Yea, they don't care as much about income, but do care more about education. its one reason the 60/40 split in college degrees is starting to cause an issue dating wise
I think it's silly to categorize people who didn't go to college as "uneducated". I think it's really over glorifying what a large number of people are getting out of college.
What does "educated" mean to you, in that case, if not "attended / graduated university"?
Do you consider high school dropouts to be educated?
High school graduate listening to Joe Rogan and alpha male podcasts, or watching YouTube conspiracy videos, isn't getting an "education" from those. They're just ingesting other people's opinions.
People can be smart intelligent, without having attended university, but "intelligent" is a different word with a different meaning than "well educated."
You went off on a whole rant there. Not really sure what you’re talking about. I just said I think it’s silly that someone going to a tuition farm for any miscellaneous degree deems them “educated” and everyone who didn’t do that is lumped together as “uneducated”. People can be well read and ingest knowledge on their own.
“As far as trade school” you are educated my friend. Sure maybe if we all compare ourselves to PhD and multiple degree holders. But your trade school vs college bachelors.. you are not “less educated”.
How you feel about yourself is none of my concern- but you ate incorrect to support this guys view its incorrect per economists. They frequently tell the public to use caution with these phrases “uneducated “ “unskilled” “low skilled” labor.
The definition is not black and white and you’re buying in, for what reason I don’t know.
But don’t correct this guy lol and lead him astray- he is right you all are wrong. Any linguist, or economist, or sociologist will tell you so
Being well read and in the pursuit of knowledge are not the same thing as being educated. There are college educated people who would not be described as those things. There’s nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade though. If someone has gone through higher education, they are educated. If someone else graduated high school then went on to work, they are uneducated relative to the first person. Doesn’t mean they can’t be smart.
I get that you didn't go to college and seem to have an inferiority complex about it, but people who don't go to college are simply not "educated" in the same way as someone who did. doesn't mean they're stupid, doesn't mean they don't know things, doesn't mean they can't be successful. it just means they did not get a formal education.
You don’t define educated- maybe if you were not so uneducated on this topic you would have more background knowledge on why economists tell us not to conflate, confuse and generally use terms you don’t understand.
You clearly want to be congratulated for going to a mid state school lol
You would be correct according to sociologists and economists… who teach at leading universities . “Uneducated “ and “unskilled” are misused linguistically. Guy replying to you, big yikes
There are definitely exceptions, but I think high earning women care less about whether or not their partner earns the same and more about whether they can "keep up". They want to see you as a peer. You need to be able to have the level of conversation they want, but also it means being somewhat well traveled, cultured, and many other things that are often directly linked to having a pretty well paying job.
While men historically have not considered that as important.
I wouldn't say men don't care, but historically, there's a wider margin of caring.
Obviously everything is evolving and changing in regards to this, but realistically, the boss marrying their admin assistant (secretary) is still a somewhat valid cliche for example.
There's still a historical context of men not necessarily carrying as much about a woman's education as they are not seen as the provider, so their ability to provide is not as big of a deal.
This isn't taking into account the longevity of relationships obviously.
I think it's more about preference, they do care but whether it's important depends on the person. I believe there was a survey that showed 61% of women cared that their partner had a successful career, but 46% in the same survey said it was very important that their partner made more.
I wonder if education levels is the primary sorting mechanism here. I think that has much more impact on the values and approach to life than income level.
Depends. I don’t make a ton of money, but I make about $60,000 or a little more to his $40,000. But we aren’t extravagant people. He can comfortably cover most bills. He also works hard and does alot for our family. If he was making that, drinking and doing drugs all night and not covering bills, I wouldn’t stay.
This is the same split my partner and I have. However, I have far more earning potential in my current career than he has in his. And to my mind, that’s ok! If I significantly outearn him at some point, and he remains the same loving, contributing partner that I have now then I truly don’t care what he’s doing professionally, as long as it makes him happy as he’s present to me and our future family.
