LaughingBoy1503
Well-known member
I like teacher because more of them have said “Yes” when I asked them out lol.
- Status
F
felsguy
Guest
I think this is absolutely the best advice regarding future marriage that I’ve read here in quite a while with the converse equally applicable to women likewise hoping to marry some day. And I speak from 43 years of wonderful experience.
A
Allegra
Guest
Unless you future wife becomes a principal or higher administrator, your dream of having a earning-power-inferior spouse is pretty attainable if you stick to dating teachers. However, teachers are more likely to be emotionally invested in their careers and may not want to give it up. On the plus side, teaching is one of the more mommy-friendly careers out their.
LaughingBoy1503
Well-known member
I do not have a dream of having a earning power inferior wife. I want a wife period. I am done trying to defend myself
X
Xantippe
Guest
I lost a huge reply to this, but I’ll start over again.I get the impression from a lot of people on this site than one should not even consider getting married unless you already are a home owner, have a college education and all your student loans paid off, already started your future children’s college fund’s and can afford to put them through Catholic school
I’m one of the biggest personal finance geeks on CAF, so I suspect you’re probably talking about me (at least in part). Here are some thoughts to clarify.
- I’m very negative about home-ownership for 20-somethings, especially young single childless 20-somethings. I feel like it ties you down in a way most people shouldn’t be at that age. Also, an early or mid-20-something (or even a late 20-something without parent friends) is likely to make bad decisions about housing type, floorplans, school district, neighborhood, maintenance and decor. (Apologies to any uber-responsible 20-somethings that that doesn’t apply to.) There’s a lot to be said for raising little kids in rental houses, so that by the time you buy a house, you know exactly what you need in a house, how to take care of a house, and what seemingly harmless features are dangeorus for children.
- A college education isn’t a must, but a profession and some reasonable way of feeding a family are.
- Trajectory is as important as current location, and arguably more important.
If you don’t get a running start before starting a family, it can be very hard to achieve basic financial goals like paying off student loans or saving for a house downpayment. It’s not unusual to meet young parents with mid-five-figure student loans that they are slowly, painfully paying off. Likewise, it’s very hard to put together a house downpayment when you have a young family and are living on one income. My husband makes a very good living now, but it took a while to get there and we didn’t get a running start. It took us 15 years of marriage and three kids before we were able to scrape up enough money to finally buy a house (my husband was 40 by then).
- Financial problems are a leading cause of conflict in marriage and lead to a substantial number of divorces. Hence, it’s not “just” money–it could be your marriage on the line if you and your spouse are not able to work together to make reasonable decisions about money.
LaughingBoy1503
Well-known member
That all sounds very reasonable. Okay, you are not one of the folks here that has absurd prerequisites before one should even consider marriage.
I have heard the old timers in my union say that by the time I am ready to retire, I will know how to build my own house from the ground up. And every year more that I work, I begin to realize that it could be even quicker. If I know how in 15 more years, that will be great
I am 100% debt free and I save a good amount of money because I have a decent career and no kids to support. But I will always hold to the belief that people can enter a marriage poor and still be happy. It just depends. My aunt did and she has been married for over 40 years, My grandparents were also together for over 40 years (both their second marriage though) and they got together while dirt poor from the wrong side of the tracks and my Grandfather still supported me as a kid after all their children were grown. According to some, they should have never even though about marriage. THAT is what I mean when I say some people seem to think that money IS everything. It is not.
But yeah, I agree with your list there
P.S. I despise when I write a long email or reply to someone and lose it, sorry that happened to you.
