Earning More and Getting Less

Chapter 7: Are They Happy? Managing Tensions and Disappointments

Chapter 7 Are They Happy? Managing Tensions and Disappointments That couples work to preserve the gender boundaries of mothering and breadwinning does not mean that they are blind to the status and income differences between them, or that these differences do not generate a great deal of tension in these relationships.While husbands may find ways to see themselves as providers, they are still well aware that they are lesser providers vis-à-vis their wives.This awareness creates dissatisfaction that the couple must manage to ensure both the happiness of the spouses and the longevity of the relationship. This chapter examines how couples assess their relationships, paying special attention to the dissatisfaction spouses feel and express, as well as the various strategies couples use to manage these feelings. Again, these feelings of disappointment seem to stem from the expectations embedded in the conventional marital contract; that husbands are not the main breadwinners in these relationships is at the root of much of the dissatisfaction and disappointment expressed by both husbands and wives. Efforts to manage these feelings revolve around trying to find ways to make these marriages look and feel like more conventional ones. What Does It Mean to Be “Happy”? Family scholars use the terms “marital quality,”“marital adjustment,” and “marital satisfaction” to describe how happy people are in their relationships .These terms typically include measures of the quality or extent of communication between spouses, their feelings of affection for one another, the level of their shared interests, and other companionate aspects of marriage. More subtle measures of martial satisfaction ask spouses what (if any) changes they would like to make within their relationships, how 149 committed they are to each other, and whether they feel they could do better elsewhere (see Becker 1981).These basic measures give a sense of the quality of the relationship, as well as how satisfied spouses are with it. In the case of couples with higher-earning wives,other issues become important as well. For example, do spouses feel they are either “getting a good deal” or giving too much in their relationships? Their unconventional contributions,particularly in the case of higher-earning wives,may throw the exchange between spouses off balance. Spouses are more likely to see things as fair if each is meeting conventional gender expectations (Wilkie, Ferree, and Ratcliff 1998). If spouses are contributing to their relationships in unconventional ways,they may have a more difficult time recognizing and appreciating what each other has to offer. There is disagreement in the research literature over whether a wife’s status and income advantage lowers spouses’ satisfaction with the relationship . Several studies find that having or being a higher-earning wife is indeed stressful for both spouses and has a negative impact on marital happiness (Heckert, Nowack, and Snyder 1998; Rogers and DeBoer 2001). Given the cultural norm for men’s breadwinning, it makes sense that couples with higher-earning wives would struggle to feel good about their relationships. However, other evidence suggests that socialpsychological variables are more important than socioeconomic ones when it comes to marital happiness (see White and Rogers 2000).That is, couples are happier when husbands and wives are doing what they, and their spouses, expect of them (Vannoy-Hiller and Philliber 1989). In Chapter 6, we saw that the expectations embedded in the conventional marital contract assume that husbands are responsible for providing for the family materially, while wives are responsible for caretaking. If a wife takes over material provision by contributing the larger portion of the family income, this can be a threat to the husband’s masculinity or sense of self as a man and therefore uncomfortable for him. Further, if a wife becomes more responsible for providing materially, she may be less able to provide the care she feels her family deserves, and this may be a threat to her sense of self as a woman. If spouses feel they are failing as husbands or wives, it may be difficult to be happy in their relationships. This means that the ability to construct an appropriate gender identity— to have a confident sense of oneself as a “real” man or a “good” woman— has an important impact on marital happiness. 150 E a r n i n g M o r e a n d G e t t i n g L e s s Assessing spouses’ satisfaction with their marriages requires...