Explain to Me Being a Non-WOH No-Kid Wife

[Tsuga]

Super controversial post warning

 

It's not a JAWM though I'd really like someone to explain how it works and not just say "shame on you Judgy Mc Judgerson". I own my judgment but I'm willing to grow as a person. I want to know HOW this works... there's a lot bundled in here, a lot to tease apart. On the one hand this is a rant and on the other hand I will probably meet this person someday so it would be great to have some insight into her mindset in a positive way.

 

---

 

Every woman I know works outside the home or has more than one child or a disabled child. I don't know ANYONE who doesn't have a profession or who doesn't have kids (kids being in some cases your effective profession).

 

Except for the wife of a co-worker.

 

She doesn't work outside the home. She has a degree but she doesn't use it. She has no children right now. She has never had children, and is young, so it's not like she faces that.

 

And yet she calls him and complains that it takes him too long to get home. There's no baby at home so... she's just bored. He said so. "She wants me to come home because she gets bored." Because you know, she doesn't work. I could see how you'd get antsy. What the hell do you do all day?

 

This man is literally buying your lunch, lady. Oh and of course, the other women who are actually earning a living? We're still here too, lady. Because, you know. We are earning our own retirement and our own clothes etc. It's not like your husband is avoiding you. He's literally earning your vacation for you.

 

And on top of it, she has recently demanded that he relocate to a neighborhood she likes more. Which is expensive.

 

So he's telling us about these places they are moving. For her. Because she "can't live in this area". It's too boring for her. He did not frame his move in this way, by the way. I know his wife doesn't work from an unrelated conversation, and he brought up his move in a more general conversation about real estate because it's Seattle so everyone between 25 and 40 has nothing to talk about other than real estate and traffic. Anyway. Just to say, he did not frame his real estate questions as a wife complaint and I'm not sure he even realizes that there are like 10 working women in the office just going "wow".

 

How does that work? I should also note that our area has far better services and schools for kids than the area she wants to move to which, while very fun for adults, isn't kid friendly. So that's understandable, she's not thinking about that, because she doesn't have kids, but what I do not get is asking your partner to spend an additional 1 hour 30 minutes in a bus because you don't like the area. When he is paying the rent

 

Doesn't he get to choose? How do you get to choose? What value do you provide to this man that you get to choose?!? I mean that he's not providing to you. Like my partner, he loves me and loves touching me. But I love touching him too. I can't just be like, "Well if you don't do what I want, no sex." Because then I don't get sex either! Also that's prostitution, demanding economic value for just sex. :P

 

I know she's not disabled because of the hobbies she wants him to take part in. Because she is bored. Well I'd be bored too without a job or a family as my job. But anyway, point is, it would have to be a reeeeealllly specific disability and also... there is just no way that she's better served in the neighborhood she wants to live in even if she were disabled. She wants the ambiance and said so.

 

I'm not talking about being a SAHM which has a pretty clear economic, social, and for some, spiritual value. There's no question in my mind that taking care of a child is extremely important work, even as it is much more than work.

 

I mean, literally earning your living as nothing more than being a wife.

 

 

Which isn't really earning, per se... how does it work? What's the value to him? Why would a man, or a woman for that matter, do such a thing? It's 2016. She has a degree. They are from educated families.

 

 

I can't wrap my head around it. What am I missing? Pummel me.

[hornblower]

There are several possibilities here.

 

Off the top of my head,

 

could she be an artist? Some of us are very cagy about working at our craft and rarely tell anyone about it.

 

Could she be mentally ill or fragile?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Audrey]

I don't get it, either.  It's definitely not the lifestyle for me or my dh.   Maybe she just doesn't want to work.  Maybe he doesn't want her to work.  I don't know, but... if it is working for that couple, then it's not a topic for judgment.  

 

That said, her constant nagging of him while he is at work is obnoxious and needs to be stopped.   I think that's an entirely separate matter from their marriage arrangements, though.   Having a spouse that interrupts and annoys your workplace is never acceptable.   A supervisor needs to say something to him if he is not seeing the problem.   As his co-worker, I wouldn't address it with him directly, but I would say something to management.  It's management's job to talk to him if there is an issue. 

[zoobie]

Religious convictions?

 

Mental illness? Hidden physical disabilities?

 

I'd go bananas, but I'm nearly bananas home with 4 kids.

[SKL]

It's possible that she has a mental illness or other invisible disability.  He wouldn't tell you that, I think.

