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Anything else puts the non-working spouse into a shocking position of power over the working spouse.

But I think oftentimes, the same can be said for the reverse. An awful lot of working spouses, male or female, seem to have a breadwinner complex that makes them feel that they wear the pants in the relationship and are entitled to the power position financially because they make the money.

Sorry if the topic has shifted but I didn't read through all the comments, I just felt I needed to reply to the original post.

I am aware I am in the minority here, I recently found out I am Asexual (which doesn't mean I don't have sex, it means I don't feel sexual attraction. I can and have had sex as a means of bonding in a relationship), but either way I am worried that the OP is equating sex and emotion, they aren't the same thing. You can love someone and NEVER want to have sex with them.

Also (and I am trying not to be too harsh here) and I am not sure how far you are out from D-Day, but the initial response here reads like you are saying that women are ruled by their baser instincts and all they care about is sex. I don't know OPs story at all, but the things he said (with the Plan A vs Plan B) are the same kind of things you read in Incel forums, which I hope is a think that OP doesn't want and that they can work on some self love, because you are so much more than your relationship status!

But I think oftentimes, the same can be said for the reverse. An awful lot of working spouses, male or female, seem to have a breadwinner complex that makes them feel that they wear the pants in the relationship and are entitled to the power position financially because they make the money.

^^^ This!!

This is the entire reason why I refused to be a SAH parent, even though we both recognized how much better/easier things ran in the house when I would have a few weeks off here and there (independent contractor work let me bust ass for a while to save, then take a few weeks off at a time).

My XH and I were planning on having a child of our own, and he would always say things like "But I want to provide for you. We've seen how it just works better to have someone at home. If you have my baby of course I'll do everything to take care of you!"

I flat out refused and said look, I will take maternity leave, of course, because I will need that to heal. And I get that you want to provide, I do. But I'm not going to put myself in that position where I am solely dependent on somebody else's income.

And also the breadwinner can become resentful of the person that they chose to provide for. Yes, it's an equal divide in that someone is bringing home the bacon, and someone else is keeping up the place so there is a home to bring the bacon to. But it's often not viewed that way.

I spent the whole year leading up to us trying to have a kid, squirreling away money so that I would have enough saved up to cover all of my portion of the expenses once I went on maternity leave, just because I would never want to be considered a "mooch." Which is ridiculous! If all had gone as planned, I would have just pushed a baby out of my vagina, I shouldn't have had to worry about where the money was coming from. I did my fair share of labor already. The sweat equity would be there in spades.

But I saved it anyway, to protect myself.

Then, right before I discovered the A, lo and behold, he didn't want to have kids anymore! When he sat down and gave me a list of all of the reasons why he went back on his word, one of the bullet points was:

I know you're just going to want to stay home with the kids, and then everything will fall on me to make all of the money!

So it's a good thing I had that money saved, I had to use it to get myself out of infidelity!

I am a SAHM. I have been for over 15 years. I will be for many more because my youngest is only 7 and I homeschool.

I disagree with everything, I think (can't remember it all), that RIO said on this topic. I don't even know how to start addressing it all. I feel sad about it. Seems like such a negative view of children, only thinking about how much they might cost you and wanting some virtual stranger to raise them rather than their loving parents. Just sad.

That is all, I think.

Seems like such a negative view of children, only thinking about how much they might cost you and wanting some virtual stranger to raise them rather than their loving parents. Just sad.

Agree with you wholeheartedly coco.

Let me clarify what I said earlier. I would have LOVED to be a SAHM. My mother was one for 26 years, and in a way still is. One of my brothers lives at home - in recovery for alcoholism, and finding his way. And I also don't know what I would have done without her after the A happened. She came to stay with me in hotels and AirBnbs as I worked the last few weeks of a major job, and I don't think I would have remembered to brush my teeth or take a shower if she had not reminded me during those first few weeks post DDay.

And in those few weeks at a time that I would have off, and I was able to keep everything clean, have a nice meal on the table for everybody, keep track of everyone's appointments, make them lunches, etc. I would often feel more accomplished and have higher self esteem during those times than I would when I was working full time.

The sad thing is, as much as I would have loved to believe my XH when he said he was happy to provide the money if I could provide all of that other labor on the other end, deep down I knew I couldn't. Underneath it all the resentment/money issue is always there.

Towards the end, before I found out about the A, but when he kept complaining about the "pressure," on numerous occasions he yelled at me and the kids about how we only thought about him as a money making machine for the house.

And other times, he would say, "you guys are just spending all of my money."

I thought how sad it is that he has reduced his own self-worth to that of how much money he makes/has, and that he only sees his wife and children as money-grubbing succubis.

And he thought all of this even though I also worked full time and contributed half of the money to all of our joint expenses! So I can't imagine how he would start twisting it if I had decided to stay at home.