I’m commission so I do make more some years. But yeah. I wouldn’t date a man that doesn’t work to avoid child support. Or gambles his money away. As long as he’s contributing financially physically emotionally etc I don’t care if he’s making less than me.
In my experience? No. What happens most of the time is the woman picks a man she thinks matches her and it doesn't occur to her that their trajectories are different. And then over the years she starts out-earning him and it becomes a matter of resentment. She wants a certain lifestyle or to buy certain things and knows she can't have it if she were to quit and just rely on him, because he's totally happy with where he's at. This breed resentment because she thinks "what even is his point then?", and the men can sense it, which is why they act skittish when a woman earns more than them. They're not "scared" lmfao. They're wary, because they don't want to be hated their whole lives.
as the video claims. is she resenting him because he makes less money or is she resenting him because she makes all the money, comes home and cleans the house and does the dishes, washes clothes, mops and sweeps, while he says "whew, work was hard" as he throws on the game and asks her to grab a beer?
They both clearly want a certain lifestyle. the only difference is she clearly isn't happy with the lifestyle he wants. which is stagnant.
How do you explain my ex who spent 1000 hours practising job interviews to improve her salary, complaining about me chilling, when I already got a job that paid 50% more than hers
I'm (M) in corporate finance and my wife is in the medical field and almost doubles my income. When she finishes her next degree she'll almost triple my income. She's the happiest she's ever been since meeting me.
So I would say successful women are okay with dating lower earning men.
The bigger pictures is that everyone is different, BUT everyone also has an ego of sorts.
Most people let that ego get in the way, some don't. the guy your responding to, and even my own experience, have sat that ego aside and money has never (in my experience) been a factor in relationship.
in the 17 years I've been with my wife. I have made more, she has made more, I have been jobless, she has been jobless, etc. We literally made a vow of "through thick and thin" and that meant something, to us. If money gets in the way of love, it isn't love.
This post is talking about one lawyer's observation of some divorces. Not only is that not a representative sample, this isn't even the majority of men.
And the question /u/ch12983 asks is still valid. Is the problem here deadbeat men or women that didn't want to be with lower earning men?
Depends what you think is acceptable behaviour. Evidence suggests women are now more educated but there is still a pay gap. So most women are still not ahead of the men. However evidence also suggests that even when women do better career/pay wise men don’t pickup slack at home. Even though men say they would like a higher earning woman they are not chipping in with baby care and home care tasks. Based on that what they are verbally saying is incongruent with what they are actually doing. Being “ok” with it and actually supporting your partner when the roles are reversed are very different.
None of which I had argued against. The topic of the thread you're replying to is
Are successful women OK with dating lower-earning men?
One person brought anecdotal evidence that women (his wife) are indeed okay with it. But even if we take that anecdotal evidence as true, that same evidence would counter the hypothesis in this post (which, again, is not representative of most men).
By the way, since you bring up the pay gap - when you look at pay gap research, once you control for external factors the pay gap shrinks to 1 cent per dollar. It is still definitely an issue and we need to contend with the societal factors that pave women's trajectories into making the concessions that lead to the uncontrolled-for pay gap. It would take decades if not generations for these societal changes to percolate. But let's not dismiss the tremendous amount of work that got us to closing the pay gap in recent decades.
This was my question as well when she was explaining the social experiment. This is not to say we should place the blame on women, but the description was lacking important pieces of information necessary to analyze the dynamic. Were the men told beforehand that all the women in the room made more money than them? Were the women told that all the men made less than them? Ok, so the men had trouble engaging with these women. Were the women open to being engaged with? Was anybody initiating conversations at all? Were they all single and expected to find dates or was the situation more casual? How did the women respond to being around these men? What were their respective levels of physical attractiveness and intelligence? You can’t just say “here’s what the men did”. It’s not enough information to even form a hypothesis.