Or, maybe he aspires to be an astronaut and she aspires to help him.  :P

[SKL]

The other thing is that maybe she's trying to have kids and has had losses or can't conceive.  That's another thing her husband wouldn't share with you.  Maybe the plan is for her to be a SAHM and it just hasn't happened yet.  If she doesn't have to work (financially) and plans to leave the workforce as soon as she gets ready to have a baby, it might not be worth joining the rat race.

 

Maybe she has her own inheritance or other source of wealth.  Maybe she is an heiress to a big company.

[lovinmyboys]

Has she tried to find work and been unable to? That is my first thought.

[SKL]

As to why she gets to say she wants to move, well, if she's the one spending the most time in the neighborhood, why not?  Does he prefer the current neighborhood, or do you just assume that since the commute is shorter?  I have pretty strong preferences about what kind of environment I live in, and even when I worked long hours in a downtown office, I would not have lived around there (kids or no kids).

[Tsuga]

He does not aspire to be an astronaut, LMBO. :D

 

To answer a couple of questions:

 

• They are atheist vegans. Not sure where the religious convictions could come in there. I know they are atheists and vegans from a totally unrelated conversation in which people were discussing some random things in the coffee room.
• She is not an artist, but even if she were, there are opportunities to work as an artist. You don't get paid a lot but you can work and basically pay your own way.
• The specifics of the story, which are super specific, lead me to believe that she does not have a mental illness that would prevent her from working, given that she worked her way through school in the summers and that she "is willing to do some work but is not sure if she wants to have a full time job"
• Re: supervisor: MY SUPERVISOR'S WIFE ALSO CALLS HIM AT FIVE AND COMPLAINS! That he's not home!  :lol:  Dude! I do not know what kind of fancy places these ladies grew up but in my life men worked until at least 5:30 or 6 and then drove home. But okay, she has a baby and she works part time. I am not totally sure, but she works mornings or something then comes home and watches the baby and at that point I believe demands he comes home. So he's in no position to complain about it either. In addition, given that they have a very generous work from home policy that I intend to take advantage of when necessary, I'm not going to bring up irritating phone calls. Let your wife call all she wants, because I'm going to work from home when my kids have fevers. It's the dynamic I am trying to wrap my head around, not to control his work schedule. Whatever dude, is my practical state of being. But I just can't get my head around it.Hopefully a long tedious online discussion will satisfy my curiosity.
• Re: disabilities: Well, that's a possibility. But like I said, the specific hobbies that he mentions that she's trying to rope him into, are not those which you could ever hope to do with a physical disability. Like long hikes on long vacations with vacation days he doesn't have. Mental illness is certainly a possibility but in all fairness, I think that a lot of people don't work and they aren't all mentally ill.
• Re: commute: No, I know the area and she wants to multiply his commute by about 10 times. From about 5 minutes to 50 minutes. Each way.

I totally get wanting to spend time in a nice area, but that is on my list of "things I work for" not "things I demand someone else give me".

Edited May 25, 2016 by Tsuga

[Arcadia]

I know two family friends who don't want their wives to work after their engagement. Both were married more than 15 years and have no kids. One is okay with his wife doing volunteer work at church while the other wants his wife with him or at home, even church volunteering is out.

 

My hubby did prefer I stop work after marriage and told his friends so when asked soon after engagement. I met some couples whose husbands have no desire for their wives to work once married. Most of my cousins' wives didn't work right after marriage. So very much a social circle thing.

 

ETA:

As for calling, kids and spouses just text because it is hard to have a private phone call short of stepping out of the office building.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Arcadia

[Tsuga]

Has she tried to find work and been unable to? That is my first thought.

 

No--her profession, her training, which I don't want to mention, is very in-demand around here. And she has her college profession, also in-demand, to fall back on. So I don't know what the deal is with that, hence the post.

[mamiof5]

We never know what goes on behind doors

[MaeFlowers]

She sounds obnoxious with the nagging. Maybe she's lazy and self-serving and a truly awful person. Then again, she might have an illness and be isolated and lonely. Or, he's full of it.

 

I've seen all three IRL. You never know.

[hornblower]

Fwiw, my dh leaves the office at 4.30 almost every day.

