I Like My Job But My Wife Doesn't

"My wife doesn't appreciate how much I provide for her."

This is a common complaint I hear from many men. This morning I stumbled across this letter written to advice columnist Carolyn Hax:

Dear Carolyn: 

I’ve been thinking of asking my girlfriend to marry me, after several years of happy and fulfilled dating.

The other day, for the first time, my girlfriend expressed that she really didn’t like that I work at home. I freelance and really love it. I have a lot saved and I’m in a much better financial place than she is, which gives me a lot of latitude. 

She said she couldn’t understand the perspective of someone who didn’t go into an office every day and who didn’t have to bear the burden of working under a boss. She made it clear that she wouldn’t care if I made less money, only that I had somewhere to go in the morning and that I wasn’t my own boss. She then compared me to her former boyfriends, who apparently had more “grit” and who had to work for a paycheck. 

As someone who works at least 50 hours a week, I am really bothered by the idea that I’m somehow deficient, especially since I’m doing the work I want to be doing and fulfilling a unique career niche. 

Her lack of respect for what I do has made me reconsider whether I want to marry her. I definitely feel insulted and misunderstood; is it the sort of thing that can be talked out, or is career disrespect a deal-breaker?

After recommending various methods of communication, Ms. Hax gives the following advice:

[D]epending on her response, you might have nothing left to say to her but this: “I can’t date someone who would ask me to change my fulfilling life just to meet her arbitrary standards of manhood.” And you’ll want to declare that with confidence that it was never about her saying just one loopy, inexplicable thing.

Good advice about communication is always helpful, but it usually lacks the biggest piece of the good relationship puzzle. I'm going out on a limb here, but chances are that this man's girlfriend doesn't even know why she wants her boyfriend to take a "real" job.

Without fail, whenever a woman does not seem to appreciate her husband's ability to earn, it is because he is failing in one of the other critical dominant roles. In this case, "Demanding Girlfriend" may be confusing this man's failure to protect her as the inability to provide for her, or his inability to provide strong leadership in the relationship with his current "soft" career choice.

If you can Protect and Preside, Providing will generate much more appreciation from your significant other.

Unless, of course, you aren't actually making as good of a living as you think you are…

But that's a topic for a different day.