being a 50's wife, yes or no?

Question

do you think being a 50's wife in this day and age is strange? I grew up believing that women do everything, but it's hard to do that and work too!! That's who my husband married and that's who he expects me to be forever I am sure.

Answer 1

If your husband expects you to work 40 hours a week AND take care of all household duties, he seems a bit misguided.

If he wants a "perfect" home with dinner on the table every day, then he needs to make sure that he is bringing in enough money to support you both. By definition, "homemakers" or housewives don't work outside the home.

To be honest, there is an increase of educated women deciding to stay at home and being happy with that choice (for now anyway). However, the vast majority of these wives have also married doctors and lawyers.

If your husband expects you to be the "perfect housewife" AND work full time, tell him he either needs to split the housework 50/50, or become a successful
doctor/lawyer/CEO.

Although I think it is *usually* not great for women to give up their careers (what if you get divorced and have not worked in 10 years?), some women feel it is the right choice for them and they are happy. That is the beauty now, women can choose. However, your husband obviously is clueless. You are not his slave, you are his wife, his equal partner.

If he would rather have a spotless house and a home cooked meal on the table daily, he needs to earn enough to support you both.

Answer 2

I'm going to agree with ArmyWifey. I do plan on taking care of some things for my husband in my role as his wife. However, working and raising kids will also mean that I won't have a full meal and dessert on the table every night without some assistance. There is a way to balance both of those things if it's what you want. Just make sure you know what you want to be your priorities (work or work and husband or husband and kids or whatever combination you can think of) and know that some other area may suffer a little because you have something else as a priority. I don't plan on working as much after we have kids if we can afford to do so. My husband and family will be my priority but while I'm dating him and we have no kids I'm paying my dues with work.

Answer 3

No, I won't want to be a 50's wife. Women do too much and will always put more work into the domestic aspect of the home. However, in this day and age, men need to help out too. After all, you did dirty your husband's laundry, so why do you have to do it all the time. Did you make all that waste in the garbage can? No, so why do you have to take it out everyday?

If your husband only wants a slave, divorce him and tell him to hire a maid. You can do both, be a mother and work outside the home. But, your husband needs to realize that he's not the only breadwinner in the house and shouldn't be treated as such. You're helping with the income also, so he should be helping equally with the chores.

Answer 4

In the 50's, usually, the wife stayed home and took care of the children and the household chores. The man was the breadwinner and worked sometimes 50-60 hours a week.
This worked out pretty well at the time.
Then the companies figured out that they could cut the man's wages, get the women to work for even less and get two workers for the price of one. Now the woman has to do everything she did before and work too. The men never really adjusted to this and just kept on doing what he had always done.
Bad deal for the women and the family, too.
Tell your husband you need help.

Answer 5

It all depends i myself am a stay at home mother right now i just birth to a little girl last may she'll be one may 19th. But i also have a older daughter she's 5 going on 6. i had her when i was 16, but i graduated from high school at 17 and then went to college in got a bachelor's degree in Computer Information Systems, so i learned from my mistakes and better myself for my daughter now i am engaged with 2 children and couldn't be happier. I guess my answer is yes and no because i start working June 4. So really it's up to you. Good lucck on figuring it out

Answer 6

I agree with BigChief. It would be nice to be able to live comfortably on one income and have 2 or 3 kids. While we did get some good things out of the women's lib movement, we also got screwed. I would love to be a SAHM to several children. Unfortunately the cost of living is WAY TOO HIGH to do that. I stay home with one child and we barely get by, I will have to go back to work long before my fiancee and I can even consider having a second child. Now, if you're working, cooking, cleaning, and doing all the child rearing, that's a different story. Everything should be divided equally if you both work outside the home. It seems to be difficult for men to get the concept through their thick skull, but it is possible.

Answer 7

I thought it'd be nice to be a 50s wife. But it is hard to do nowadays.
My fiance' wants me to to be that, but he also know s that we can't. When women joined the workforce, inflation and prices went up, so now both people in the relationship have to work just to survive.

But if you are both working, set him aside and tell hom that you'd love to do all the house work but working to doesn't leave you much time. Split up the duties. If you make dinner, he can wash the dishes and take out the trash. If you dust the living room, have him vaccuum.
She the responsibilities! Hope it helps

Answer 8

I think the current "liberated" man is a misnomer. That's what we call a guy who doesn't want to be saddled with the responsibility of providing for the family, but also enjoy having their wives run the household. Let me guess, you're expected to give him a chore list, which he might or might not do? Does anyone give you a chore list, or are you just taking charge of the household because no one else will? Doesn't sound too fair to me.

