MXS
MXS
Nov 5 · 2 min read

Like a lot of things in life, there is a lot more emotion in these decisions than we like to think. We all have an idealized version in our heads of the house we want. Unless you are very lucky indeed, that house likely costs more than you would like to spend today. The question writer doesn’t say how much of the work they are doing themselves. Is the wife doing any of it? My wife gets impatient with me. I make sure to get agreement on the priority of jobs with my wife before I start. We have 100 year old house. We spend A LOT of money on things I can’t or won’t do myself (like a new furnace), so I do things like painting and finish carpentry myself. I like my work better anyway, but it takes me a while. When I fix the real plaster, for example, it stays fixed for years and years (Plaster Magic). When some tradespeople came through the house when I was not home a couple months ago, they saw my moulding work in progress in the dining room and asked my wife if her husband was a carpenter.

Here are two suggestions for the wife. 1) Learn how to actually do some of this yourself. Painting is not hard to learn. Don’t do a crap job so your husband never asks again. That is manipulation, not helping. 2) Get a higher paying job and hire people. Most of the husbands I know have the tough career that has risk, stress, and requires leadership. The wife has a job that basically requires following directions and pays less. A couple with two tough jobs is the only way to feel well off in the middle class today unless one member of the couple is very highly paid.

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