5 ms·

Another way to look at the same question: Why are there so many males in these fields? My one data point: I'm basically in it for the money. In fact the state,

Another way to look at the same question: Why are there so many males in these fields? My one data point: I'm basically in it for the money. In fact the state, through child support enforcement, made it very clear that at least in my case, the meaning of my life is and shall be, to earn as much money as possible to support the children. If I had a spouse supporting me, I would probably be doing something fun and artistic. (Not that there aren't fun and artistic elements in my work sometimes. And not that there aren't elements of methodical discipline required to be a good artist.)

Consultant32452 9y ago
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but I wanted to ask your opinion since you're in a similar state to me. For my first marriage I felt like my wife was with me and part of building my career. So I felt no pause whatsoever about our differing pay scale. Now that I've been divorced 6-ish years differential income is one of my biggest hurdles. I feel like virtually any long term relationship I'm in will mean significantly subsidizing someone. From an economic standpoint there's so very few options where we're on an even footing. And frankly, women who make the same as me are likely going to be looking for mates who make even more. It's made it very difficult to find a relationship I feel is equitable and/or equally beneficial to us both. I've tried to "get over it" but haven't been able to. Women are fine, but women + the state is terrifying to me. Now I have a daughter to protect my assets for. Have you struggled with any of the same things?
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Well it sounds like you were traumatized by the experience a bit. Me too! But do I struggle with it still? I'd say yes and no. Shit I hate mobile. Hang on I'll move to a real keyboard, BRB OK. When I met my current wife, who is much more supportive than the first one, I didn't even have a bank account and was living paycheck to paycheck, and literally cashing them at the check-cash place. She also was just scraping by, as a student. So that put us on a more even footing economically I guess. We're also neither one, especially materialistic in the first place. So I think that allowed us to not put money concerns first & foremost in our evaluation of each other. Which I would say might be a prerequisite or at least a help, for that mysterious and random-ass thing called love to take hold. (On the other hand we probably both could tell that both of us were smart & discerning enough to know how to get money and what to do, and not do, with it if we had it. And we were probably both giving off innumerable small cues that we each came from the same socioeconomic class, which might be more important than anybody wants to admit, especially after the previous paragraph.) Anyway we just went with it. Over time I continued on my technical path until I was making decent money, while she continued on her non-technical one and basically... isn't. So now, strictly speaking, I'm "subsidizing" her. So am I struggling with it? Kind of. But she helps me too in a lot of ways that are both practical and intangible. I dunno at some point you have to make the decision to be generous. If you find someone you can trust, that is a lot easier. But then again trusting is kind of up to you too. I mean there's a certain level of basic trustworthiness needed on their end obviously, but you do sort of have to decide to trust someone. Or don't, but it sounds like you do want to. Anyway bottom line, you can't live your life in fear of what might happen, that's too shitty! So I guess the TL;DR from all this nonsense is: find someone from your own socioeconomic class but otherwise ignore money. Make sure you share important values, and establish trust. Don't let money fears make you lonely. Final note: Those who want money from you, that's all they can get from you is money. Which at the end of the day is not much.
  - iagovar 9y ago
    Non-US here. How is it that you are subsidizing here? Don't you share expenses?
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      Not OP but sharing expenses is not the same as splitting them down the middle. If one person makes $30k and the other makes $200k you're really not going to be able to split expenses unless the $200k person takes a major cut to their standard of living.
    - rdiddly 9y ago
      Her income is highly irregular and fairly scant, so my income is paying most of the expenses.
- astura 9y ago
  >women who make the same as me are likely going to be looking for mates who make even more I'm wondering why you make that assumption? I'm asking as a woman who earns more than her husband. This hasn't matched my experience AT ALL from talking to other women either.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Admittedly I've never met a potentially dateable person that makes what I make. So I'm extrapolating from the rest of the data set. The stats say nearly 40% of households have women being the primary breadwinner. I personally do not know any of those 40% of households. Every single friend, extended family, etc. the woman has married up financially. I've personally heard at least a half dozen women make a derogatory comment about men they went on a date with because he made less money than them. Perhaps it's just my generation and this is really old news for younger people, but the culture does not seem to have caught up to rationality in my experience.
    - jabot 9y ago
      I presume that a big part of these 40% are single or single-parent households. I'd wager (a little) that if you only consider (heterosexual) couples, then you will have mostly men making more money... Not saying that that's good or bad...
    - astura 9y ago
      Well your personal experience doesn't at all match mine. Family, friends, coworkers, most of them are fairly 50/50 on which partner earns more. I don't know exact earnings, of course, but I have a fairly good idea - I know job titles, experience level, and places of employment. In my experience women looking to marry "into money" are very, very rare and people don't respect them very much. I'm in my mid-30s and live on the East Coast. I knew going into the dating world that I would probably make more than most of my potential partners due to just numbers, I was unlikely to meet someone who I got along with that makes more than me because I make more money than most people. Since I already have/had all the money I need that didn't bother me in the least, either way I was looking for human companionship not a bank account. I ended up marrying someone who has a good career but still earns less than I do.
- gred 9y ago
  > I feel like virtually any long term relationship I'm in will mean significantly subsidizing someone. I'm not divorced, but I had similar questions before my own marriage. In the end we moved forward on a more traditional basis, where we both acknowledge that we bring different things to the table, and we're OK with that (i.e. "equitable" as in "fair", but not "equitable" as in "equal").
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    In the unfortunate event that you get divorced you will find that only one of you will be expected to continue to provide value to the other.
    - gred 9y ago
      I'm aware; it was probably the most dangerous decision I've made thus far in my life.
khedoros1 9y ago
My data point: I suspected that I'd work in software when I was about 10, and knew that it's what I'd go to college for when I was 15. If my wife was the breadwinner, it's what I'd still be doing (granted, less software that's useful for business, more emulation, game modding software, and reverse-engineering game engines). The money's a definite bonus, and it has made our lives much easier, but it's not why I chose my career.

