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MARRIAGE
What It’s Like to Be the Breadloser
All you ever wanted to know about being the low-income partner of a rich man
If you’d told 20-year-old me when I first met my now husband that he’d end up being the rich one, I would’ve laughed in your face. Of course, I was majoring in English and he was majoring in Global Business, so consider it egg on my face that one of our degrees ended up being lucrative.
Together for six years and married for three, my husband has been on an upward trajectory our entire relationship. He rose from a regular salaryman to starting his own company. Me? Not so much. Since relocating to Japan three years ago, I’ve bounced between so many jobs I’m surprised I don’t have motion sickness.
With the gap between us as wide as it’s ever been, you might be wondering how we manage to stay together. What interpersonal conflicts arise when one partner is the breadwinner, leaving the other with no other destiny but to be the breadloser — and how do we make our relationship work despite this troubling dynamic?
The odds are in his favor
The reason I wanted to write this story is because I’m not alone in being out-earned by my partner. Thanks to a little something called the gender pay gap, women in…
