{"id":3071,"date":"2013-06-20T16:13:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T20:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=3071"},"modified":"2013-07-02T06:58:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T10:58:25","slug":"7-tips-for-breadwinner-wives-feeling-the-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=3071","title":{"rendered":"7 Tips For Breadwinner Wives Feeling The Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"next-ave\"<\/a>This past weekend, two close friends visited my husband and me at our Virginia countryside cottage. This married couple is roughly our age \u2013 50s \u2013 and, like us, don\u2019t have kids.<\/p>\n

She has a senior-level government job and has been promoted twice in the past few years.<\/p>\n

He accepted a buyout package from a financial services firm two years ago and has been working part time for a small tech business as well as pro bono on a dream project with a friend.<\/p>\n

He has tried relentlessly to get a full-time job matching his old salary, but come up short.<\/p>\n

(MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0Does Being a Mom Help or Hurt Your Career?<\/a>)<\/p>\n

As you can probably tell, she\u2019s the breadwinner. That\u2019s the reverse of the way things were earlier in their marriage.<\/p>\n

Frustration for One Breadwinner Wife<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I had to ask her: How are things working out now that you\u2019re earning more than your husband?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d she said, without hesitation.<\/p>\n

Any other week, that kind of question might have sounded impudent. But given all the media attention that has accompanied the new\u00a0Pew Research Center study<\/a>\u00a0showing that women are the breadwinners in 40% of households with children and that 19% of married mothers age 47 to 65 outearn their husbands, I felt it was fair game.<\/p>\n

When I asked my friend the question, we happened to be standing next to a dartboard at a pub where we were having lunch. She pointed to it. \u201cThat\u2019s what our counselor told me to do: put up a dartboard in your basement,\u201d she said, \u201cand get your anger out by throwing darts at the board, instead of having\u00a0an argument<\/a>\u00a0when you get frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lower-Earning Husbands Can Be Resentful<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friend\u2019s marriage issues are hardly unique. In his recent New York Times article, \u201cBreadwinning Wives and Nervous Husbands<\/a>,\u201d Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, wrote \u201cevidence suggests that while men tend to applaud their spouses when they help to bring home the bacon, husbands aren\u2019t always as enthusiastic when women start bringing home the filet mignon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Married couples with breadwinner wives are likely to become more common.<\/p>\n

Liza Mundy, author of\u00a0The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family<\/em><\/a>, calls it \u201cThe Big Flip.\u201d She believes that within a generation, the majority of married households will feature wives who out-earn their husbands.<\/p>\n

What Experts and Couples Told Me<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I decided to further explore the female breadwinner phenomenon of couples in their 50s and 60s and offer advice, based on interviews with financial experts, psychologists and married couples I know where the women are bringing in the most dough.<\/p>\n

(MORE:\u00a0<\/strong>Relationship Rescue: Resolving Money Issues<\/a>)<\/p>\n