You're the higher earner and it breeds resentment
You bring in most of the money, and a resentment has crept in — that you carry the weight, that it goes unrecognized, that you somehow deserve more say than you have. It sits uneasily in you, and you sense it is beginning to harm the relationship.
It is good you are examining this before it hardens, because resentment left alone corrodes a partnership. Reason offers three examinations: separate the fact of earning more from any claim to greater power, since providing money is a contribution, not the purchase of authority over another adult; keep a full ledger that counts your partner's contributions that carry no wage, for much resentment is one column mistaken for the whole sum; and speak the real feeling plainly rather than let it leak into sharp remarks and coldness. Named between allies, it can be resolved; left to seep, it poisons what the earning was meant to support. Let us look at what you are truly feeling.
What changes unlock by starting
- You separate earning more from ruling more
- You count your partner's unwaged contributions
- You speak the resentment instead of leaking it
- You protect the partnership the earning supports