Part 2: When You Out-Earn Your Husband

Amy Evans: 45% of women in this country right now out earn their husbands or their partners. And almost half of those relationships and marriages end in divorce or breakup. And if you're one of those women, this episode is for you. And if you're not, it's still for you. Because what we're really talking about is what it actually means to provide for someone you love. Welcome back to Women in Sales Leadership. I am your host, Amy Evans. I am a sales leadership coach and I also coach CEOs on how to hit their number. This show is here to give you inspiration, coaching, and real talk for the next chapter of your leadership as you continue to grow. And if you enjoy today's episode, please forward it to a friend who needs to hear it and claim your responsibility for how you can be and manage in your relationship. This is part two of my conversation with Dr. Alexandra Stockwell. And if you haven't listened to part one yet, hit pause and go back. You can absolutely get value up today, but you're gonna want to go back anyway because in that first part one, we covered the four types of relationships, the manager mode trap, the exact communication tool that moves in marriage from toleration to a conscious, loving partnership. That episode is the foundation for this one. Here's what's gonna get you're gonna get out of today's episode in part two. One, the truth about what it costs you emotionally and practically to be the partner driving all the growth in the relationship. Two, the income conversation that almost nobody is having out loud, including what it actually does to a man's identity when he isn't the financial provider and how to redefine providing and in a way that protects the marriage and your relationship. And three, a live moment between Dr. Alexandra and me that I am still thinking about these many months later and that I want you to hear unfold in real time. A heads up, I get super vulnerable in this episode. I cry. I talk about my marriage. I talk about my ex-husband and I'm sharing with this with you because I think the worst thing a coach can do is pretend that they're perfect and that they have it all figured out. And if you're a high performing leader who has ever felt the quiet cost of being the strong one, then stay with me. Here is part two. Here's one of the things that's been on my mind because, you know, I I've had my certainly my experience with a marriage and I'll tell you one of the things that was really challenging for me was I knew things weren't working for a very long time, and we tried all kinds of different things, therapy, all this stuff. What what happened was I was always I was the one initiating those conversations. And I'm wondering what would you say to the women who feel just exhausted from feeling like they're the only one who's committed to driving change and growth in their relationship? Well, first of all, that's real. And I understand the emotional labor and the burden and it can feel like it's a marriage of two, but you're the one carrying it and you're the one experiencing all the complicated layers. It can feel incredibly isolating. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that I know you're in sales. I still probably have my like sales stuff to work through because I was hesitant to say this, but my very genuine answer is to work with me or work with somebody else. Because one of the biggest gifts that happens when I'm coaching a couple and this isn't all the time, but it's the vast majority of the time that the woman is feeling exactly the way you've just described. And The gift of my guiding the process is that she gets to have her process and he gets to have his process, and neither of them need to manage one another's processes. Like she gets to be messy. The one of the things about what you just described is it puts a lot of burden on the woman to ⁓ be just the right amount of cautious. And honest and not push too hard or he's gonna shut down. And how do you inspire him without just erupt like it's a very intricate, exhausting dance. And that particular music just completely stops when you work with someone who understands the dilemma and then what a gift for the woman in a couple who works with me, she can be bratty, she can be resentful, she can be messy, and it's fine. It's not gonna derail the process. In fact, when she's real, it enhances the process in a way that I hope makes sense to anyone listening to this conversation, because that's a version of uncompromising. Not to be bratty and resentful indefinitely, but that is part of it rather than always having nicely polished kind of sheen on things. So that really is the most effective answer that I have to the question that you've just asked because I and let me also say that I've had a lot of women reach out to me and say, We really need to work on our marriage, blah blah blah blah blah is not working. And my husband won't participate. Like either he says things are fine or he's not into personal growth or any version of that. And I say Okay, don't ask him to commit to couples coaching, to relationship and intimacy coaching. Just ask if he'll commit to a fifteen minute conversation with me. And some of the men don't, and you know, then that's that. I don't know what happens next because I'm not a part of it. But a hundred percent of the time when the man is willing to have a fifteen minute conversation with me, He then says, Okay, let let's try this. Yeah. He doesn't know for sure it's gonna work, but nobody does when they work with me. Like if they knew for sure it would work, then they'd be doing it on their own. But one of the things that happens in that conversation is that he can feel I have his back too. ⁓ Like when I coach a couple that I I almost never say this and I've never said it on a podcast, but I really think of the relationship as my client as opposed to being her spokesperson or his spok spokesperson. And he can feel that, that I'm not going to proceed in the coaching, even