 

 

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[SKL]

What can I say, I have never been in that position.  :P  I know some wives believe they shouldn't have to work.  My SIL is one.  Even when her husband was a SAHD (to their 1 school-aged kid), SIL would moan and groan about having to work.  Oh please.  When he was a WOHD and she a SAHM, she used to say she was a "single mom" because her husband worked some evenings.  Cry me a river.

[Tap]

I could just be a lifestyle they want to live.  

 

A stay at home wife, and a husband with a career.....sounds very 1950s idealistic to me.

The wife takes care of the home.

The husband pays the bills and comes home to a dinner on the table (one reason the wife may be upset at him being late), a clean home and a wife who isn't distracted by her own career.  Maybe he likes that she calls and wants him home.  Maybe he is a workaholic and she knows that he needs a reminder to clock out.  

 

 

Not the same, but similar....I had a male coworker who worked only part time.  He said that he and his wife had very few material possessions so that they could live life free from work, and spend as much time as possible together.  She stayed home, and he made just enough to pay the bills.  He was x military, and he was not a lazy worker in any way.  They just had different life priorities that other couples.  

 

 

It could also be a family culture.  I know for some men and women, it is very important for them to fit this mold.  Either to show that the man is capable provider, or because the woman is expected to be pampered a bit. 

 

Edited May 25, 2016 by Tap

[Joker]

Dh works from home. I don't work at all. Both dds are teens and in ps. I can only imagine what our neighbors and dh's coworkers think. I don't care because they honestly have no idea what we are dealing with. So, I would be the last person to judge.

[nd293]

Well, he's a grown man so I assume he's happy with the arrangement or he'd leave. It's a bit of a leap to cast him as the helpless victim with a tyrannical wife just because he works and she stays home but expects him there at a certain time or has opinions on where they as a couple live.

 

I think that balancing the relative importance of the individual and the couple in any marriage is challenging, and there are many ways it can be managed. If he's the type of guy who would never cook a meal or take a cup to the kitchen or iron his own shirt or sweep a floor and they're both happy that she stays home and does those things, then what's the problem? That's her job.

 

In our situation, we have children at school, so that alters the equation a bit, but many people would think our decision (note the pronoun) for me to stay home is strange. It doesn't always work best for him. It doesn't always work best for me. But on average, as a couple, a collective, the current arrangement provides the best outcome.

[Tsuga]

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with 'demanding' your spouse ( in the case of the other woman) keeps a work life balance. Ideally, he'd make sure he got home without her having to nag. 

 

 

But there is work to do to earn the money you need to survive. To pay for a home, to pay for food, to pay for a 401k, to pay for the medical deductible, the transport.

 

It's not like they are working for nothing. The work is for money to live.

 

None of us are in the office for fun! There is just X amount of work to do and if it doesn't get done some people get fired. Even in the government it was like that. You worked an eight hour day plus your lunch hour or lunch 30 minutes.

 

The wives call at five p.m.

 

I did a poll on this forum, because I kept noticing people who said their husbands worked "so late" and also people would occasionally mention their husbands left at 4:30 p.m. And I thought, "Seattle is known for having a good work life balance, how is it that most adults I know work a good 45-55 hour week plus commute?" But most people, the majority, said their husbands or they worked a good 45 hour week at least. 8-5:30. But hey, that's not bad in my book, that's two meals with the kids per day.

 

 

So I don't really get the "having to nag" someone to work less. Why would anyone work more than they needed to?

[SKL]

If he told her he expected to be home by 5pm and she planned her evening around that, then I could understand the calls.  It's really annoying when you can't count on a person to show up when he says he will.  It would be better if he told her he was going to work late so she could make other plans.

[Tsuga]

Well, he's a grown man so I assume he's happy with the arrangement or he'd leave. It's a bit of a leap to cast him as the helpless victim with a tyrannical wife just because he works and she stays home but expects him there at a certain time or has opinions on where they as a couple live.

 

 

I did not say she was "tyrannical", I said I don't get it at all, that it boggles my mind.

 

 

I also did not say he was helpless.

 

What I am asking is what is the deal here, how does it work, what are the values that people have that make this seem okay?

 

My values are very, very working class. You work, you eat. You no work, you no eat. It is literally that simple. There is a high value on work, there is a high value on self-sufficiency, there is a low value on being provided for as a gift.

 

He seems quite happy which is why, though I admit I judge (because no work, but eat, but get your way, for me does not compute), I'm not trying to tell him how to live.

 

I'm asking why people live that way. That's different. Not completely innocent but not the same as saying "I know this is wrong."

