Carolyn Hax: Husband wants her to lie to his parents about salaries. That’s rich.

[conuly]

Dear Carolyn: My husband, "Bill," heads a research lab at an academic institution. We met when I was working there my first year out of college. He stayed in academia and I moved on to the biopharmaceutical industry; I'm now head of manufacturing at a small company.

My in-laws believe that Bill's Ph.D. means his job is much more important and lucrative than mine when actually I make quite a bit more than he does. We never felt the need to correct them, but my mother-in-law has been a royal pain about me working ever since I had my daughter, "Sara," two years ago. I recently got an earful about how I'm neglecting my daughter, how I don't need to work with Bill's salary and so on. I usually let this go since I'd work whether we needed the money or not, but I'd had a miserable, stressful couple of weeks and I snapped and told her to talk to her son, since I'm the main breadwinner and he should be the one to stay home.

Of course she doesn't believe I make more money since I "only" have my master's, and she told Bill I was telling lies about him. Bill is now ticked off at me because he says his dad would be "devastated" to know that I out-earn him.

Should I go along with what my husband wants and tell my mother-in-law I made a mistake, and of course Bill makes more money? If I do this Bill has promised to get her to lay off me, but the truth caused all this trouble — will a lie fix it?

— Breadwinner

Breadwinner: The truth did not cause this problem! Your in-laws’ sexism did, with a hard assist from their delusions. And from their son. Wow.

You say Bill is “ticked off at me” — not his parents — and he’s offering to back you up only if you lie for him. He is angry at exactly the wrong party.

You can certainly apologize for losing your composure, and using the truth as a weapon. And you can spend some time exploring your own mind for the reasons you played along with this twisted charade.

But the solution is not to lie the truth back into a box in the closet. The truth is out, so, own it. Live it. For yourself, for your child, for The Cause and, ultimately, for your marriage.

Tell Bill you’re not going to be part of a lie anymore. You’ll love him, encourage him, support him emotionally as he stands up to his parents and takes a universe of flak for it, but you will not lie for him to appease anyone — especially not people who are so eager to diminish your value just to reinforce their own ignorance and self-satisfaction. And diminish his value, by measuring only in terms of pay. Enough.

If Bill is ready to die on this big fat lie of a hill, then it’s probably time for a marriage counselor. (Suitably credentialed to garner his respect!)

Re: The Lie: I'm thinking your in-laws didn't assume Bill made more than you. He TOLD them so. That's why he wants you to salvage his lie.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: Yikes. That has the sickening thud of truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-husband-wants-her-to-lie-to-his-parents-about-salaries-thats-rich/2020/06/08/6bc4cbe4-a1f0-11ea-9590-1858a893bd59_story.html

Comments

[conuly]

LW's inlaws are awful people. I'm not even sure which is the worst part, but I think MIL running to Hubby to say "Your wife lied to us about you!" is a special kind of terrible.

Also, LW's husband needs to seriously apologize to his wife.

[redbird]

He absolutely should, and maybe to his mother as well: I suspect that the mother-in-law may have said something like "Bill, I told Mary she should stay home with Sara, and she snapped and said she's the breadwinner and you should stay home. What's going on here?" or "Why is she so angry at me?"

If Bill has been lying to his mother about this, he might now be lying to his wife about their reaction.

[minoanmiss]

Why are people so aawful, why.

[conuly]

In this case, I'm gonna put my money on The Patriarchy, +/- a hefty dose of Toxic Masculinity.

[cynthia1960]

+100000

[likeaduck]

So LW should lie to MIL to save the in-laws' sexist pride and fix the conflict, where that means going back to being constantly harassed and devalued by MIL about work and parenting choices while husband does nothing about his mother's behaviour? As usual, I kind of think this is a husband problem, not an in-law problem. Fuck this guy.