H
Hoosier_Daddy
Guest
payscale.com/research/US/Job=Journeyman_Carpenter/Hourly_Rate
A lot is going to depend on where you live too. A union carpenter in Indiana is going to be low end and one in Seattle is going to be higher. BUt cost of living matters a ton! 75 in new york and you might as well be a mcdonalds worker. Another problem is that it is is an hourly wage job which is harder to determine an annual salary. Not to get to off topic but unions rarely are associated with higher paying jobs, with the exception of say the baseball union… But they love to convince you that the opposite is true. Carpentry is a great profession. It was good enough for Jesus and Joseph! And it is potentially a fine way to earn a living. But I will tell you from experience that my wife earns 6 figures. We have five kids and the budget is tough. We will not be able to send all of our children to college and we have to pay attention to our financial situation regularly. Since your goal is husband provider and sole income earner you need to think about this. That is not to say that you have to earn even top end of what people earn but know that what you “provide” will be limited in any job you have unless you have a wicked curve. And providing need to also be more than just being the guy who leaves at 6 am comes home at 9 and wants his beer cold and dinner hot. Wives need to be provided for in more ways than a bill being paid, kids need dads who are involved and providing their needs emotionally and time wise.
We know some friends who the husband keeps losing his job., He is bad at employment. His wife, was a former teacher. They literally have sold blood to buy food for their four kids They believe as you do that the husband is to provide. In their case the wife should be working when it gets that bad. She was a great teacher but now, they live in poverty. No kid should be subject to that because of a gender based bias.
Ive never met a well off carpenter. I am sure they exist however. But most I have known have not exactly been the best providers. Heck, that could be said for most doctors I know too! The important part is that you find someone who you can be a team with. That is why I am so glad my wife is the way she is. She holds degrees in science and theology. As do I. So we have theological and logical discussions about life, parenting, love and our future. There is a mutual respect between us and we intellectual stimulate each other. That is important and something you should not sell yourself short on.
The ideal is that a man toils in the field and a woman has pain in childbirth… this was the result of the fall right!? I often joke with my wife that she has to do both. I lucked out on the whole consequences of the Fall thing I guess.
Xantippe is the resident financial guru, listen to her and listen well! And she will tell you that with Dave Ramsey’s help you can provide all you will ever want to jorneyman or not. The no debt thing and your work ethic are obviously your two strongest reasons you will indeed be successful.
All that being said. We got married young and lived in a studio apartment while sharing one old beater car while going to school. You need not have it all figured out before marriage. It does help though, or so I’m told. But I loved that time of my marriage when we were figuring it out together as a team. One person at home is indeed ideal. And such a benefit to children!
K
Kelfa28
Guest
Speaking from experience…job loss can be absolutely devastating.
My husband and I entered marriage with a plan.
We bought a house, we were planning on me quitting my job as a paramedic and him being the sole provider.
I was going to be a SAHM, space the kids through nursing with some NFP (if needed) and maybe go back to school when the kids got into school-age range so I could help pay for private school.
Then reality hit.
My husband lost his job and all the benefits we had attached to it. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did and it happened within the first 2 years of marriage.
Couple that with some huge issues on my end with post-partum depression and a complete inability to stop my cycles from nursing (ANY kind of nursing) and a hard time with NFP. Plus, I just couldn’t cope being at home with the girls all the time. It exacerbated my anxiety and made everything worse.
We blew through our savings, we were on SNAP, WIC, Medicaid and whatever else we could get our hands on and it still wasn’t enough.
We barely hung on…I literally have no idea how. There were weeks where we needed to figure out if buying bread and milk were more important then the gas we needed to get my husband to job interviews.
I couldn’t do anything to help because I made the catastrophic decision to give up my certification…it was too hard and unrealistic to maintain.
It made me completely unemployable…besides getting a minimum wage job at WalMart or something.
We got lucky. I got into an excellent program at a local university and I’m earning my degree for free (thank-you US military). When I’m done…I will walk into a career that will pay exceptionally well.
My husband was resourceful and crafty and figured out ways to earn money by going back to school to finish his degree. He did research and reasoned there had to be a better option then just finding a minimum-wager and struggling our entire marriage.
My husband got his degree and was re-hired and is back to making a decent wage.
But I will NEVER go back to that situation again.
Call me greedy…but going through job loss with your only wage earner is completely devastating.
I will never allow my children to live like that again. No, they didn’t go hungry or without shelter but the stress it put on both of us and our marriage was ridiculous and it exacerbated my anxiety and depression. It also trickled down into our children and they felt it too.
For me…it’s completely impractical to have just one wage-earner and keeping it that way.
When one person loses their job…the whole family is in a tailspin because of it.