though he may have heard for months or years, sometimes more than a decade, her listing out all of his inadequacies and thing ways that he's not showing up and things that he's not doing properly for the health of the marriage. And he knows after fifteen minutes of speaking with me that I'm not gonna just continue that narrative. Like there's no relationship where it's all his fault. Even though that's how the narrative often develops in the context that you've described where she's the only one who's motivated for personal growth. And and I'll just say one more thing about that, which is that Being motivated to grow and change looks different for different people. So for a woman it might be that she goes to yoga and participated in some kind of a leadership circle and I don't know what, like or read a particular book and it just really lit her on fire. There are a lot of different ways it can happen. That doesn't mean even if you're more advanced. Further along in the journey than your husband, it doesn't mean that his growth and learning is going to have the same flavors. And I think that's so important that we accept that growth and transformation does not happen the same way for our husbands as it does for us. Now it happens for us in all kinds of different ways, but I'm talking within a couple, that is true. So I actually I'm coaching a couple right now. She goes to all kinds of ⁓ like transformational ceremonies where there's an altar with different things from nature and someone with a drum and maybe some kind of humming and each woman shares and they each cry and this is a source of incredible inspiration and meaning for her. And he likes to play nine holes of golf. Of course he does. But it's not because he's checking out. There are a lot of different ways to play nine holes of golf. But for him, that is his time in nature. That is his time where he can think and just have the quiet. And when she judges him for not going to men's circles the way she goes to women's circles, so he must be less than from a growth standpoint. Well, that is not a narrative that I support when they coach with me. Mm. ⁓ my gosh. Wow. Wow. Okay. So I wanna get to one thing and before we Are we gonna talk about money? Before we wrap up. Yeah, let's talk about money. Thank you for a that's on my list. Yeah, money. Money. You said this before we we started the show. ⁓ and it's it's just w it's just there. so many of the these professional women today are out earning their husbands significantly. Not a little. A lot. Yeah, I wanna you may know this data better than I, but I wanna just like outline a few facts for our conversation. Yeah. One thing, because I just looked up the statistics this morning, that ⁓ forty-five percent of women out earn their husbands. And Among the relationships where the woman outerns the man, 46% of them separate. And there's another statistic which I think I don't have the exact numbers, but it's one I heard a few years ago and has really influenced my thinking. This is based on IRS data. So so objective income data that when couples are interviewed where the woman outerns Her husband, She will round down what her income is, and he will round up. In other words, each of them separately psychologically are trying to close that gap. And there are couples who navigate this magnificently, and I want to share some of the essential elements in doing so, but for most couples, this ends up being a travesty. And the answer is not in my book ever, that she earns less or that she dumbs down or in any way compromises in order to make him feel better in terms of not taking the promotion or the title or whatever, because when this is done well, this particular disparity there's no reason for it to be such a source of conflict, although it often is. Yeah. Yeah. It was for me. It was for me. And I I'll t I'll tell you right now. So my Was it both for you and my excess husbands? Sometimes it is for one and not the other. I so here's here's what I'll I'll gonna make a run at it since he's not here to represent. so for me it was because I w I wanted I wanted him I didn't care that if it was like exactly more or less. He actually ⁓ he actually stayed home with the kids. And that wasn't by choice, it just kinda happened, you know. Where my career took off. Yeah, he's cheaper than childcare. All of that. ⁓ but you know, he stayed home and I still was paying for childcare. So that's a different story. But like you asked about how what it was like. And so what it felt like for me was I definitely had shame about it. I had I was not shame toward my s maybe some shame toward myself that I had chosen a partner who didn't ⁓ provide in a ⁓ materially to the family. ⁓ and then I know he felt tremendous shame about it. ⁓ it so much so that he wouldn't he didn't want to go he didn't go to his high school reunions because he didn't want to have to explain to his former classmates that he didn't work anymore. And, you know, when he would be we would be out in social situations, he would ask me, you know, like, well, so what do I say I do? And I said, Well, you know And this is terri this is a st this is the story that we made up. And I'm a the biggest believer in telling the truth that you'll ever meet, maybe to a fault, right? But we chose this this story because I it protected his his ⁓ identity as a man. And the story was that he was retired. Right? Which was true. It was true. Yes. But it wasn't the truth. I understand. Yeah. And so it allowed for him to tell this to people and they would look at him and you know, people make their own assumptions when you say you're retired. ⁓ and especially as a as a man. Yeah. They're good. And I we let them believe whatever they chose to believe. And the truth was between us. And that truth became really untenable ⁓ in our relationship. Yeah. Okay. So I have a number of things to say about this. I welcome them. Okay, thank you. ⁓ first of all, I'm gonna presume that you and anyone listening bristles at the way that women