[minoanmiss]

word. *gets back to work on that Throw The Whole Man Out Service icon*

[kshandra]

[cynthia1960]

The good folks on the Whole Man/Person Disposal Services Twitter accounts have come up with the ultimate four stage YEET. I think the in-laws and the husband are worthy of it. You YEET them out of a volcano, through the Sun, skim the event horizon of a black hole, and then let them drift in empty space.

[mommy]

I thought it was common knowledge that academia jobs aren't the most lucrative? I would generally expect a head of manufacturing position in the biopharmaceutical industry to pay more than heading an academic research lab, if only because of the sheer number of stories about poorly paid university employees. So why would the in-laws assume the son in academia makes more than the daughter-in-law who works in the private sector? (We know why.)

The husband is the main problem, here. He either supports his parent's assumptions at the expense of this spouse, or he's been lying about his spouse to make himself look good. Either way, it's a problem.

[ayebydan]

Right? Hell I know peers of mine went all the way to PHD on our subject and are in supermarkets. What piece of paper you have doesn't mean jack.

Husband needs to defend his wife and introduce his parents to the 21st century

[green_grrl]

I kind of suspect, from the way she put it, it’s the first option. This dude sounds extremely conflict-averse. He might end up siding with his mom because wife committed the sin of “creating” the conflict by not playing along. Or, in the best of all possible worlds, he might stick with wife/truth anyway now that it’s out there, and realize kowtowing to unreasonable parents isn’t worth it. Taste freedom, man!

Either way, LW, and hopefully husband, definitely need to throw the in-laws out.

[ayebydan]

This is something that hits home in our household. My dad is a courier and for years he DID outearn my mum as she worked her way up the ladder of management in various roles. She's an Operations Manager now with a high 'grade' in our government. But times changed and the parcel industry doesn't pay what it used to. My dad's parents still seem to all but choke when they are reminded my dad's salary is basically my parent's pocket money for various things around the house and for holidays. Badass mama bear worked hard for years and she can take care of us, all three of us if I earned nothing, on her whole damn self. 12 years ago my mum was unemployed for three months and survived on my dad's wage, savings and me handing over all of my wages from my supermarket job at 17 plus other money I had plus me not getting or buying any new clothes etc in that interim and I think my grandparents are stuck there.

They just have this mindset that my mum 'sits in an office all day'. And it is like...yeah, being one of the departments that runs the damn country.

I am so sick of this ingrained sexism. We got judged a lot for not having a perfect house as I grew up too. Sorry both my mum and stepdad work while his mum stayed home with the kids then worked part time? Sorry mortages now are 7x wages? Sorry parents bought a bombsite cheap and it has taken years to fix?

I am so ranting now but yeah, your inlaws are trash and if BILL can't defend you, send him to his mamma's house and get a divorce

[lemonsharks]

This doesn't ping "Divorce the asshole immediately" levels of bad to me--I think LW needs to stand her ground with her husband, tell her in-laws she makes more money than Bill, and let them feel how they're going to feel about it.

I also think LW would be within her rights to cut off the in-laws completely after the neglecting her daughter comments. She makes no effort to have a relationship with them or facilitate their relationships with Sara. I suspect they'd fade away soon enough with all the scheduling/relationship-having labor falling to Bill.

(She also needs to have a conversation with Bill about not taking shit that isn't her fault out on her.)

[mirlacca]

I wonder what academic levels Bill's parents achieved, and where they worked. I spent my day-job career at a company where the median academic level was an MS, and eyebrows were raised if the holder of an MS outranked a PhD (although, eventually, it got to be fairly common). At one time, in order to be a member of the exempt staff, you HAD to have at least a Master's degree. And salary bumps came with higher degrees. (But the prestige came with the hard science degrees.) So I can easily see how someone would assume a PhD automatically earned more than a "mere" Master's. What that tells me is that the parents have fallen into the academia/national labs mindset.

Notwithstanding, hubby is totally in the wrong here, but he's going to have to get his head straight to acknowledge it--which will take years if it ever happens, and his parents will probably be dead by then.