Relationships,CouplesOCT 3, 2025

Woman Refuses To Give Up On 35-Year-Long Marriage, Asks Online How To Deal With Husband’s Ego

Rugilė Baltrunaitė and Rokas Laurinavičius

After spending decades with a person, you're familiar not just with their strengths but also with their weaknesses. And it's okay. We all have them. The question is are the two of you able to make it work.

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Reddit user ExpertChart7871 and her husband have. They've successfully raised their kids and everything seemed to be going fine, until the woman realized she started making more money than him.

The worst part is that due to his competitiveness, she doesn't know how to break the news. So she explained her situation on the subreddit on r/ComfortLevelPod and asked its members to share their thoughts on it.

A study from the University of Bath suggests that such cases might be somewhat common. Researchers examined 6,000 American heterosexual married couples over 15 years to see how this shift affected individuals' physical and mental health, life satisfaction, and relationships.

They found that men felt the most anxious when they were the sole breadwinner in the family and the least stressed when their women partners were contributing 40% to the household income. But as women made more money past that point, men became increasingly uncomfortable and stressed.

The reason for this might lie within traditional gender norms, according to which men should be the breadwinners in relationships.

Even though the tides are turning, many Americans adhere to the deep-rooted unconscious beliefs, says Farnoosh Torabi, financial expert and author of When She Makes More.

"If you are not fulfilling that expectation, it has the potential to damage your self-esteem and self-worth," she tells CNBC.

Money adds a layer of complexity because it's a topic riddled with emotion, especially within the context of a relationship, Torabi explains.

"It's deeply unsettling for some couples, especially if they’ve been raised and conditioned to believe men 'should' dutifully make more than their wives," she says.

The only way to get through this pain point, according to Torabi, is to talk about it with your partner. So the Redditor might not be able to avoid that conversation.

And couples often struggle to talk about money

Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)

However, it might not be a pretty one, at least not in the beginning. A survey of 2,000 Americans in a relationship discovered that one in three Americans (32%) is uncomfortable discussing finances in their relationship. Of those, almost half (44%) worry that these talks will lead to disagreements.

Other reasons include having different ideas about how much to spend and save (32%), and feeling their partner is less responsible with money than they are (26%).

And it's not just the elderly. In fact, the research revealed that younger couples are more likely to have disagreements about money, with Millennial respondents reporting about six arguments per month, compared to Baby Boomers' three.

Across all respondents, arguments are most likely to focus on what's considered a "necessity" to spend on each month (43%) and how much to spend on "non-essential items" like streaming subscriptions and vacations (36%), as well as how much money should be saved (34%).

While arguments and discomfort in talking about finances are relatively common, four in five (82%) Americans surveyed believe couples having a similar philosophy about money is key for a healthy relationship. However, only 69% do.