u/Cypher0492

I sure hope someone has the guts to answer this question; no one has when I asked it in my OP.

The long and the short of my previous post was the fact that I was getting frustrated with my wife's propensity to spend the majority of what she makes at her job, primarily on things that support her own happiness. I make significantly more and cover the vast majority of the things we actually need to live. I split our finances years ago because her spending was causing financial issues. Money for rent being spent on horse boarding and similar.

Many of the responses I got functionally boiled down to me being an a-hole for doing what I had to do to make sure we could pay our bills. And I should be making sure that my wife is happy.

So here is my question. What if the gender roles were reversed? What if, as it is now, we both had degrees in fields that would net each of us, conservatively 80k a year, 160K together, but I decided to take a job that pays 35k a year because it makes me happy. While at the same time wanting to spend on myself, like we are making 160K together.

I could be wrong, but in that situation, I would likely be called a deadbeat husband. I would be told that I need to get my act together and man up.

tl;dr: Is the only reason that I have to support my wife's happiness at the expense of my own, because I have a pecker?

***I'm going to start a new post. I wrote this in frustration, and because of SOME of the comments, I realized that I was looking at the wrong thing. But I do want to address the things I have come to figure out, and it will just be easier in a new post.

I am getting to the point that I need to give my wife a wake-up call in a big way.

For context, we are both right around 40 years old. I've been a geologist/geophysicist for a geotechnical firm for the last 8 years, making pretty good money. My wife is a pre-K teacher, making...well, teacher pay. The issue is that my wife has no understanding of money and does not seem to care to get it. She pays 1/3 of the mortgage and the electrical bill. I pay the rest of the mortgage and bills, the cell phones, my car payment, the insurance for both of us, the groceries, as well as any house maintenance we need, and any home improvements we decide to do. She doesn't even pay for her car payment. Her mom paid that off. And don't get me started on the credit cards that my mother-in-law just pays off when they get out of hand.

I bought a new car last week, and now my wife wants a new one. I bought a car that was about 20% my current income; she's looking at cars that are well over 50% of hers. She and her mom take at least 2 international trips every year, mom paying for everything, of course. This has been going on for years.

This all became a problem a long time ago, really, but I ignored it. My wife wants to live the good life, but she does not feel the need to actually fund it because, as she puts it, her job is fulfilling. I may have tried to explain that nobody accepts fulfillment when it comes to paying for things, and promptly decided we needed a more comfortable couch. I even tried to explain to her that, because the school district here only gives a 3% raise every year, and it drops 1% every 5 years, she is actually getting a pay cut because of inflation, but "fulfillment" so whatever.

It got to the point that we had to split our bank accounts because she had 3 horses and "we" were having to pay thousands a month to keep them. By we, I of course mean me. Unfortunately/thankfully, she ended up getting bucked off enough times to decide that horses were too dangerous.

She does not know it, but since we split accounts, I've managed to amass a significant nest egg just by putting extra money away with a financial advisor for investments, as well as a 401k through my work and an IRA. I even have an account that should fully pay for my son's college, unless he goes to some crazy expensive Ivy League school. My wife only has the 401k she gets through her job...she basically lives paycheck to paycheck at this point. I even had to give her $100 a few months ago to pay for some training she wanted to get for her job. The fact that my company willingly pays to fly me across the country, puts me up in a hotel, pays for a rental car and feeds me when I want more training, not need, just want, is so far out of her understanding, it's baffling to me.

I was recently approached by another company and offered a position that will pay significantly more, and is, in reality, the job that I've wanted for a long time. It does require us to move to a new state, but it is also in a place we would love to live.

Last night, she was on Zillow picking out new houses for our move in the 3/4 million range. Places with pools and hot tubs, 3500 square foot plus places in the nicest neighborhoods, that kind of thing. I didn't say anything, but it is aggravating me. I want my family to live the good life, but I feel like I need to get my wife to understand that she is living a life that she can't afford, and it affects the rest of the family.

Don't get me wrong, I get that the world needs teachers. I just want my wife to understand that she made the choice to have a fulfilling job, and it is not anyone else's responsibility to fund her desire to live like she makes 6 figures.

I should also add that my wife has three degrees at this point, the first two, a BA in journalism and an MA in marketing, which, if she had followed through on them, would have had her likely making close to what I make. When she graduated with her master's, she did some job hunting but ended up taking a job at a daycare. A few years later, she got a teaching degree. I haven't mentioned it to her, but I think that she just got scared of the real world at that point.

Honestly, I have half a mind to force her into living like I don't make 3 times what she makes. Buy a house that 2 people with a child could afford, making $80k a year total. Figure out how to get her mom to stop shelling out cash like my wife is still a 20-year-old trying to figure out life. Selfishly, I just don't want to do that to myself and my son.

I have tried explaining that if she wants to keep living like this, she needs to find a way to make more money. However, because I don't really want to diminish my lifestyle, and I can't get her mom to keep bailing her out, I have no way to make it real for her.

I just have no clue how to get her to understand this.

I know that this likely makes me an A-hole, I should support my wife in whatever she wants to do. I just think that it's taking away from what I want to do. If I were supporting her in something that would be a benefit to us, then fine, I'd be happy supporting her going back to school to get a better-paying job, but I'm just supporting her living the life she wants with no reciprocation.

tl;dr: My wife wants to live like we have all the money in the world on a Pre-K teacher's salary, with a mom that just pays for everything when she gets in over her head. It's starting to get to me. I make good money and have just accepted a new job with a substantial raise. My wife just thinks that means she can spend more money. What do I do?