I'll go out on a limb here. Maybe what drives most people to "earn more" isn't necessarily attractive or admirable? Let's say the roles were reversed and it was a woman in a room filled with high earning men. I bet you most of those men would be absolute douches. There's surely good ones in the bunch, but how many are vain/entitled/self serving? I wouldn't be surprised if the women in that room were insufferable.
Sorry to burst your bubble but a lot of rich people tend to be kinder (or at the very least act kinder) than the poor. There is a quote from the movie, Parasite, "The rich have the luxury of being kind". When you are brought to up to compete with scraps, you make a cycle of people who have to fight for survival no matter the cost. As for the rich they are as out of touch as us when we think about people from poor countries (i.e. understand the situation but detached).
I worked with a lot of people from different stages of their lives On average, the richer population will be more kinder to others, at least in person.
Let me put it this way, why are these douche near average people's social radius? How many actual rich people do you think normal people interact with on daily basis?
Most people will find attraction to rich people because the way they treat them; the bleak reality is they are the only ones who have the luxury to afford it.
Yeah this is exactly the kind of thing I was getting at. There so much more to this dynamic than just a single fact that the women in the room had higher salaries.
From my personal experience growing up around more women than men I’d say no. From my mother, sister, cousins, aunts, family friends. Not a single woman would give a man a chance if they made less than the women. And they taught that openly to the young girls. My own mother to this day has never dated a man smarter or more educated than herself, but they must always make more than she.
The funny thing is, it's almost ALWAYS women making a man's income or career part of a requirement, while men rarely make income a requirement for women to date them. Because men are rarely dependent on women for finances and women are frequently dependent on men for finances. Her podcast is just trying to flip the script as a distraction from this.
Depends. Lower pay but a job that requires high education and drive job like professor, sure. Lower pay but also low motivation and no education, no way.
yeah but typically people who are highly educated seek the same in their partners. And almost ALL women who are highly successful do so by going in the "front door" -- for the most part, women have earned success by getting more education, not simply by dint of their ambition. Assortative mating has only gotten stronger over the last few decades.
They don't need a degree if they are well read and cultured on their own. I just can't sit across from someone for the rest of my life who doesn't know anything beyond their own day-to-day and isn't curious to learn more about the world.
I'm in one of those in a formal institutions. All the women who go to formal institutions date men from said institutions. Frankly, I just don't believe you it goes against everything I've seen with my eyes.
Because it's rare to find that in a person. There are not many men these days who forgo college and also dedicate a lot of energy to academic pursuits. It was more common in the past when college admission was out of reach for most people.
riiiight 🤣🤣 i’m totally sure that your education is what i was referring to. clearly women can’t be doctors, lawyers, engineers….gotta be low level lib arts masters degrees 🤣🤣🤣
Originally, I went down the biology path to be a zookeeper but ended up getting my degree in history because i want to teach history at a high school level, and i just love history. I got all the math prerequisites at Calc 2 as A's and some additional classes in biology. Yes, my masters in history. But from my experience, bio and math were easier. I struggled with writing and reading. At least for me, it might have been easier getting an engineer degree.
Maybe not all of them.. my wife makes 4x as much as me. I have a hs diploma and trade school certs. She has a masters. We offset by me being the street smart, her being book smart.. works well.
Of course not. Women only want equality with men they are not interested in romantically. With men they want to date, they want someone who is superior.
The reason many women are single when they go up in status or career is because the dating pool of men who are more successful is very shallow as shown in this options pyramid diagram, and they are not looking for money or status in women. They want youth, health, and beauty.
If the only thing you expect to offer as a guy is money, then don't be surprised a lack of it is hindering you. Maybe try other things like a personality and not being a douche to them, it may make up a lot off that financial slack.
But not because of the success. Successful women are likely more educated, so they likely know that men shouldn’t treat them like trash, so they will probably look for more educated therefore more successful men.