I agree in an ideal world, someone would stay home with the kids. But sometimes there are times where you absolutely NEED dual incomes. It's happening more and more these days. There is no way we could have lived where we lived and not had a dual income, however we viewed the payoff for that as worth it, because it meant my step daughters got to finish school in a great school system that we otherwise wouldn't have access to.

Had we decided I would be a SAHM after we had our own kid, the plan was to move somewhere else for a while after the girls graduated, when school district didn't matter, that way we could take a financial hit like that.

I think in a way, he was jealous of the fact that I could take those stretches of time off. He wishes he could be home with the kids more. He felt stressed knowing that he constantly had to go to work monday through friday, and that it was just going to trudge on like that forever.

But then again, he wasn't taking into account the stress of being an independent contractor, and yeah I might get a few weeks off, but sometimes I have no idea where my next job is coming from, so I have to be extra careful about where my money goes, because I never know when I might need to hold myself over for a while.

I disagree with everything, I think (can't remember it all), that RIO said on this topic. I don't even know how to start addressing it all. I feel sad about it. Seems like such a negative view of children, only thinking about how much they might cost you and wanting some virtual stranger to raise them rather than their loving parents. Just sad.

I agree with you there, it is pretty sad. I am slowly reading through this thread and it's really eye opening (and more than a bit disturbing) to read how people value different parts of a relationship so much more or less than others.

Seems like such a negative view of children, only thinking about how much they might cost you and wanting some virtual stranger to raise them rather than their loving parents. Just sad.

I completely agree. I love being a mom so much. As hard as it can be sometimes (one of my kids has special needs), I wouldn’t trade it for anything—especially more money.

Also coco, I love how you describe your WH in your tag line as caveman. My XWH is the same way.

I had a funny conversation with a friend the other day about, Things They Should Have Taught In Caveman School:

- wife = good

- other woman = bad

- penis in other vagina = bad

There are a lot more things I could add to that list, but they would get pretty graphic pretty quickly haha.

Also coco, I love how you describe your WH in your tag line as caveman.

I think that is his username here on SI

And along the money lines, I’ll get controversial. I realize some families really HAVE to have both spouses working to get by. I’m not talking about those families here. But the trending culture of “we both make good money and can afford for a parent to SAH, but nah, let’s ‘outsource the childcare’ so we can both continue to make bank” is really disturbing. I believe one of the most harmful messages to come out of the generation prior to mine is “you can have it all!” Nope, nope you can’t. I’d rather “suffer” a little with a tighter belt than make my precious KIDS suffer by having their love and care “outsourced” so I can have a nicer car or a vacation every year.

I think that is his username here on SI

Thank you for the clarification cheating who!

If that is not in fact the way you would describe your husband, I hope you don't take offense!

[This message edited by HeHadADoubleLife at 8:03 PM, March 23rd (Saturday)]

And along the money lines, I’ll get controversial. I realize some families really HAVE to have both spouses working to get by. I’m not talking about those families here. But the trending culture of “we both make good money and can afford for a parent to SAH, but nah, let’s ‘outsource the childcare’ so we can both continue to make bank” is really disturbing. I believe one of the most harmful messages to come out of the generation prior to mine is “you can have it all!” Nope, nope you can’t. I’d rather “suffer” a little with a tighter belt than make my precious KIDS suffer by having their love and care “outsourced” so I can have a nicer car or a vacation every year.

Ok, I’ll make a counter point....

My wife makes a pretty good living (more than me anyway). And we had, at various times in the past, toyed with the idea of my becoming a stay at home Dad.

Dday put a absolute, complete, total and irrevocable end to any consideration I might have had for that idea. I will NEVER EVER put myself in a position were i am not financially able, at any time, to walk out of the fucking door and set up a new life on my own at a moments fucking notice. I NEVER want money to be a factor that I would have to consider, a complication I would have to iron out, before I could take action should I ever find myself on the receiving end of a betrayal again.

And that’s not something I think about just because I am in R with someone with a track record of infidelity... if I got divorced tomorrow I would have the same policy going forward in any new relationship I might embark on.

And I will go even further... after years of reading here on SI, I give that same advice to young people I know. I tell them to never put themselves into a position where they are financially dependent upon someone else to the extent that they would be unable support themselves independently.

Maybe that makes me paranoid or jaded but that’s just one of my many wonderful take aways from infidelity.

I don’t dispute that infidelity adds a layer of complication to this topic. It’s reason #5,374 I’m glad we had our kids after remarriage. We were able to hash all this out without having a legal and moral commitment, and if he had been skittish about the having kids/SAH parent thing due to my past infidelity, we could have discerned that we were not a match.

I understand that some families need a dual income. I understand that some parents need to work. I am not judging anyone for that. I was a single mom for many years. I had to outsource the care of my baby.