[gardenmom5]

I'm a sahm. I have one kid under 18.

 

My brother has the attitude women should work, and women who don't are lesser beings. But he wanted a dual income for the lifestyle and grandma babysit for free. Needless to say, even two incomes weren't enough for him. He valued 'stuff'.

 

I know women who are sah, who aren't like her. She's got issues (thinking things make you happy. ) she'd likely have those issues regardless of children or a job.

[Guest]

I was one. My husband wanted me at home, I wanted to be at home, and it worked well. I was a fiber artist and worked a bit but that was at my leisure. He never requires me to have employment at any point - not when I was 19 and not when I'm 59.

 

It's lovely, but people can be rude about it, so one must have a thick skin.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[Tsuga]

If he told her he expected to be home by 5pm and she planned her evening around that, then I could understand the calls.  It's really annoying when you can't count on a person to show up when he says he will.  It would be better if he told her he was going to work late so she could make other plans.

 

Well... that is a good point, but that would apply to working spouses as well.

 

My sense is that the only spouses who are complaining about the other person working late are those who themselves don't have jobs outside the home. Like many of us have more than three kids at home. Usually the discussion on that end is who's going to pick up the kids and how not "why aren't you home already."

[Joker]

But there is work to do to earn the money you need to survive. To pay for a home, to pay for food, to pay for a 401k, to pay for the medical deductible, the transport.

 

It's not like they are working for nothing. The work is for money to live.

 

None of us are in the office for fun! There is just X amount of work to do and if it doesn't get done some people get fired. Even in the government it was like that. You worked an eight hour day plus your lunch hour or lunch 30 minutes.

 

The wives call at five p.m.

 

I did a poll on this forum, because I kept noticing people who said their husbands worked "so late" and also people would occasionally mention their husbands left at 4:30 p.m. And I thought, "Seattle is known for having a good work life balance, how is it that most adults I know work a good 45-55 hour week plus commute?" But most people, the majority, said their husbands or they worked a good 45 hour week at least. 8-5:30. But hey, that's not bad in my book, that's two meals with the kids per day.

 

 

So I don't really get the "having to nag" someone to work less. Why would anyone work more than they needed to?

 

The bold isn't true. My dh has been in corporate America for many years now, decades even, and there are many who choose to be workaholics. They choose to be in the office and not with their families for numerous reasons. They exist, and I think are plentiful, but dh chooses not to be one. It has cost him a few times but it's not a life he chooses to live nor is it one I would accept. Dh and I have been married for 18 years and the only time he hasn't been home when he said was during his time in the Marines. In his world he just chooses to speak up and leave. It's never cost him a job. I get many don't have that option but it's not completely honest to say those in the office don't choose to be there.

[SKL]

Well... that is a good point, but that would apply to working spouses as well.

 

My sense is that the only spouses who are complaining about the other person working late are those who themselves don't have jobs outside the home. Like many of us have more than three kids at home. Usually the discussion on that end is who's going to pick up the kids and how not "why aren't you home already."

 

Often women have jobs with a later start time and end time than their husbands.  So that would explain part of why they wouldn't call.  The other part might be, it's kind of nice to have a little time alone, between work duties and family duties.  Plus, the person who gets home first needs some time to prepare dinner; 5pm would be pretty early to have it on the table of a dual-income family (unless the kids did the cooking).

[Tsuga]

I was one. My husband wanted me at home, I wanted to be at home, and it worked well. I was a fiber artist and worked a bit but that was at my leisure. He never requires me to have employment at any point - not when I was 19 and not when I'm 59.

 

It's lovely, but people can be rude about it, so one must have a thick skin.

 

Well of course he could never â€‹require you to have employment. You are your own person.

 

So please let me ask, since you did answer the thread and you are in this position, I will ask bluntly:

 

What do you do to earn food and lodging? How do those become dissociated from work? Again, I don't mean in the context of raising kids.

 

 

I mean, you have to work to get unemployment, to get disability insurance, to get food stamps, even. You can't even get food stamps without working at least part time.

 

So what is the relationship, the give and take, in which he gives you food, lodging, insurance, in return for... what? What is your end of it?

[Guest]

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with 'demanding' your spouse ( in the case of the other woman) keeps a work life balance. Ideally, he'd make sure he got home without her having to nag.

Some men require it (like mine :p ).

