My husband makes $44K, I make $80K, and I feel like I’m carrying our entire financial future.

We’ve been together 10 years, married with three kids, own a home, and a car. On paper, it looks stable, but the truth is it feels like everything depends on me—and I’m exhausted.

I make around $80K. My husband makes $44K. Ever since I entered the corporate workforce in 2020, I’ve had steady raises and no more than a six-month gap between jobs. I’ve always had to keep pushing forward because if I stopped, we’d collapse. He’s very hands-on at home—he works hybrid, cooks, does laundry, manages the kids—but financially, I feel like I’m drowning because I can’t rely on him to grow.

The financial anxiety is constant. If I lost my job tomorrow, we’d be screwed. We’d lose the house, the car—everything. That pressure makes me feel like I have to overperform at work. With ADHD, that’s already hard enough, but the stress is pushing me into health problems (I’m developing autoimmune issues).

Meanwhile, his income has been stagnant. $22/hour with three kids just doesn’t cut it. He was unemployed for a full year not that long ago, and he only snapped into action when I threatened divorce. He ended up draining his 401k to keep us out of foreclosure. Since then, there’s been no real urgency to move upward. He’ll sell Pokémon cards or side items when we’re short on cash, but I’m tired of living like that.

Today we had another fight—this time on the way to Costco. He checked our account, sighed, and pointed out that we only had $100 left after I had spent $100 on Amazon for household necessities. Nothing extravagant. But instead of feeling like “we” are both frustrated, it feels like his sigh is aimed at me, like I’m the problem for buying normal things for a family of five. When really, the problem is that his income hasn’t grown in years.

I don’t want to live in constant scarcity. I don’t want to feel guilty for spending on basics. I don’t want to feel like the only progress our family will ever see is through me killing myself at work. He does pull his weight in the household, but if he also pulled his weight financially, I know I’d feel calmer, safer, and less resentful.

I feel stuck. I love my kids and I work hard to take care of myself, but I never pictured my life like this. Sometimes I think I’d be happier just being alone with the kids instead of constantly carrying this resentment.

Has anyone else been in this kind of financial imbalance in marriage? How did you cope, or did you ever get through to your partner?