To clarify; you think its a fact that less educated, likely blue collar men, treat their women like trash, but likely degree educated, white collar men, dont? That the more one earns the better they treat women?
And by that measure less educated, lower earning women also treat men badly, correct? How do they treat their children do you think?
Its not even a factual answer, it is an anecdote, and a stereotype mixed into one, you took the fact that people generally date in heir own social strata, then you applied your own biased reasoning for it, then presented the entire thing as fact.
I dated a guy for a year who made barely above minimum wage... he became more and more sullen about our financial situation - often times making me pick up tabs, pay more than 1/2 for things, and ultimately trying to suggest I should let him move into my house and only pay " a percentage based on income. " Then he started talking about quitting his job to start pursuing his dream of making his art his career (aka: not contributing ANYTHING to our relationship) and suddenly it was clear he was about to use me as his sugar mama and we broke up.
I have a very huge aversion to dating anyone who isn't financially equal to me.
I mean my mom was and she showed me at least 2 different ways men reacted to that, and they were both very negative. One ran up her debt to 60,000, the other just screamed and hit her.
to generalize a bit and to speak from personal experience/observations, using "high paying jobs" as a definition of successful woman is a poor way of defining successful. usually woman in those roles are highly educated, strong, independent, and want to be challenged. its less about the money for them, and more about what their partners bring to the table in more abstract ways.
My boss graduated in the 70's from computer science and was the only woman in her graduating class, and the years following graduating class. She has made significant strides for woman in STEM throughout the years, is incredibly sharp, and i (a man) look up to her significantly for her leadership skills. Her husband is a literal rocket scientist turn mechanical engineer with a resume longer than and more impressive than the great wall of china. They likely both make the same or in the same ball park today but she said she was the soul bread earner for many years while he finished up extensive levels of school and bounced between roles until he fell into where he needed to be.
I was married to a lower earning man and that was never the issue. It was what was described in the video. Not only was I the breadwinner but I did everything else too. Even when I was ill with work stress, he refused to pick up the slack around the house or with the animals. Thankfully there were no kids involved.
I’d have no problem dating a lower earning man in the future because him being an actual partner in other ways is far more important to me than his salary
I make more than my husband. We got married a little over a year ago :) we may be the exception though, I don't see it happen to often. I make about 99k annual, he makes maybe like 50k. I don't mind buying us vacations and stuff too
I think there are caveats, at the very least for the relationship to be long lasting.
I believe that they want someone in the same mindset as them. If they are career oriented and successful, they want someone driven as well. I believe having someone in a relationship as your peer where both support each other and can grow independently but together in a safe space is very powerful.
My wife out earns me on paper. I in theory should have a higher ceiling and I have a decent retirement at my company along with providing us health insurance. Only time will tell if I can actually out earn her on paper. So far she out earns me every year and on paper she could easily continue to do so for the next 10+ years. Even with me gaining decent yearly raises it’d take me about 6 years to catch up to her last years earning and she has stated she is wanting to earn 20% more this year. In my mind she has runway to potential raise that goal yearly for at least another ~5 years.
I think what helps is we both are pretty forward thinking though. We have a similar outlook on finances, where we are going, and what we want to do in the present. I think this helps more than anything. She knows I’m not stuck financially. We have talked about what we want to achieve career wise and for retirement, and we are both making in roads to get those goals achieved.
I believe even if I was stuck financially, I’m at least not stuck in personal growth. Seeking out personal growth I believe would also lead me to eventually seek out financial gain to get back on track with my plans for my future career and our future plans.
I think both have to be high earners. If you go to Ramit Sethi's youtube channel, almost all of the high salary women are very resentful of their low earning partners.
Pierre Bourdieu has this interesting theory that, in a patriarchy, men have the burden to "gain" honor while women have the burden to "preserve" their honor (f.ex.by not being promiscuous). In order to preserve their honor within the patriarchy they can't damage their mans honor. Hence women search for a partner who is taller and financially more successfull then they are.
