My Husband Resents Me and Fixing It Would Bankrupt Us

Our story starts nearly fourteen years ago with humble beginnings and a marriage like any other. We had a baby, bought a house, all of the normal things you’d expect from a couple just like us. Don’t let our ordinary start fool you, though.

We continued on the culturally expected trajectory until we moved from Oklahoma, back to Connecticut, my home state. I’ve always been ambitious but having been newly introduced to marketing after spending time in the medical field, I was determined to eke out a successful career for myself.

I had not yet considered what that might look like, but I knew I wanted to stop worrying about paying the bills. I wanted to stop daydreaming about family vacations and start planning memories. With this in mind, I set myself to the task. I had to find a way to take my tiny salary and make it something impressive.

Grasping for Success

I read everything I could, I pushed for more responsibility and more money. As needed, I switched jobs to get a raise, a better position, new skills, and/or a track to management. At the same time, I threw myself headfirst into freelancing, both for the extra money and to hone my skills. Meanwhile, I was still taking care of the house, the cooking, addressing the kids’ physical and emotional needs and pretty much anything else that came up.

All the while, my husband was there in the background. He got up and made the sometimes long and always nerve-wracking commute to his job. He quietly toiled, though he was becoming more and more aware his income wasn’t growing nearly as fast as mine. In fact, other than those rather insignificant cost of living raises, his salary didn’t change at all.

What I didn’t know was that my raises made him feel less and less adequate. He was suffering from feelings of insecurity…