgage just utilities. For a while we both worked, I was a childcare provider, and he worked in a lumber yard and delivered building materials to the area we live in. Now I’m a SAHW, soon to be mom, and he works on fixing railroads. Honestly it’s strange for me considering I’ve always tried to work for everything I have and spending money I don’t personally earn is strange, but I love it. It gives me time to rest, (I feel like I sleep all the time) and to be a homemaker like I’ve always wanted to be. He does reassure me that I do “work” as in keep the home and take care of everything else (finances, and things the like), and I’m constantly growing a little baby inside, which he knows is hard work (he has a sister with 4 kids). I love our dynamic, although I may consider working again in a few years when our son can begin nursery or preschool.
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My wife and I both work full-time. We discussed it before we had kids and her career was important to her, so her staying at home was out of the question. I make more money than her so me staying home also wouldn’t work. Fortunately we’re both moderately high earners so we could afford daycare when our kids were little. We both have work from home jobs now so it works out pretty well.
My partner works full time for now. I am not working. He will be quitting his job as soon as our house sells (putting it on the market in June) and we will be moving into our camper and traveling the country for the next year, possibly permanently.
Currently we are both working full time, opposite shifts during the week. It sucks. I am on a career path to make decent money in the next 5-10 years and we’re hoping once I make enough to support us my husband can work part time or quit all together.
Before we moved to a HCOL area, I worked FT and hubby did PT. He just doesn’t have ambition towards working and likes to spend his time in other ways. And as long as bills are paid I couldn’t care less, I like to work and I like building up my career.
We’re old. We got married mid twenties, and I had the higher paying job. We both traveled for work together for roughly 3 years before I got pregnant and took a home office position. He kept traveling for work and moved up the ranks quickly, whereas I had topped out in my position. I switched to working from home after our son was born and he switched to travel in our state only. Then we quickly got pregnant with our daughter. Everything was going well until she decided she was done living in my belly and evicted herself 10 weeks early. She was healthy; no complications but we were terrified. I rushed to train my replacement, assuming we’d have tons of medical and therapy appointments. Turns out she’s just fine and a year later I thought I would return to my previous profession…… until I started having second thoughts about daycares etc. We were financially stable with plenty of savings so we just decided I would stay home.
That was 12 years ago. The toddler years were rough 😂 But once they were in elementary school, I started volunteering in our community. Our kids do sports now, so I’m quite busy. Husband transferred to home office when our daughter was a year old, so he’s home nightly unless something wild happens at the plant. While we do happen to have traditional roles, we kind of fell into this dynamic and as a result neither of us seem to care which one folds laundry etc….. as long as it gets done. My husband would much rather watch our kids practice sports but that’s because he’s the social butterfly in this marriage. I appear to be friendly and sociable, but it’s draining for me 😬 We only split up the practices because I need a day off between things to recover. Unfortunately.
We got pregnant after three yrs of being together. Married after 8 years and two children. Since he makes more money we take on more traditional roles. But Ive always worked min 20 hours a week to pay my student loans and for our “family fun” times.
Recently married here so don’t mind me 😅 currently we both work full time. He has an odd schedule so he’s gone 15 days home 13 days. I work a more normal M-F job. For now this works for us. Eventually a few years down the road when we have kids we plan on me being a SAHM and us homeschooling kids. We’ve talked through that it’ll be me on my own about half the time and both of us similar to SAHPs when he’s home. It’s something we both want and want to work for together
19 years married, I’m the sole earner, she is sahm, we have s14 and d9. She’s in charge, I have asd and and anxiety issues and happily abdicated finances to her. I haven’t looked at a bank statement in a decade. She does all the admin stuff and we split household chores and I help the kids with math and science and she’s got the other topics. We make child related decisions together. Early in the relationship I had a total fuck you I make all the money I’m not coming home and doing chores attitude but I became aware over time that my attitude was hurting our marriage and I altered my approach. We feel now like our balance is harmonious, we both appreciate each other and we communicate that through our respective love languages and we feel like a team. When shit goes sideways we get to a us vs the issue mentality fast.
18+ years married, 20+ years together. I work full-time, my wife works part-time (like 24 hours/week). What I make is like 90% of our combined income, but we don’t really care about that. She was a SAHM when our kids were little. Everything is shared, bank accounts, finances, etc. She pays bills and does like 60% of the housework. I do like 30%, and the kids (that are old enough) like 10%, LOL. I do all of the outside yardwork of course, so it kinda fluctuates with the seasons.
We met when we were both 27, married at 34 and we are 39 now. We both were open and honest when we met over the fact that neither of us want children (I work with children full time).
We both work full time, camp a lot, travel as much as we can and also enjoy our quiet weekends at home together. We both equally contribute to the household in terms of chores, our incomes are combined into one account so there’s no “he pays this and she pays this”. We mutually agree on a budget and purchase things without “permission” when things are needed, but we both respect the funds and the budget. Our marriage is incredibly happy and we’re very compatible.
I (48f) work in aerospace and am the primary financial provider. My husband (32m) is a professional cleaner and takes 4-6 jobs per month. I have a great income and he doesn’t have to work if he doesn’t want to. He does do most of the household chores but I’ll help when his back hurts. I love this arrangement because I have almost zero domestic skills and am not really attracted to men my own age.
Mid 30s, recently married. We both work full time, myself remotely, he goes into an office. I like it because I get my time alone during the week because we spend all of our time together otherwise. Struggling between wanting to have kids but also having more money to travel as we both love to do. Happy either way! He makes better money with his job, but I have a money from a family trust so I bring in more than him combined with my employment. We share everything, live comfortably. If we do end up having a child, I would probably work part time for a while.
When i was 13 I told my then Saturday job boss “I’ll retire at 40 and I will not sacrifice my work for investing any children I may have”.
He laughed at me and berated me in front of my fellow paper boys.
I did exactly as I said. And tomorrow I will be going off with both my adults sons for maybe our sixth or seventh trip this year together.
I couldn’t have done it without my wife. Teamwork.
Nearly 40, married 15 years, together 21. Childfree by choice. We both work remotely in jobs we enjoy, regular office hours. We make almost the exact same amount. We spend 90%+ of our time together and like it that way. We have a very quiet life at home with our kitty. We do travel fairly frequently and our favorite destination is Italy.
When we first got together everyone thought we were polar opposites (and we sort of were) but now I’d say we are extremely similar. We do all of our chores together, our shopping together, we just spend as much time together as possible. We watch the same TV shows, we like the same music. We have become entwined in the best way possible. We do occasionally see friends separately but it’s relatively rare.
We absolutely love our marriage and have a true team dynamic.
My husband and I both work and we always have. We are both pretty high earners (about $400k between us) and we have one child. We each have our own money and shared checking and savings accounts for house/child/utilities/etc.
I have been working since I was 15. I took six months off when our child was born and I hated it. We are in our early 50s now and I don’t know if I’ll ever retire, maybe just work part time. We do marriage a lot differently (we travel separately, do not have the open phone thing, we have some shared and some separate friends and we only socialize together about half the time) than many people here do but it works for us and we’re happy.
We are both 39, been together since 16. We got married the week after she turned 18.
I work my boring line cook job, she owns her own business, and we’re rocking the DINK lifestyle.
When the work stops, the fun begins. We go to concerts, do stupid activities that make us feel younger in the moment (but not in the morning), and we still live a life that would make 16 year old us proud.