 

Little hint to her though - creative sex and one text every few days work better than nagging. :lol:

[Tsuga]

 I get many don't have that option but it's not completely honest to say those in the office don't choose to be there.

 

I do think it's honest. It's not like I could quit my job or just not work much and people would be like, "Wow Tsuga, here's that bonus you need to make sure your kids can get books at the book fair!"

 

The income level you have to be at in order to be able to be like "meh, I don't need the money that much" is pretty high! Or you have a very low COL.

[PrincessMommy]

I think the only way to know is to ask him yourself.  It could be a family culture thing  - she may come from money and isn't used to a husband who works outside the home so long.  but I'm not sure how we can help you parse all that out, since we don't know them.

[mathnerd]

My friend's wife was a hardware engineer in our area where those professionals demand and get astronomical paychecks. She was staying at home, not working and complaining a lot. Many years later, we figured out that they were trying to start a family, they had many years of infertility and treatments and miscarriages which was part of the reason that she felt that she had a bad deal in their marriage. She resented the fact that she bore the brunt of bedrest, miscarriages and go through her struggles privately while her DH was gallivanting about having work lunches, hanging out in starbucks with friends (according to her). Now, they have a baby at last and felt that they could share their struggles with friends and things make more sense to me. So, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

[Guest]

Well of course he could never ​require you to have employment. You are your own person.

 

So please let me ask, since you did answer the thread and you are in this position, I will ask bluntly:

 

What do you do to earn food and lodging? How do those become dissociated from work? Again, I don't mean in the context of raising kids.

 

 

I mean, you have to work to get unemployment, to get disability insurance, to get food stamps, even. You can't even get food stamps without working at least part time.

 

So what is the relationship, the give and take, in which he gives you food, lodging, insurance, in return for... what? What is your end of it?

Um.... I was in that position but I got pregnant on my honeymoon, miscarried, and got pregnant again on the next cycle. So the lack of working was really only during one pregnancy where I still owned a business and worked at it several hours each day from home. Technically I was a small business owner with nausea, not a bored housewife. But if I HADN'T been pregnant we would have had the same arrangement.

 

Food and lodging? We never viewed it as some weird 50/50 split and it still isn't. We both fulfil our roles in the relationship and home and are happy with it. Some days I do a lot more and sometimes he does, and that was the case even at the beginning. But we never agreed my job was to contribute financially to the family - that's his bag. He has a career he loves that provides for us to live comfortably if I'm industrious with our finances. From the getgo my job was to keep things cleaned up, cook on a budget, take care of errands he didn't have time to handle, keep up a fair bit of our church and political engagements, and pursue my own hobbies and careers while helping free him up in his hours at home to pursue his own. My working hard at home helped give him the freedom to relax more when he wasn't hard at his work.

 

I wasn't fragile, mentally ill, disabled, or otherwise incompetent. But me working odd jobs wasn't needed either, and though I was in college it was more expensive and less useful to have me finish my degree than just put energy into my hobbies and business anyway.

 

He also traded me for killer sex. It was quite equitable all told :rofl:

 

Seriously though? Your tone and assumptions in this thread are kind of harsh - maybe check yourself for biases if you talk to someone IRL about this? I'm good with our agreement from marriage to today and even if I had zero kids I probably wouldn't have worked outside the home ever. We are good with that and nobody else has to be. My husband would be the first to tell someone that we are equally important and complementary partners in our marriage and our roles are exactly what we both talked about and desired for ourselves before we agreed to get engaged.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[Epicurean]

I'm an atheist, and ideally I think women shouldn't have to work outside the home. Kids or no kids. I mean, if a woman wants to work, that's fine. If the couple feels that it is essential that she also work, to either maintain their standard of living or stay out of poverty, that's fine too. But without going into a long thesis on why, I just believe that's it's equally fine for women to stay home and they don't need an excuse to do so.

 

Then again, I also strongly feel that a wife should never call her husband's place of work and bug him about what time he comes home (and if she did, the husband shouldn't tell anyone about it).

[Guest]

She didn't have to earn it. He gifted it to her. Not everything is an exchange relationship.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was getting at. He doesn't view our marriage as some sort of scale balancing exchange but it can be tricky to explain to someone who doesn't have our viewpoint on the subject :)

[Mergath]

 

Every woman I know works outside the home or has more than one child or a disabled child. I don't know ANYONE who doesn't have a profession or who doesn't have kids (kids being in some cases your effective profession).