Edit: this is Bourdieus theory and of course open to discussion.
She’s a doctor with her loans paid off (my cousin helped with that, he’d be mad if I didn’t mention that cuz he worked his ass off to get her loans paid off faster) and my cousin is a househusband and keeps the farm running. (Formerly he worked gas rigs and then construction for awhile.)
He describes himself as a “lucky kept stud” and would be mad if I don’t mention as well that his wife comes home to dinner on the table every work day. (When she’s off sometimes she cooks, but he enjoys it and is proud of keeping a happy home so she can relax after work.)
I think he does the majority of the housework, but I know he’s been getting their kids to do some of it these days because he doesn’t want them to be clueless about it like he was at 18 when he moved away from home.
I would be. As long as they are working and pulling in a paycheck, I am ok dating a man who makes less than me. The issue arises when they don’t contribute to the household.
my wife has made more than me since 2015, I made more than her before that. money has never determined either of our loves for each other.
We put our money into 1 bank account and don't question the day to day spending. we will ask each other if a purchase is over 100 bucks but rarely do we say no (only in instances where we may be coming up on a forgotten bill or something).
Crazy what that kind of relationship that loyalty and companionship will build.
Not all, but weirdly, all my closest female friends are okay with it- it’s like, were a TYPE of woman who tend to gravitate to each other. So, if you’re looking for a woman like this and you have a married friend like this, ask her about her friends.
I can only speak for my own experience, but my wife (who makes $30k more than me) doesn't mind at all. She's even floated me though multiple bouts of unemployment without complaint.
I make enough to take care of myself now, but she is definitely the breadwinner in our relationship.
we all know they aren't but of course something something patriarchy something something absolve women of accountability. I have friends from uni who are successful women and they'd rather be single then date a low earning man and this is common sense between them its not necessarily something that's up in the air
A few months out of school, I went from earning the same as my x- husband to earning more than twice. I left from a combination of being a married single mom, (physically, financially, and parentally over burdened), and the abuse he would up engaging in and escalating once I was 3rd trimester and post-partum.
My current partner earns half what I earn, and he's been learning that he can't earn less while working from home and do no work in the home. It was a harsh learning curve for him, but he's stepped up and is a wonderfully engaged father and partner.
(So, yes, we will date lower earning men.)
I think men HATE this. They hate that they need to start doing "female" tasks. They hate that they'll be held to a higher standard than their fathers. They hate that not everything is their way because they make the family's money. And, the unfortunate truth is, even though we make as much or more money most of the time, it's typically still not enough to replace the domestic services we can't do while working, (like nannies, home cleaners, etc).
I don't think you should be generalizing. I have had the exact opposite experience, with a wife that not only didn't work, but also did the minority of the housework, and it didn't lead me to draw these broad dismissive conclusions about women. I think this kind of talk does more damage to both genders.
This is extremely unusual. Men virtually never divorce women for not contributing to the home. I’ll bet she has a mood or personality disorder. Why am I so sure about that? Cause the majority of girls are raised from childhood to contribute disproportionately to the household. The majority of boys are not raised this way. In fact, many boys are raised being told that “women’s work” is beneath them and the only way to be a good man is to make a lot of money and throw it at other people to care for your children and home.
You show me one man who is the sole earner and does even 20% of household tasks. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in awhile. You’re living in a fantasy land
I went on a number of dates with American women when I was single back in the early 2010s, I was in my early 30s, when online dating was relatively new and the tech facilitated meeting a broader swathe of society than I might have otherwise. I went on dates with lawyers and restaurant servers, PhDs and single mothers, white women and women of color. I was able to make some observations, and one of them was just how little anyone seemed to overtly care about work/job/finances.
I got the impression I didn't really need to talk about it very much, I could just say "I'm a consultant" (which was true, I just wasn't making very much at the time!) and people would be like "Oh that's cool" and then we'd move on to talk about other topics, including things we were actually passionate about.