Every family is completely different. Every family handles stress in a different way.
I can’t be a SAHM. It’s not healthy or practical for me to do it.
My husband stayed home with the girls for about a year when I started school. We never envisioned something like that happening but he got over himself and took over the reigns of being the “nurturer” in our household in order to make this operation work.
You do what you can to keep things moving forward. Trying to conform to rigid standards you set for yourself can backfire…in a huge way.
I all seriousness…I’m glad we’ve seen reason and changed our view points on what an “ideal” family should look like…Catholic or not.
For us…this idea of me being at home with the kids and my husband being the sole provider was a total disaster.
My husband and I entered marriage with a plan.
We bought a house, we were planning on me quitting my job as a paramedic and him being the sole provider.
I was going to be a SAHM, space the kids through nursing with some NFP (if needed) and maybe go back to school when the kids got into school-age range so I could help pay for private school.
Then reality hit.
My husband lost his job and all the benefits we had attached to it. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did and it happened within the first 2 years of marriage.
Couple that with some huge issues on my end with post-partum depression and a complete inability to stop my cycles from nursing (ANY kind of nursing) and a hard time with NFP. Plus, I just couldn’t cope being at home with the girls all the time. It exacerbated my anxiety and made everything worse.
We blew through our savings, we were on SNAP, WIC, Medicaid and whatever else we could get our hands on and it still wasn’t enough.
We barely hung on…I literally have no idea how. There were weeks where we needed to figure out if buying bread and milk were more important then the gas we needed to get my husband to job interviews.
I couldn’t do anything to help because I made the catastrophic decision to give up my certification…it was too hard and unrealistic to maintain.
It made me completely unemployable…besides getting a minimum wage job at WalMart or something.
We got lucky. I got into an excellent program at a local university and I’m earning my degree for free (thank-you US military). When I’m done…I will walk into a career that will pay exceptionally well.
My husband was resourceful and crafty and figured out ways to earn money by going back to school to finish his degree. He did research and reasoned there had to be a better option then just finding a minimum-wager and struggling our entire marriage.
My husband got his degree and was re-hired and is back to making a decent wage.
But I will NEVER go back to that situation again.
Call me greedy…but going through job loss with your only wage earner is completely devastating.
I will never allow my children to live like that again. No, they didn’t go hungry or without shelter but the stress it put on both of us and our marriage was ridiculous and it exacerbated my anxiety and depression. It also trickled down into our children and they felt it too.
For me…it’s completely impractical to have just one wage-earner and keeping it that way.
When one person loses their job…the whole family is in a tailspin because of it.
Every family is completely different. Every family handles stress in a different way.
I can’t be a SAHM. It’s not healthy or practical for me to do it.
My husband stayed home with the girls for about a year when I started school. We never envisioned something like that happening but he got over himself and took over the reigns of being the “nurturer” in our household in order to make this operation work.
You do what you can to keep things moving forward. Trying to conform to rigid standards you set for yourself can backfire…in a huge way.
I all seriousness…I’m glad we’ve seen reason and changed our view points on what an “ideal” family should look like…Catholic or not.
For us…this idea of me being at home with the kids and my husband being the sole provider was a total disaster.
P
PolarGuy
Guest
Oft times, when one spouse works and the other does not, for the working spouse the home becomes a refuge. For the at-home spouse the home becomes a prison. I’ve seen it happen in family court proceedings, often.
My wife works at a professional white collar job and outearns me. We both grew up in families that had financial problems, in my case because my mom died at 50 of cancer, and after being diagnosed her insurer dropped her. I’ve been poor, and, just as Kelfa28 alluded to, I am NEVER going back.
My wife works at a professional white collar job and outearns me. We both grew up in families that had financial problems, in my case because my mom died at 50 of cancer, and after being diagnosed her insurer dropped her. I’ve been poor, and, just as Kelfa28 alluded to, I am NEVER going back.
X
Xantippe
Guest
Very good!That all sounds very reasonable. Okay, you are not one of the folks here that has absurd prerequisites before one should even consider marriage.
