When my husband accepted his new job offer In 2021, I was proud of him. He had been looking for this opportunity for over a year and was finally escaping from a job that was crushing him. I was relieved and thrilled to be reunited with my happy husband. Plus, the money would help cover expenses for our growing family.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried too, because his salary would now be three times the $35,000 I was making. a glaring difference in our salaries change our relationship?
The difference between our incomes had started to widen a few years earlier.
In 2016 we barely managed to survive our combined incomeand our pay gap was only about 30%. We wanted to pay off our student loans, live comfortably, and start a family. That summer, he got an offer that would help us achieve those goals, and he jumped at the chance.
Our pay gap started to widen. He was now earning about double what I was earning, but at first I didn’t care because it meant better opportunities for me too.
Five years later, our student debt was paid off, we had started looking for a house, and our son had just celebrated his first birthday. And when he accepted his new job offer, our initial 30% down payment pay gap has increased to 300%.
When he returned to work, I was in charge of childcare.
When my husband started his new job, he back to the office for the first time since the pandemic began. For a blissful year and a half, we both worked from home and took care of our little girl during the day. Now, childcare from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. is entirely my responsibility.
I wondered if I would be able to balance my job with caring for our son and whether daycare would solve the problem, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it wouldn’t be financially possible. Full-time child care Paying for my one-year-old would cost me the majority of my take-home pay. This disappointment made me want to quit my job, but we couldn’t afford that either. The bills I was paying were significant, and having only one income would put us back into the poverty category we had fought so hard to escape.
So I did my best to make it work. On the surface, I felt like I had at least some control over my situation—I always got my work done on time and my child seemed to be growing and thriving—but deep down, I was a disaster. I felt like I was letting my boss down, or worse, my child down. I never left the house except to go shopping or to the doctor. My life was about taking care of my kids and working.
Amanda Garland talked to her husband about how she felt and quit her job. Courtesy of Amanda Garland
I started to attach my worth to the money I earned
Deep down, I wondered if I was really only worth a third of what my husband was. The house was always a disaster, I was meeting deadlines at work at the last minute, and I was afraid that my lack of focus would make me a failure as a mother. I felt like I was doing nothing right and didn’t deserve my own salary, let alone the salary I had to pay. six-figure salary my husband did.
I decided that if I wasn’t bringing financial value to my marriage, I needed to be a better mother and homemaker. I tried to take on more housework, more childcare, more everything. But every day felt like a losing battle. The strong, independent woman in me began to lose her voice, crushed by stress, daily chores, and constant self-doubt.
I quit my job and talked to my husband about how I felt
A year after my husband started his new job, I quit mine. I was tired of the stress, self-pity, and mommy guilt. I started working part-time as a freelance writer. Although I make almost the same salary, I sacrificed benefits like paid vacation and my retirement supplement. Still, self-employment has renewed my enthusiasm, and the fact that I can set my own schedule has more than made up for the loss of benefits.
The most important thing I did before making this decision was to talk to my husband. I explained to him why I needed to make this change and how my own lack of self-confidence was making me feel like I was failing our family. He was horrified to learn that I didn’t feel supported and agreed that we should do things differently.
We started by putting our little one in part-time daycare So I was able to dedicate my days to focusing on my work. Although the cost of two days a week was a strain on our budget, I desperately needed this mental break and we knew our son would benefit from this socialization. We also agreed that our marriage was just as important as our finances and we started having lunch together every week to bond.
Things aren’t perfect. I still worry that my husband will resent me for not contributing enough to my finances, and there are days when I still beat myself up for not doing enough. But I’m finally able to see that my contributions have value beyond the financial aspect. I’ve raised a happy, healthy 4-year-old, and that’s priceless.
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