What are everyone’s thoughts on big wage gaps in a couple. My boyfriend makes about 40k now and realistically won’t make more than 70k in his chosen career. I make more than double what he makes now and suspect that wage gap will only keep increasing. Is this anyone else’s situation? I don’t know how to handle as we have more shared expense (ie rent). Splitting payments equally doesn’t seem fair since I’m pushing for a nicer and more expensive place but I also don’t want to make him feel bad.

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Many couples split proportionately to income, especially if in a serious relationship.

likesmart

Proportions for sure. If a guy makes more than a woman, I’d say dynamics tend to be fine; however, if the woman makes more, I have found that many (limp 🍆) men can’t deal. Hope he is a good man for you and doesn’t give you grief for it, ever. If he does, 🥾 him. Baddass boss ladies don’t need that.

likefunny

Talk about what happens if/when you have kids. Is he willing to be the “primary parent” to support your career and role as the primary income earner? Or, are you both willing to live a lifestyle that allows for you to have an au pair or nanny to help? I don’t think the earning money part necessarily is a deal-breaker. It’s all about how you split roles and responsibilities in the relationship. Because your income stream doesn’t follow traditional gender roles, it’s worth a conversation to be intentional and self-aware about who does what in the relationship as it evolves. Remember, talk is cheap. Make sure you are seeing a consistently between words and action. It’s one thing for him to say he will bare some of the burden at home, it’s another thing to do it.

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We have a pretty significant gap. What works for us - All money goes into a joint account and we each get a personal allowance of the same amount. We discuss and agree on all expenses from the joint account with equal weights to our opinions and personal accounts are free range to spend on stuff that we want individually.

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We do the same thing. Very fair and convenient.

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I was making twice as much as my husband when we first met, now he makes more than me.

Remember you are a team.

We have a joint account for shared bills, we each take a household expense or two and we have our separate accounts. We don’t want to ask for “permission” or feel guilty for spending our own money.

To be honest, the wage gap did bother me but he was always ambitious so worked out great. More to a relationship than money.

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My husband and i count all our money to be joint. All our goals and expenses and dreams are shared between us. It is never a matter of who the money came from it is simply “how much do we have saved for xyz”. We originally earned the same but he has jumped way ahead of me and will surely continue to bring in more as I remain stagnant. Especially since we are having our second kid soon & I will likely go a different route for my career so that we have more time for childrearing and household maintaining- it wouldnt make sense to split proportionally.
I agree with the others to discuss future and kids etc etc.

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This happens to me. I became ok with paying for a lot of things. When we got married he kept paying what he was paying before we moved in for rent and he still does. I don’t mind paying more and spoiling him.

^I love it!! Can we clone this guy??

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What Is his chosen career? Is it something he is dedicated to and driven in but it just isn’t a high paying field? What will likely be the biggest factor is ambition for you since you’re a high earner and in a demanding field. If he is passionate about his choices and holds weight in other areas (family , home care) it will greatly help your compatibility imo.

He’s a social worker at a school. We both have masters degrees and work hard, he just happened to choose a field that pays less. We’ve only been dating for a little over a year and decided to move in together in the fall. Before we decided to move in together I had already looked into moving to a full amenity high rise and was prepared to pay the full rent myself so I see him being able to pay even 25% as a bonus but I think he feels kind of uncomfortable with it and says he can make paying half work.

The approach can be different if bf vs husband - there are legal implications when you are married meaning that in spite of salary differences- the whole belongs to both spouses equally - not the case with BF

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