I’ve been a Breadwinner Wife – defined by Pew Research Center as a woman in a heterosexual marriage who earns more than 60 percent of the household income – for about 28 of my 30 years of marriage. As a researcher who is writing a book on this topic, I have surveyed and spoken with almost 1,000 Breadwinner Wives and their partners over the past six years. Research has quantified the “Breadwinner Wife Penalty,” in which marriages where the wife is the breadwinner are more likely to end in divorce than marriages where the wife earns roughly the same amount or less than her husband.
In my research, I’ve talked to dozens of couples with Breadwinner Wives who are both very happy in their marriages and have figured out a good balance of roles and responsibilities in the household. I am a statistician by training, so I am always trying to figure out: what are the characteristics in these couples that make them happy? One factor I have seen emerge is that husbands whose careers take a back seat to their wives (or those who become stay-at-home husbands) really cherish their family life, and don’t necessarily need a lot of outside stimuli or relationships.
In my research among Stay-at-Home Dads, these dads report a lower level of social acceptance (both among family members and their peers) compared to what their Breadwinner Wives report. When I ask many Breadwinner Wives whether their husbands have found their community of other at-home dads or men that support each other, their response is typically something like, “Joe is really happy spending time with me and the kids.” He has his DIY projects or is learning Spanish or volunteers three days a week, and that’s enough for him.
But what happens when those Stay-at-Home Dads are naturally extroverted?
Indeed, there are a lot of men (many of whom have had successful careers) who are happy enough letting their wife’s career skyrocket while they manage things on the homefront. These men may get human interaction at the store, at school drop-off, or while volunteering or working. My other observation is that many of these men could be described as introverts. But what happens when those Stay-at-Home Dads are naturally extroverted? In my case, my husband requires a lot of adult social interaction.
When our sons were 2 and 3 years old, our family moved across the country so that I could take a senior level role at a tech company. My husband, Travis, was out of work at the time, so it seemed like a smart decision to have him stay home for a while until we got settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. That “little while” turned into over a decade.
One of the things that I have always loved about Travis is that you can put him in any social situation – from a biker bar to a group of Nobel Laureates – and he can hold his own. In other words, he is not an introvert. My new job required long hours and a lot of travel. When I got home in the evening, I wanted to spend time with my sons, enjoy a home cooked meal, and vegetate on the couch with a cryptic crossword and an IPA. Travis, on the other hand, starved of adult conversation wanted to talk . . . a lot.
We did have several friends in the Bay Area before we moved there. We would see them on occasion, but almost all were at different life stages. It was difficult for Travis to turn any of those friendships into a regular social outlet. Fortunately, one of my college friends lived around the corner from us. His wife was a stay-at-home mom, and she introduced Travis to all of the neighborhood women within a three-block radius. On Friday evenings, we started a block party on a dead-end street where our kids would run around and eat snacks and the parents would enjoy cocktails and supervise each other’s children.
We’d been to countless Silicon Valley fundraisers and cocktail parties where founders and entrepreneurs would ask Travis what he did and swiftly end the conversation when they learned he was a Stay-at-Home Dad. But that did not play out with the neighborhood guys (who, by the way, were also incredibly successful entrepreneurs, chief technology officers, and venture capitalists). They appreciated Travis for being a raconteur, for his arcane knowledge, for his tie-dying skills, and for being “Mr. Safety” to the neighborhood children.
In many relationships, it is the wife who manages a lot of the social calendaring. These neighborhood guys organized regular poker games and bi-annual camping trips for all of our families. Not only did these men not ostracize Travis for not being a successful Silicon Valley worker, they welcomed him and appreciated his unique charm and skills.
When Travis re-invented himself into a second career in clinical trials, two of these men hired him as their 40+-year-old intern. I truly believe that the support of these neighborhood men helped Travis’ confidence, mojo and eventual return to the workplace in ways that I never could have done – and ultimately this helped our marriage.
From my experiences, here’s what I suggest to Breadwinner Wives whose husbands are mainly at home and craving other adult interaction.
- Try to be patient and an active listener at the end of the day, even when your social battery is running low.
- Check in with your spouse to see if he is getting enough social interaction (especially if he is an entrepreneur, artist, or Stay-at-Home Dad who does not interact with colleagues.)
- Don’t “ship” your husband with the only other Stay-at-Home Dad in the neighborhood. They may not have anything in common other than being at home.
- Suggest ways that he might meet like-minded people to socialize with (sports teams, alumni book clubs, volunteer opportunities).
- Encourage him to foster those relationships and have nights out or weekends away without you.
Michele Madansky, PhD, is a digital research and advertising pioneer and sought-after media and market research consultant. Over her 15 years as a consultant, she has worked with top digital brands and media companies, including Spotify, Pinterest, YouTube, and Adobe. Dr. Madansky holds a Bachelor of Science from Brown University, and an MBA and PhD from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