I was raised to be a very feminist, well-educated woman. I am now a feminist, well-educated stay-at-home Mom. My husband is a fantastic guy, not at all a neanderthal like many women assume he must be. He literally does more than half of the childcare when he's home from work. However, the household is definitly "my thing". He "helps" with some of it, and with a pleasant attitude, but he really just doesn't get what needs to be done to run things. His instinct is to come home from work, let the kids bounce on him a bit and show him their little projects, and sit back and relax. I think it's actually something that's part of the male DNA, I really do. Even when he tries to do the dishes after work, he's so zoned out that he takes three times as long as me. I usually wait for the weekend to ask him to do housework.

My mother, who proudly worked full-time throughout her three marriages, has now done a 180 on her thinking. She has never met a guy, including my father, (who was a devoted and loving husband), that actually does half of the housework. She's been completly unable to convince any guy to actually do his share when she is working full-time. With her current live-in boyfriend, he has to use some of his income to pay for a maid service, since she also works full-time and still does more housework. This arrangement works pretty well for them, but when small children are involved, it would take a super-human effort to both work for pay and run the household. I've personally never seen a woman who was able to do that *and* stay married for long.

You are not unusual in seeing that the current way of thinking - women should do EVERYTHING and men should be responsible for NOTHING - is total BS. Everyone laughed when I quit my job after I got married to help my husband through grad school, but all those ladies are now running around exhausted with a cranky family, while my husband comes home to a relaxed wife, a nice dinner, and a family grateful for his financial contribution.

This is the same guy who proudly told a friend that I had soundly kicked his butt with my SAT scores, who got up with the baby at night half the time, who gives me a kiss and tells me to go take a bath - he'll watch the kids- when I look tired or stressed. Seriously, you don't need to marry a jerk to believe in dividing up some of life's responsibilities. I've found that the entire family is very happy this way, and he gets the pride of knowing that he is making an essential contribution to the family, as do I. As long as he respects you and would support your choice to work for pay, now or in the future, then there's nothing sexist about that. There's just too much work to be done for two people to work full-time, IMHO.

EDIT: By the way, it is not a "luxury" to raise your own children. Sure, our society has changed to accomodate the two-income family as "normal". It is harder than it was in the past to survive on one income. But the average married, one-income family makes about $35K a year, while the average married, two-income family makes closer to $50k a year. Clearly, SAHMs aren't some abberation of the rich. You can make different choices - even move somewhere cheaper if you want to be at home.

Answer 9

Were 50s wives really 50s wives, or has that been romanticized and glamorized by old movies and TV shows? I'm betting the Mrs. Cleaver was not the norm in the 50s.

I agree with Marchhare and Big Chief. I'm currently a housewife. We have no kids, well, none born yet. Our first is due in September. I am blessed to be able to stay home, though. My husband is in seminary, persuing his Master's of Divinity degree and is spending this school year doing his internship/student pastor year. The church has provided us with the parsonage and with our utilities (gas, electriciy, water, local phone service; We pay for cable TV, Internet, and phone and our cell phones--luxury items). The Detroit area economy was hurting when we moved here in August and when my husband proposed that I stay home, I agreed.

By the grace of God, I hope that I can stay home to raise our child(ren). We decided that I would continue to stay home next school year, at least. We will look for a church that will at least provide a parsonage, if not a nice living expenses package. Most churches in our denomination provide one or the other, and for a young family just out of seminary, we need one or the other. I do not feel comfortable with passing off my newborn to a stranger to raise for eight or more hours a day, even two days a week, while I work. I feel as though it's my calling to stay home. However, my husband and I (mostly my husband) has collected many books, most of them on theology and most of them he thinks are sellable. I'm going to spend next year selling them on Amazon. It will be my "job", even if I just bring in enough for groceries and the occasional trip to the coffee house with friends, I'll be cool.

I'm blessed though. My husband is the provider. He's been even more so since the baby. I know that l will be able to ask him for help if I need it. In my early pregnancy, when I was dealing with an unhappy tummy and fatigue, he happily did little things, like dinner, or the dishwasher and even some laundry, partially because he needed clothes.

I'm not June Cleaver. While I have room to grow, and want to grow, I do not want to be June Cleaver.

If you need help, ask him. There was a time last year when I worked full time plus. I didn't feel comfortable asking my husband for help because between classes, his job and studying, he was home less than me. That experience taught me that one of us needs to be working no more than part time. It also taught me that I was not cut out to work full time, as I was overly stressed trying to get things done in the apartment (we didn't have any kids, either) and get things done at work. The bonus is that it helped me save some money that has helped me stay home this year.

I hope my rambling has helped.

Answer 10

You need to drop her like a bad habit. As another answerer pointed out, the fact that she fellated you once and was very good at it indicates she is experienced. The fact that she will not have sex with the one man in the world with whom she is supposed to is inexcusable. Most states allow a divorce based on long term refusal of sex as a fault ground for divorce, just like adultery, drug abuse, cruelty, etc. See an attorney and get out now. I was married to a woman who became like that after 12 years or so. After realizing it wasn't going to work, I got out. There are many women out there who enjoy it often, like we do, I have found several since getting divorced. Life's to short for anything less.