 

 

So just out of curiosity, do those of us who only have one child get lumped in with the SAHWs in your mind? I'm not asking that in a snarky way, I'm just wondering why the number of kids would really matter. I mean, it's not like with two kids I'd need a sitter but with one I can just leave her home for eight hours while I run off to work. :P 

 

With my disabilities I can't work anyway, so you won't hurt my feelings regardless of your answer. I would actually love to have a part time job and get out of the house a bit more, but c'est la vie.

[mathnerd]

 

So what is the relationship, the give and take, in which he gives you food, lodging, insurance, in return for... what? What is your end of it?

I don't understand this question. Why would a husband not give his wife food, lodging and insurance? 

[Tsuga]

Assuming we are talking about professional classes here - so far as I am aware, we're not discussing minimum wage workers who truly DO have to overwork to survive...

 

They aren't working to survive, no, they are beyond that. They are working for a middle-class life. One in which they will not be on public benefits and in which they can eat meat every day and are not in debt and may own property someday. That is what these salaries get you. So yeah, you could give some of that up, but you're not giving up a trip to Hawaii. You're giving up retirement for three or four years. YOu're paying thousands more in student loan interest because of lower payments. These are not frills.

 

Sure, the work has to be done. But there are options - my dad, for example, went in early every morning so he could be home by 5 to spend time with us. 

 

I'm not defending workaholism. There are limits. But a 45 hour week is not unreasonable for a salary with medical, dental, retirement, and other basic benefits and a salary that allows you to buy a home.

 

Plenty of people work more than they need to. Never heard parents joking about working until the witching hour at home is over ? Let mom or nanny handle that...

 

No, never heard that, because I was the one working during the witching hour with a baby on my hip with a deployed husband, in order to avoid getting WIC... I mean just no.

 

Workaholism is one of the only addictions that gets a free pass in this society. It's just as damaging as any other addiction. It's not a virtue to overwork.

 

How can you over-work when you know that you are never, ever going to retire? When they are struggling to find an apartment they can afford? Which they are: that's how I found out about the fact that he was moving and someone else asked why, he had such a nice location, and he said she couldn't stand it. She's going to just LOVE the wrap around commute time on his end after they move. Not.

 

The trope of the nagging wife is a particularly obnoxious one, imo. Maybe her 'demand' is perfectly reasonable in the context of them both working and having a young child. 

 

Well, I get my boss's situation in which they are both working and she has an infant! Caring for an infant is hard work and they both made the baby so come home and care for it. I am talking about Non-working, no kids adults who depend on another adult for their keep. And then complain.

 

Anybody is at home with a baby and calls their spouse for help, I hear you.

 

[LucyStoner]

I do think it's honest. It's not like I could quit my job or just not work much and people would be like, "Wow Tsuga, here's that bonus you need to make sure your kids can get books at the book fair!"

 

The income level you have to be at in order to be able to be like "meh, I don't need the money that much" is pretty high! Or you have a very low COL.

 

Well, I have worked with people who like me were on a FT salary with no higher of a workload than me but were in the office way more than an average of 40 a week either because they made work for themselves or were lonely or were either plain incompetent or overly social and thus needed 12 hours to do what the rest of us could do in 7-9 hours a day.  

[Mergath]

I'm an atheist, and ideally I think women shouldn't have to work outside the home. Kids or no kids. I mean, if a woman wants to work, that's fine. If the couple feels that it is essential that she also work, to either maintain their standard of living or stay out of poverty, that's fine too. But without going into a long thesis on why, I just believe that's it's equally fine for women to stay home and they don't need an excuse to do so.

 

Then again, I also strongly feel that a wife should never call her husband's place of work and bug him about what time he comes home (and if she did, the husband shouldn't tell anyone about it).

 

That's interesting. I've never met anyone who thought that about women without a religious basis. Does it have to be the woman, or do you think that one spouse should be home regardless of gender?

[SKL]

If he doesn't want her to work, then she's actually paying a significant opportunity cost by staying home.  Her stand-alone economic value is taking a hit, and there's no guarantee that he'll always be in the role of provider to her.  I don't know why either of them would agree to that kind of deal while childless, but perhaps they have their reasons.

[Epicurean]

This quote from Wendell Berry from What are People For? springs to mind:

 

"That feminism or any other advocates of human liberty and dignity should resort to insult and injustice is regrettable.  It is equally regrettable that all of the feminist attacks on my essay implicitly deny the validity of two decent and probably necessary possibilities: marriage as a state of mutual help, and the household as an economy.