Darknessfalls, yep.

Hehadadoublelife, yeah, that's my fCH's username on here. He gave it to himself. I'm not offended. It's pretty funny. He doesn't post or read on here anymore. He didn't post much and hasn't been on in years.

HoldingTogether, I totally get your POV. That was how I felt post dday. Not only did I not have my own income, but my children were homeschooled, which added another layer of disruption to me leaving. The truth, however, was that I could've left without any money. I had places to go. I wasn't trapped.

I still don't work. I still have one young, homeschooled child. I could still leave. I know not everyone is in my shoes. Just pointing out that it isn't necessarily as dire as you imagine.

Because having my wife want to "use me" for sex is about the most intoxicating thing that I can imagine; which, I realize, is probably where a huge part of the divide comes between the sexes.

Ok, I need to thank Rideitout for this observation, because I used it yesterday in a way that was very beneficial to me and BH. TMI warning ahead, I won't get graphic but there will be some rather personal observations.

Yesterday, when I was at work, I started feeling sick. Woozy, headachy, weak. I had to white knuckle it to get to the end of my shift. I came home to a BH who had been juggling the circus of our home life all day and explained that I needed to just collapse in bed. I was there for a few hours, feeling sick and guilty about loafing when I should be getting stuff done, and also the sort of low grade sorry for myself that achy illness can bring on. I also, implausibly, was feeling horny, because we have been on a sex-bombing schedule, and I have gotten used to it. So I was thinking about taking care of it myself, and then I thought about Rideitout's post. It would never have occurred to me before to hit my husband up in this situation, because he'd been so busy all day and I'd come home and vanished. If I initiated, I didn't have the energy to keep up my half of the bargain. That flew in the face of everything I've been working on as a WS, that his needs should always come first. But then, RIO wrote that being used for sex sounded intoxicating, and there's been a lot that RIO has written that I've shown to my BH and found that he agrees more than I would ever have expected. So...

I WhatsApped my BH and asked what the chances were that I could shamelessly use him for sex.

Let me tell you, that man was upstairs in 45 seconds. He shut the bedroom door with this big grin on his face and said, "I got a booty call!" And he proceeded to enthusiastically deliver the goods.

Now, I want to be clear that I am still and always following the policy that BH's needs come first in R. What I'm saying is that that RIO gave me a new angle on his needs. I've been so focused on what I can do for him in the bedroom -- frequency, inventiveness, enthusiasm. That's all critical. But it's also a need for him to see that I know he's the man who can get the job done. And I do know that! I was just thinking that I had no right to bother him for sex if I wasn't in a condition to reciprocate. It's the fine men of SI who made me see that "bother him for sex" is kind of an oxymoron for a lot of guys, including my BH.

YMMV, but for us, it was a really good bonding moment. So thanks, team, and especially RIO.

I love this ^^^^.

I second this^^^^^^^^^^

Could be the seminal post of a thread title "So here's a clue."

...but either way I am worried that the OP is equating sex and emotion, they aren't the same thing. You can love someone and NEVER want to have sex with them.

Also (and I am trying not to be too harsh here) and I am not sure how far you are out from D-Day, but the initial response here reads like you are saying that women are ruled by their baser instincts and all they care about is sex. I don't know OPs story at all, but the things he said (with the Plan A vs Plan B) are the same kind of things you read in Incel forums, which I hope is a think that OP doesn't want and that they can work on some self love, because you are so much more than your relationship status!

I'm the OP. I took a statement that someone said in the Wayward forum and wanted to know people's thoughts on it.

As far as plan A/B, my thoughts on it are simple. If the WS only wants to stay with their BS bc their AP won't have them, then the BS is plan B.

As far as sexual plan A/B, the BS is always plan B.

Has nothing to do with those incel fucks, and I've never read anything that any of them have written.

[This message edited by GoldenR at 10:52 AM, March 24th (Sunday)]

As far as sexual plan A/B, the BS is always plan B.

Uuummmmm, sorry, bullshit generalization.

As far as sexual plan A/B, the BS is always plan B.

So silly.

My H wanted everything in the universe to be about him, and I wanted affirmation and value. Sex was the vehicle.

But if you want to torture yourself with painful untruths, have at it. Enjoy the pain.

I sometimes think that people post stuff like this out of jealousy. After all, if people are able to reconcile, then they don't have to go through a painful D, lose half of everything, and lose friends/family. Those that do go through D simply must tell them that they are "sexual plan B" to make themselves feel better about their lot in life? IC would be a good path for healing that jealousy rather than showing up on a website after you are out of infidelity just to call people names like "sexual plan B." I hope people reconciling are smart enough to consider the motivation in posting that stuff.

Carry on.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 11:05 AM, March 24th (Sunday)]