who don't work outside the home or do but do all of this additional mental, emotional, and f actual physical labor in the house to make things work for the family and so forth, like none of that is valued financially. Right? Like we all know that, you know, most women work super hard and some are compensated well and some are not. And that reflects a way that we think about success and monetary contribution in our society. And we know that that is unfortunate in our attitudes towards women's contributions in marriages and families and homes and so forth and caring for parents. Like none of that is really valued. insofar as there's no money in doing those kinds of things. So The same is also true for men, but it's even more intense. And I actually ⁓ just this past weekend was at an incredible conference that was about ninety percent men, everyone there focused on men's work, meaning personal growth for men. And ⁓ and I have some programs just for men, which is why I was there and it was a real privilege. to hear these men who are leaders in men's personal growth work talking about how How deeply ingrained a man's identity is with being a provider And when a man is not the provider, which is going to be feel true to most men when they're learning anything less than more or less what you're earning, then their work is to Find self respect, purpose, identity, and value in other ways. And that particular work a woman cannot do for her man, and if he doesn't do it, the income disparity is going to cause problems, even if she's totally comfortable with it, if he feels less of a man because she's out earning him and he's not providing financially, that is that is like a corrosive toxic influence in the relationship. So I know that it's mostly women listening, but if this is relevant in your marriage, I recommend you have your husband listen to this as well because his sense of self worth can come from so many incredible ways that he contributes, but if it's really wrapped up in a one to one relationship with being a financial provider It just becomes an impossible situation because there's nothing that she can do that's actually gonna be helpful. He needs to do that personal growth work. But the thing I will add is that there are so many ways that a man can be a provider beyond fiscal responsibility. He can provide emotional safety and security. He can handle all the things so that she feels more supported. He can make the doctor's appointments and communicate with the carpal people. Like there are so many ways that he can contribute that feel like providing to her. And it's his job to learn to have them feel like providing for him. Because I'm not suggesting that a man let go of the importance of being a provider. I am entirely suggesting that he taps into all of the visible and invisible ways that a man can provide for a very successful woman. And when she receives that and he gets his value in providing that, that is a hot marriage. My gosh. I am crying. That was so beautiful. Yeah. Wow. And getting there is not easy for him or her because it means identifying the assumptions, the unconscious beliefs, the conscious beliefs. You know, I'm gonna give an example that isn't about earning, but In my family growing up, my father always carved the turkey and any whole chicken my mother cooked a hundred percent of the time. And when I married my husband, one of the first times I roasted a chicken, I put it on the cutting board and I put it at his place in front of him, and he looked at me wondering What the hell was happening? He he grew up without family meals. His mother never roasted a chicken. He never saw his father carve anything at the table. Like he didn't know what I and he said, Well, why don't you do it? And for a few years I had such disgust and thought less of my husband, not twenty four seven, but I just didn't understand why it wouldn't man up and cut the chicken. Like that's what a real man does. Yeah. And carving chicken, I'm meaning that as a metaphor for financial provision, of course, or not equivalent, I mean it as a metaphor, but it was unbelievable to me what I needed to do in the way of taking responsibility for my assumptions and getting real with what's real and what was just familiar from my childhood and I don't know that there's societal expectations about who. carves the chicken, but that's certainly true when it comes to ⁓ making money. And now when I roast a chicken, I enjoy carving it. Like I I have no residue. And this is just entirely humorous. But We have the capacity to grow and evolve. And one of the incredible opportunities in being married or having an intimate relationship is we get shown areas of growth that we never would have gone looking for. And if you're in one of the many, many, many marriages where you earn more than your husband, well, take it. as a welcome sign, a red carpet laid out to go into the messy, complicated personal, societal, and relational assumptions that each of you have, and you may have different assumptions. It's not like when you go looking for what's inside, both of you are gonna find the same thing. It's very I mean You come from different homes and it's different being a man than being a woman in terms of expectations and providing. But as a woman, what you can do is genuinely appreciate the contribution because he knows what it feels like to have the unspoken acknowledgement of bringing home the bigger paycheck. Or maybe he doesn't, but he can imagine it if he doesn't. It's new. It's new in our society for men to genuinely see the value of their contribution when it comes to putting kids to bed and contributing to peace in the home and dishes being done and not left in the sink. Like the I think the support a man can provide is undervalued by him and her and her Need to actually receive it often takes some attention to. It's it's actually much easier to receive the support of a higher earning husband than it is to receive the support of a husband who handles a lot of stuff so you