 

Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate 'relationship' involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on teh other hand a sort of private political system in which the rights and and interests must be constantly asserted and defended.  Marriage, in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the 'married' couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.

 

The modern household is the place where the consumptive couple do their consuming.  Nothing productive is done there. Such work as is done there is done at the expense of the resident couple or family, and to the profit of suppliers and outside employers..."

 

He goes on to talk about the myriad ways a woman who stays home is a producer in the most organic sense, and how many feminists degrade the wife who is not a careerist by gauging her worth solely as a wage slave to other people. I'd quote the whole chapter if my fingers weren't tired.

[LucyStoner]

I'm not sure how this is anyone's business but theirs.  

 

I would also gently point out that you would have no way of knowing if she has a mental illness unless you were involved in her healthcare or they chose to tell you.  What you describe could be what you assume "nagging spouse" or it could be someone with anxiety or severe depression or any number of other things.  I'm open about my issues with mental illness with some folks but certainly none of my husband's co-workers know.  Why would he tell them?  

 

 

[Artichoke]

Well of course he could never ​require you to have employment. You are your own person.

 

So please let me ask, since you did answer the thread and you are in this position, I will ask bluntly:

 

What do you do to earn food and lodging? How do those become dissociated from work? Again, I don't mean in the context of raising kids.

 

 

I mean, you have to work to get unemployment, to get disability insurance, to get food stamps, even. You can't even get food stamps without working at least part time.

 

So what is the relationship, the give and take, in which he gives you food, lodging, insurance, in return for... what? What is your end of it?

My end of it is really simple: my being at home makes his life easier. He doen't have to worry about taking care of things at home or being available for aging parents during the workweek. When he's at work, he can be fully at work and not have to use PTO for routine tasks. It gives us both a more peaceful life.

[Tsuga]

I don't understand this question. Why would a husband not give his wife food, lodging and insurance? 

 

Because healthy adults are supposed to earn those things.

 

Growing up poor I heard it again and again, poor people deserve it because they DON'T WORK. Lazy. Shiftless. Useless. You don't work, you don't deserve to eat. Why do you think you deserve health care? Why do you think you deserve food? Why do you think you deserve an education? You're supposed to WORK for that. Poor people are so entitled. They think they can just have those things for free. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. It's drilled into you. I grew up under Reagan. No free lunch. The guilt of being poor, the guilt of knowing how lazy we were. See the nice cars? He built that. He worked. See your car? You must not have worked. What I understood was that our misfortune, crappy schools, were a result of being lazy and making mistakes. Maybe a bit of bad luck but ultimately, poor habits. Not working.

 

Surely those habits are not good habits just because you're a married woman?

 

Surely the rule applies to everyone, work for rewards? No work, no food?

 

Or is that not a rule, that's just an excuse to blame poor people for their misfortune? And actually it is okay to get free stuff, so long as you aren't suffering?

[LucyStoner]

I could more than double our income and move us from the just getting by until graduation into the quite comfortable category if I sought a FT job right now. I don't and won't. We only have 2 kids and while neither is NT, it's not like they are medically fragile. I could do it. But truthfully, even if I had NT kids who didn't thrive with homeschooling and get way worse in school, most days I prefer working a tight budget in order to have more family time and better self care than when I worked FT. I wish I would stop running into the idea that since I don't have a FT job, my husband is supporting me more than I support him. If I were gone, he'd be a single dad trying to hold it together with non-NT kids. My work supports him and the boys just as much as his paycheck supports me and the boys.

Edited May 31, 2016 by LucyStoner

[Epicurean]

That's interesting. I've never met anyone who thought that about women without a religious basis. Does it have to be the woman, or do you think that one spouse should be home regardless of gender?

 

Well, I don’t necessarily want to tell other people how to live. I think that there are some advantages to having a woman stay at home and a man work, largely based on the couple having children or possibly doing so in the future. If a couple is sure that they are never going to have children, the advantages of the wife staying at home become less pronounced. I think that with how busy and complicated life can be, that it is nice to have one member of the family who can take care of cleaning, cooking, paying bills, and so on while the other works. In most cases, it probably works out better for the woman to do that even if the couple is sure they won’t ever have children.

[Tsuga]

I'm not sure how this is anyone's business but theirs.  