**I have heard the old timers in my union say that by the time I am ready to retire, I will know how to build my own house from the ground up. And every year more that I work, I begin to realize that it could be even quicker. If I know how in 15 more years, that will be great
I am 100% debt free and I save a good amount of money because I have a decent career and no kids to support. **But I will always hold to the belief that people can enter a marriage poor and still be happy. It just depends. My aunt did and she has been married for over 40 years, My grandparents were also together for over 40 years (both their second marriage though) and they got together while dirt poor from the wrong side of the tracks and my Grandfather still supported me as a kid after all their children were grown. According to some, they should have never even though about marriage. THAT is what I mean when I say some people seem to think that money IS everything. It is not.
But yeah, I agree with your list there
P.S. I despise when I write a long email or reply to someone and lose it, sorry that happened to you.
I think things are harder now in the same income bracket as your older relatives, as there are fewer examples of lasting marriage, both because fewer lower middle class/blue collar people now marry and because their marriages are often more brittle. Also, I suspect that bad public schools are worse than they used to be (I know the public school I went to 25+ years ago definitely is) while the better ones are often much better, so the question of what to do about K-12 education is a thornier one than it was 30-60 years ago. (This is especially true with special needs children–the services available in “good” public schools are now often dramatically better than that available in “bad” schools.)
I’m also from the same sort of respectable blue collar background, and it took me a long time to realize that things are a lot harder for marriage than they were 30-40 years ago.
In your case, I would be primarily concerned about finding a good woman who is on the same page with you, or who can demonstrate getting on the same page. I think most (but not all people) are fixable with regard to finances. I myself am I reformed spender, but it took me a LONG time to understand what this “budget” thing or this “saving” thing was. (My husband didn’t understand those either, but he’s a natural non-spender.) I certainly never heard those words when I was a kid–if my parents ever saved for anything, I never heard about it.
B
Burt_Macklin
Guest
You’d better plan on being a provider if you ever want to find a date. There aren’t many women who are willing to date a man who’s only been working on his skills as a househusband. Even if the man is the one that is going to be the homemaker it is still much more likely that he will have to go to work at some point than it is for a woman planning to do the same.
X
Xantippe
Guest
payscale.com/research/US/Job=Journeyman_Carpenter/Hourly_Rate
A lot is going to depend on where you live too. A union carpenter in Indiana is going to be low end and one in Seattle is going to be higher. BUt cost of living matters a ton! 75 in new york and you might as well be a mcdonalds worker. Another problem is that it is is an hourly wage job which is harder to determine an annual salary. Not to get to off topic but unions rarely are associated with higher paying jobs, with the exception of say the baseball union… But they love to convince you that the opposite is true. Carpentry is a great profession. It was good enough for Jesus and Joseph! And it is potentially a fine way to earn a living. But I will tell you from experience that my wife earns 6 figures. We have five kids and the budget is tough. We will not be able to send all of our children to college and we have to pay attention to our financial situation regularly. Since your goal is husband provider and sole income earner you need to think about this. That is not to say that you have to earn even top end of what people earn but know that what you “provide” will be limited in any job you have unless you have a wicked curve. And providing need to also be more than just being the guy who leaves at 6 am comes home at 9 and wants his beer cold and dinner hot. Wives need to be provided for in more ways than a bill being paid, kids need dads who are involved and providing their needs emotionally and time wise.
We know some friends who the husband keeps losing his job., He is bad at employment. His wife, was a former teacher. They literally have sold blood to buy food for their four kids They believe as you do that the husband is to provide. In their case the wife should be working when it gets that bad. She was a great teacher but now, they live in poverty. No kid should be subject to that because of a gender based bias.
Ive never met a well off carpenter. I am sure they exist however. But most I have known have not exactly been the best providers. Heck, that could be said for most doctors I know too! The important part is that you find someone who you can be a team with. That is why I am so glad my wife is the way she is. She holds degrees in science and theology. As do I. So we have theological and logical discussions about life, parenting, love and our future. There is a mutual respect between us and we intellectual stimulate each other. That is important and something you should not sell yourself short on.
The ideal is that a man toils in the field and a woman has pain in childbirth… this was the result of the fall right!? I often joke with my wife that she has to do both. I lucked out on the whole consequences of the Fall thing I guess.
