Ask a money coach: 'Was I wrong to ask my stay-at-home wife to go back to work?'

"The pressure to provide and increase my salary is starting to feel interminable"

"My wife left work when we had our second child. It made little financial sense for her to keep working when we had creche fees to pay."

"I always assumed that she would go back to work, even part-time, when the kids started school. I said this to her recently and it led to a huge argument."

The narrator experiences mounting pressure to increase income while supporting a family. The wife left paid employment after the couple's second child because creche fees made working uneconomical, transferring childcare duties to the home. The narrator assumed the wife would return to work, at least part-time, once the children started school. Stating that assumption to the wife produced a severe argument, exposing misaligned expectations around roles, income, and childcare. The situation highlights strain between financial demands and planning for a potential dual-income household.

Read at Independent