Consultant32452 9y ago

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but I wanted to ask your opinion since you're in a similar state to me. For my first marriage I felt like my wife was with me and part of building my career. So I felt no pause whatsoever about our differing pay scale. Now that I've been divorced 6-ish years differential income is one of my biggest hurdles. I feel like virtually any long term relationship I'm in will mean significantly subsidizing someone. From an economic standpoint there's so very few options where we're on an even footing. And frankly, women who make the same as me are likely going to be looking for mates who make even more. It's made it very difficult to find a relationship I feel is equitable and/or equally beneficial to us both. I've tried to "get over it" but haven't been able to. Women are fine, but women + the state is terrifying to me. Now I have a daughter to protect my assets for. Have you struggled with any of the same things?

rdiddly 9y ago
Well it sounds like you were traumatized by the experience a bit. Me too! But do I struggle with it still? I'd say yes and no. Shit I hate mobile. Hang on I'll move to a real keyboard, BRB OK. When I met my current wife, who is much more supportive than the first one, I didn't even have a bank account and was living paycheck to paycheck, and literally cashing them at the check-cash place. She also was just scraping by, as a student. So that put us on a more even footing economically I guess. We're also neither one, especially materialistic in the first place. So I think that allowed us to not put money concerns first & foremost in our evaluation of each other. Which I would say might be a prerequisite or at least a help, for that mysterious and random-ass thing called love to take hold. (On the other hand we probably both could tell that both of us were smart & discerning enough to know how to get money and what to do, and not do, with it if we had it. And we were probably both giving off innumerable small cues that we each came from the same socioeconomic class, which might be more important than anybody wants to admit, especially after the previous paragraph.) Anyway we just went with it. Over time I continued on my technical path until I was making decent money, while she continued on her non-technical one and basically... isn't. So now, strictly speaking, I'm "subsidizing" her. So am I struggling with it? Kind of. But she helps me too in a lot of ways that are both practical and intangible. I dunno at some point you have to make the decision to be generous. If you find someone you can trust, that is a lot easier. But then again trusting is kind of up to you too. I mean there's a certain level of basic trustworthiness needed on their end obviously, but you do sort of have to decide to trust someone. Or don't, but it sounds like you do want to. Anyway bottom line, you can't live your life in fear of what might happen, that's too shitty! So I guess the TL;DR from all this nonsense is: find someone from your own socioeconomic class but otherwise ignore money. Make sure you share important values, and establish trust. Don't let money fears make you lonely. Final note: Those who want money from you, that's all they can get from you is money. Which at the end of the day is not much.
- iagovar 9y ago
  Non-US here. How is it that you are subsidizing here? Don't you share expenses?
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Not OP but sharing expenses is not the same as splitting them down the middle. If one person makes $30k and the other makes $200k you're really not going to be able to split expenses unless the $200k person takes a major cut to their standard of living.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Her income is highly irregular and fairly scant, so my income is paying most of the expenses.
astura 9y ago
>women who make the same as me are likely going to be looking for mates who make even more I'm wondering why you make that assumption? I'm asking as a woman who earns more than her husband. This hasn't matched my experience AT ALL from talking to other women either.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Admittedly I've never met a potentially dateable person that makes what I make. So I'm extrapolating from the rest of the data set. The stats say nearly 40% of households have women being the primary breadwinner. I personally do not know any of those 40% of households. Every single friend, extended family, etc. the woman has married up financially. I've personally heard at least a half dozen women make a derogatory comment about men they went on a date with because he made less money than them. Perhaps it's just my generation and this is really old news for younger people, but the culture does not seem to have caught up to rationality in my experience.
  - jabot 9y ago
    I presume that a big part of these 40% are single or single-parent households. I'd wager (a little) that if you only consider (heterosexual) couples, then you will have mostly men making more money... Not saying that that's good or bad...
  - astura 9y ago
    Well your personal experience doesn't at all match mine. Family, friends, coworkers, most of them are fairly 50/50 on which partner earns more. I don't know exact earnings, of course, but I have a fairly good idea - I know job titles, experience level, and places of employment. In my experience women looking to marry "into money" are very, very rare and people don't respect them very much. I'm in my mid-30s and live on the East Coast. I knew going into the dating world that I would probably make more than most of my potential partners due to just numbers, I was unlikely to meet someone who I got along with that makes more than me because I make more money than most people. Since I already have/had all the money I need that didn't bother me in the least, either way I was looking for human companionship not a bank account. I ended up marrying someone who has a good career but still earns less than I do.
gred 9y ago
> I feel like virtually any long term relationship I'm in will mean significantly subsidizing someone. I'm not divorced, but I had similar questions before my own marriage. In the end we moved forward on a more traditional basis, where we both acknowledge that we bring different things to the table, and we're OK with that (i.e. "equitable" as in "fair", but not "equitable" as in "equal").
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  In the unfortunate event that you get divorced you will find that only one of you will be expected to continue to provide value to the other.
  - gred 9y ago
    I'm aware; it was probably the most dangerous decision I've made thus far in my life.

khedoros1 9y ago

My data point: I suspected that I'd work in software when I was about 10, and knew that it's what I'd go to college for when I was 15. If my wife was the breadwinner, it's what I'd still be doing (granted, less software that's useful for business, more emulation, game modding software, and reverse-engineering game engines). The money's a definite bonus, and it has made our lives much easier, but it's not why I chose my career.