Xantippe is the resident financial guru, listen to her and listen well! And she will tell you that with Dave Ramsey’s help you can provide all you will ever want to jorneyman or not. The no debt thing and your work ethic are obviously your two strongest reasons you will indeed be successful.
All that being said. We got married young and lived in a studio apartment while sharing one old beater car while going to school. You need not have it all figured out before marriage. It does help though, or so I’m told. But I loved that time of my marriage when we were figuring it out together as a team. One person at home is indeed ideal. And such a benefit to children!
- I believe TX may be the blessed exception to the lower-cost-of-living-and-no-jobs/higher-cost-of-living-lots-of-jobs dilemma you see in much of the US.
- That’s a good point about hourly wage versus annual wage.
- I’d agree that even a seemingly healthy salary goes very fast when you have big kids of an age for music lessons and orthodontics. (We just learned that our share of a very necessary oral surgery is going to be around $1200–we get that sort of surprise fairly regularly.)
- Yes to needing to be more than a paycheck.
- Yes to needing to be flexible and to play the hand you’re dealt, rather than getting fixated on particular means. Focus on ends, not means. Means are not an end in themselves.
- I blush at the compliments, HD! I would definitely recommend listening to Dave Ramsey if LaughingBoy ever goes into contracting.
- Yes to being on the same team, rather than one spouse riding and the other pulling the cart.
- If you do marry a teacher, there could be really interesting synergy between you. To give an example–my grandpa (a cedar mill worker) and my uncle produced an amazing wooden model of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater back in the 1960s and gave it to my high school. It was so spectacular that it was still at my school and being used to teach kids when I was there in the late 1980s.
X
Xantippe
Guest
I think that’s a very common dynamic. To put it less starkly, for the working spouse, home is a place of rest. For the at-home spouse, home is work. For the at-home spouse, home isn’t as relaxing as it is for the working spouse.
There’s also the common problem that the working spouse is bombarded with social stimulation at work and wants some peace and quiet at home. Meanwhile, the at-home spouse may be going literally weeks without 5 minutes of conversation with another adult besides their spouse. (I’ve definitely had that happen.) There can be a terrible mismatch between what the working spouse and the at-home spouse need from each other. Likewise, the at-home spouse can be understandably more eager to get out and do evening social stuff, while the working spouse is worn out and doesn’t want to make the effort.
S
Sarcelle
Guest
With the at home spouse, there is no respite. No chance to call in sick or take an off day. Especially where toddlers are concerned. I have babysat toddlers before and they are just demanding not to mention draining. They kind of reminded me of the bunny in the battery commercial. They keep going and going and going.
X
Xantippe
Guest
And the same goes for people that work from home–home often isn’t relaxing when it’s where you work.
P
pensmama87
Guest
I am finding this with babysitting. The kids I watch are good kids, but my home doesn’t feel like mine.
DH has a couple leads on jobs. If he gets any of them I’m quitting. I am stretched very thin, and I can’t do a lot of the money saving stuff I used to do. And I actually enjoyed some of it.
B
Burt_Macklin
Guest
That’s not true. There isn’t any job that is 8 hours of pure bliss but staying at home can be as difficult or as easy as you want to make it. I mean, you’re watching someone who you can lay down for a nap when you want. I think the stress of staying at home comes mostly from over scheduling.
P
pensmama87
Guest
I’ve heard that such children exist, but IME they’re like Bigfoot or Nessie.
Unless by “lay down for a nap” you mean “put them down and let them scream because they’re not tired,” but that’s not very relaxing for the child or parent.
S
Sarcelle
Guest
True. An hour of screaming followed by a thirty minute nap, which they are recharging, and then non-stop hours of frenetic activity. They get tired and cranky, throw tantrums and when you try to get them to bed, another hour of screaming.
My best aid and saving grace for babysitting was my golden retriever. I supervised of course but the dog and toddler got along fabulously well.
L
Lorelei12
Guest
This is hilarious. Is this a serious post? “Lay down for a nap when you want?” “Staying at home can be as easy as you want to make it?”
- Status