don't have to. That is so beautiful what you just said. Handles a lot of stuff so you don't have to. Yeah. Yeah. Anything you wanna say about how you feel right now? ⁓ boy. Well, got oof. I feel super vulnerable right now. ⁓ and I also feel ⁓ I feel like I have a better understanding. you know, hindsight is never it's never twenty twenty, by the way. It's such a silly saying that we say that. Yes, it does. But it's perspective. Time and perspective allow you to see things perhaps a bit more clearly than before. And so that's certainly been the case for me as I'm, you know, almost two and a half years out out of the marriage. ⁓ it's still very new. It's still new. It's still new. And so just ⁓ my gosh, what what really touched me in what you just shared was this ⁓ Could see I can now see All the things he was trying to do. Hm yeah. I had just I had given up. I really had. And there wasn't space left for us to come back together anymore. And I d I really ⁓ I'm gonna start crying, so you're welcome folks. Like this is so real. ⁓ I wanna I wanna just say that I think you give your listeners a gift because you are leading in how you're allowing yourself to be impacted. I think as high achieving women, we don't have too many models of what it looks like to not dumb down or make ourselves less than and still really be impacted. So I'm speaking also so you have a moment. Yeah. But also I genuinely want to acknowledge you for the way you're leading in this moment. And I have a suggestion for you. I welcome that. Which is especially because you shared that you have an amical amicable, good, positive relationship with your ex husband. Yeah. It's never too late to acknowledge him for what he did. You'll both really benefit from that conversation. My gosh, you are s thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. And I have been considering doing that for a while. And it's it's so I had thought about doing that earlier this week, so I feel like this is this is a call now for me to step up and and do that for for both of us. For both of you. So you each have a healing in this regard before any future relationship. Yeah. You're right. ⁓ my gosh. Well, I never know what's gonna happen in all these conversations. I def I n I actually considered that that we when I get to this point. in this conversation. And I was scared and nervous about it. But you're you made this so easy for me to be with you and share honestly about it. And you and I have never met before today. So You know, I'm really glad you said that 'cause I was thinking that this feels intimate in in a woman to woman way. And Yeah, we've never met before, but this is what it's like when you we we take responsibility and we want to learn and we meet what's in the moment. I think that's where we should leave things for Wow. I just Dr. Alexandra, I wanna honor you for holding space for me today, which I didn't set out as an objective of this conversation of this of this episode. but the way that you hold space for couples to really rediscover and create this conscious partnership that you talk about. I I can't think of a person that I know, n man or woman, ⁓ who doesn't really want this in the heart in their hearts. They long for this type of growing, ⁓ committed, safe, vulnerable, intimate, hot sex. Yes, right? Yes, that's part of it. We didn't go there. I know we didn't go there, but I mean that's that's the that I mean, when you're connected to the person that you're with and you wanna be with them and you feel like you're really on the same page and you're supporting each other and being there for each other, boy, you're interested. Yes, exactly in the same room together. Yes, exactly. And all the good things that go along with that. So I wanna I wanna give ⁓ the my listeners today the opportunity to learn about how to get connected with you. And I was hoping that you could share that right now. You know, how how can how can my listeners find you and all the various and wonderful things that you provide? Well, the best place to go is alexandrostockwell dot com and you'll find many different resources there from private coaching. I have online courses and I also want to emphasize because we've talked about it a number of times, my book, Uncompromising Intimacy, which is available on Amazon and Audible. And I have a podcast, the Intimate Marriage Podcast, where A conversation like this is not so unusual the way it is for your podcast, Amy. ⁓ so wh whatever speaks to you and whatever next step you want to take, alexandrastockwell.com is a good place to go. Yeah. Well, I just want to say thank you again for being in the conversation today. It was such an absolute joy to be with you today. Thank you. Okay. Take a breath with me. If you got this far in this series, I want to thank you. This was a different kind of conversation for the show. And I trusted you with it because I trusted you to do something with it. So here's an opportunity for you. Whatever came up for you across these two episodes, write it down. Don't just feel it and let it pass. Give it a name. And if there's a conversation that you have been avoiding, Whether that's with your partner, with your ex, or with yourself, this is your nudge. If this two part series meant something to you, the single best thing that you can do is forward it to a friend who needs to hear it. That is how this show grows, one woman, one listener at a time. And if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn and learn more about how I coach sales leaders in hitting their number and loving their life while they're doing it, come find me on LinkedIn and DM me, reach out to me, and we'll set up a conversation to talk. They'll map out what's going on in your career, where you want to go next, the goals that you have, and how we can work together to achieve them. Your career and your leadership life are connected to every other part of who you are, and you deserve a plan for all of it. I'm Amy Evans. Thank you for being here. I'll see you next time.