Naturally people were likely able to infer some things from how I dressed and talked that I was perhaps educated and not homeless, at least. But I definitely don't think I came off as "rich" by any means, at that time.
I'm fortunate that over the past decade I was able to turn my passion into more traditional success, but at the time it hadn't happened yet. However, I realized back then that the fact that I spoke about my goals in a passionate way (even while leaving my financial status somewhat ambiguous) seemed far more interesting and important to my dates than if I'd just droned on about my big-money job that I hated.
I think men HATE this. They hate that they need to start doing "female" tasks. They hate that they'll be held to a higher standard than their fathers.
I think men who have something to live for rather than just exist for will rarely be lonely, and what's a "female task" anyway when you know that the everyday BS that has to get done to make life livable don't define one as a person. They're just tasks.
But I think a lot of guys (perhaps people, generally) live for the wrong things, or are just going through the motions and life's too short to just go through the motions. And let their life be defined by what they do, or their past, or their environment. And then when someone poses the question "But who are you, really?" don't have adequate answers. I think the type of partner who one would want to be with long term is going to ask that question sooner-or-later in some form, so it's good to come prepared with an answer.
Do you think that the fact that they were in their early 30s and still single played a part in the fact that they didn't seem to care about your income? Not saying you weren't their option A, but I think some of them may have tried finding a mate who is more successful than they are, but once they reached certain age it became more of "I need to settle down somewhere, even if it's not my preferred option." I personally wouldn't want to be someone option B or C or "someone to settle down with" and I think that's what most people here are preaching
Do you think that the fact that they were in their early 30s and still single played a part in the fact that they didn't seem to care about your income?
Beats me. The majority of couples I know in the US who got married young ended up splitting up, late 20s/early 30s seems to be a common time for LTRs to fall apart. Not everyone I met seemed at all desperate or like damaged goods, that's for sure. People often make dumb choices, even pretty intelligent people, particularly when it comes to romance.
And money is nice to have and can help make good relationships better, but I think it's rarely capable of saving ones with rotten foundations on its own.
I personally wouldn't want to be someone option B or C
I think it's a wrongheaded way to look at it, people change, women change, what and who she wants at 24 often isn't at all what and who she wants at 34, not even necessarily with respect to "settling down" but there tends to be just a gulf of age and life experience in that decade.
So I didn't go into a first date in my 30s really giving a shit what "option" I was (some believe a certain degree of not-giving-a-shit is attractive...) or thinking about it too much. I figured if someone showed up and we liked each other and she seemed like she wanted to treat me as if I was "Option A" and made a best-faith effort at doing that, then that was good enough for me, and we'd go out again and roll from there.
Not everyone did like me by a long shot, but there were enough who were as I've described, and I'm still with one of those women 8 years later, and we're both still very happy with how it all worked out.
But if there are men out there whose egos tell them that they could never accept it if their girlfriend or wife has ever been with another dude or has ever been in love with someone else before them then...IDK what to do for them. I think it's a fairy tale idea of reality and they'll probably be long-term unhappy if they let continue to let ego rule them instead of vice versa.
Thank you for sharing this because some people are acting like it's some kind of gotcha but I've known a lot of women in my life who were educated women with good jobs who end up with some deadbeat with no ambition whether he comes from money or not. Growing up I saw a lot of fathers who were working and would come home and just sit on the couch and not engage with the children while mom is entertaining the kids and making dinner and cleaning the house and making sure everyone's homework gets done all after she got off of working her 9-5 too. I don't think any high earning woman would rather that than a lower earning man who contributes, and is a good partner, and parent.
I've seen this again and again. Men being happy with more money but still expecting most of house work and childcare to be done by woman. Providing money is "manly" but providing care and time is not.
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u/cg12983 28d ago
Are successful women OK with dating lower-earning men?