 

I would also gently point out that you would have no way of knowing if she has a mental illness unless you were involved in her healthcare or they chose to tell you.  What you describe could be what you assume "nagging spouse" or it could be someone with anxiety or severe depression or any number of other things.  I'm open about my issues with mental illness with some folks but certainly none of my husband's co-workers know.  Why would he tell them?  

 

That's true, and I have no idea about her situation in particular.

 

But does that mean you think that most people who are not working and who don't have kids (I am not talking about retirees here, empty nesters), have some hidden disability?

 

Like, it doesn't make sense to stay home and not work unless you're disabled?

 

Because I can grant that, but I also don't want to assume that everyone who doesn't work and who stays home has some kind of health-related issue. Unless that is almost always the case, which kind of solves the mystery for me. But I posted about that in the very beginning... this is more a hypothetical thing for me because of all the unknowns.

[Tsuga]

Re: Their business, yeah, and there are other details I have not shared because it should remain quite general here. The post is about "women" and not "this one particular family" for a reason. The situation drew my attention to a larger question. I'm not really that obsessed with their marriage on a personal level.

[LucyStoner]

Because healthy adults are supposed to earn those things.

 

Growing up poor I heard it again and again, poor people deserve it because they DON'T WORK. Lazy. Shiftless. Useless. You don't work, you don't deserve to eat. Why do you think you deserve health care? Why do you think you deserve food? Why do you think you deserve an education? You're supposed to WORK for that. Poor people are so entitled. They think they can just have those things for free. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. It's drilled into you. I grew up under Reagan. No free lunch. The guilt of being poor, the guilt of knowing how lazy we were. See the nice cars? He built that. He worked. See your car? You must not have worked. What I understood was that our misfortune, crappy schools, were a result of being lazy and making mistakes. Maybe a bit of bad luck but ultimately, poor habits. Not working.

 

Surely those habits are not good habits just because you're a married woman?

 

Surely the rule applies to everyone, work for rewards? No work, no food?

 

Or is that not a rule, that's just an excuse to blame poor people for their misfortune? And actually it is okay to get free stuff, so long as you aren't suffering?

 

That's one set of values.  There are others.  I think the idea that poverty is only or even mainly a matter of poor choices is hogwash. 

 

I believe in a public safety net.  I am a product of a reasonably decent public safety net.  It is a moral failing in my book to attack the poor.  I think you agree with that so why are you hung up on a belief system that which you don't seem to actually be arguing to support? 

 

Families decide what they can and want to do from a set of usually restricted or limited choices.  And no one needs to mind what the heck works for someone else's family that is safe and legal.  This is an inherently more conservative idea than I generally have but we have to trust people to act in their own self interests and make their own best choices.  Doesn't sound conservative?  Start reading the most conservative economists past and present.  

Edited May 25, 2016 by LucyStoner

[LucyStoner]

That's true, and I have no idea about her situation in particular.

 

But does that mean you think that most people who are not working and who don't have kids (I am not talking about retirees here, empty nesters), have some hidden disability?

 

Like, it doesn't make sense to stay home and not work unless you're disabled?

 

Because I can grant that, but I also don't want to assume that everyone who doesn't work and who stays home has some kind of health-related issue. Unless that is almost always the case, which kind of solves the mystery for me. But I posted about that in the very beginning... this is more a hypothetical thing for me because of all the unknowns.

 

I don't think that it means anything other than she either can't work or that she or both of them choose for her not to work.  If she trained for a career though, I would think the possibility that there was something besides straight up choice was measurably larger than had she not trained for a career. Still, I wouldn't know for sure unless they shared it with me.  

 

My brother has stayed at home pretty much since he got together with his now husband.  He doesn't have any disability that precludes him working at something if he wanted to and he was home for a fair bit of time before he had children to care for and a PTA to run with a harsh gavel.  Why?  Well, he wouldn't earn much at work, his spouse makes enough to support them and it worked for them for him to be home.  He intended to go to some sort of college but it didn't pan out and his highest paid job ever was $10-12/hour passing out condoms, brochures and information about harm reduction to young people on the street (mostly addicts). 

Oh and my brother?  He doesn't cook much besides the rare dessert or some egg rolls and he is hands down a finalist for shittiest housekeeper (by his own admission). So it's not like his husband expected a well kept home or homemade dinner at 6PM.  My BIL does a fair bit of cooking and housework, besides working FT and doing all home and car repairs.

Edited May 25, 2016 by LucyStoner