What NOT To Say To Your Husband When You Make More Than Him

If you’re a woman who makes more money than your husband, this video is for you.

This dynamic is becoming more and more common—but many couples are struggling silently with the tension it can create. The goal of this video is not to shame success, ambition, or calling. It’s to help you protect your marriage while you continue pursuing the work you feel called to do.

I’ve been the primary income earner in my own marriage for nearly a decade. I know the pressure, the guilt, the loneliness, and the internal tug-of-war that can come with it. And I also know how easy it is to unintentionally say or do things that leave your husband feeling disrespected, unseen, or pushed away—even when that was never your intention.

Today, I’m sharing 3 things you should not say to your husband when you earn more than he does—and what to do instead so that your marriage can feel like a true team again.

Because your marriage can stay strong.
You can be successful and connected at home.
You don’t have to choose one or the other.

In this video, you’ll learn:

• Why earning more can trigger insecurity in your spouse (and what to do with that)
• How to communicate without diminishing your spouse’s role or contribution
• What to say instead of “you’re not doing enough”
• How to rebuild respect, connection, and emotional intimacy—starting today

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, executive, leader, or professional woman—this message matters. And you are not alone.

If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: She Earns More
• 2:25 Biology, Roles, And Core Drives
• 5:30 Why Provision Dynamics Trigger Insecurity
• 6:10 Phrase One To Avoid: “I Make The Money”
• 7:32 Phrase Two To Avoid: “Pull Your Weight”
• 10:05 From Critique To Appreciation At Home
• 12:10 Home Is Not Your Workplace
• 14:10 Phrase Three To Avoid: “Why Don’t You Just…”

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Here are three things that successful women shouldn't say if they're trying to save their marriage. Now, here's the thing: the term successful women, I get it. Sometimes it's a little bit cringeworthy, but here's what I mean by that term. I'm talking about women who tend to be the primary income earner, the primary breadwinner in their homes. This is happening more and more in today's society. And it's not what has been the norm over the past several decades and centuries, right? We know this. And so it's making a difference. And marriages are sometimes really struggling with this. And there is a really good reason why that I'm going to explain to you in just a minute. My name is Kimberly Beam Holmes, and I'm the CEO here at Marriage Helper. And to be honest, I currently am the primary income earner in my own marriage and in my own home. And I have been for the past several years, probably actually the past maybe close to a decade at this point, since my husband got out of the army. And so this is something that I and my husband have experienced firsthand. So I understand you wives. I understand the tensions that you feel. I understand the things that you go through. And I'm going to speak to those today because here's what I know: this can be a very lonely place to be. Because you already don't have very many friends. You don't know who you can talk to about this because you already feel like it's a bit of a taboo topic. And when you have tried to talk about it before, it's been with people who haven't understood because you're too busy to be friends with people who are other C level leaders in that kind of position. I have met at least five people in the past year who have been in similar situations as me, and we have all shared the same type of sentiments. Number one, it's hard to do what we do. And number two, it can be very stressful on our marriages. I interviewed someone a couple of years ago on my podcast, and he was talking about how there are some statistics that you could look at that say that when women are the primary income earners in the home, that those marriages might be experiencing a higher rate of divorce. I have a theory behind this, and it goes right along with what I'm gonna explain about what we need to understand about men and how we approach this situation when we are the ones who are bringing in more money. And I'm gonna get to that in just a minute. But here's what I want you to hear. I clearly support women. I clearly support women in leadership. I am a woman in leadership, and I don't think that it is marriage-ending for a woman to make more money than her husband. However, there are a lot of things you need to understand. Are there a lot? Actually, there may just be a couple of key things that you really need to understand. So let's dive into what that is. First of all, we have to understand and become very aware of the fact that men are primed biologically, the way that God made them. They are primed to have a strong desire to protect and provide. That is the number one thing that they desire to do. Even if we think back to like Paleolithic times, if you want to even think back there, how men went out to be the hunters. They went to go out and provide, to bring food back to their family, back to the village, and to be the protectors of that family and of that village. Whereas women, we are biologically primed. We are made in such a way that our role, our God-given like inner talent, if you want to think of it that way, is to nurture. We're way more social, way more socially inclined, and we have a stronger desire to like be aware of the social cues around us to fit in to social situations and to nurture. We have that strong desire. Now, this can make extremely powerful women leaders, as you are, because we have that innate ability. And please, like, don't hear me talking and thinking that I think that I am the best, the best leader or the most successful woman. I for sure don't think that. I know that I have a lot of areas of growth, but it's how it's one of the reasons that women leaders can be so powerful, because of the way that God made us to see things that men just tend to not see and to create a more nurturing environment. However, how does this apply to our marriages? So in our marriages, we now have a man who is primed to provide and protect. That is how God has wired him. And we have a woman who is primed to nurture and love and care. That doesn't mean that men don't nurture and love and care, and it doesn't mean that women also don't have some desire to also provide and protect, but you have to understand, like there are differences and there's biological differences into how our brains function and what lights up more in male versus female brains and all of those things, which I'm not gonna get into right now because I've just given you the big, the big buckets of it, the big foundations of each of them. So here is the key. If men are primed to have that drive and desire, but the woman in the marriage is the one actually doing more of the quote unquote financial provision, then men are already feeling insecure. There are some men that want to be stay-at-home dads, and I think that's great. But there are many men who still have this drive and desire and feel less than if they feel that their wives are the ones outperforming them. This is the key we need to understand as women. And so there are three things that you should not say if you are the primary income provider to your family, because it's going to make the situation worse. Number one, I make the money, I get to make the decisions. Now I want you to hear me. I would also tell men who are the primary income earners to never say that to their wives. Because here's the thing: once you're married, it all goes into one pot, or at least it should. You should have a combined bank account. You should be sharing your finances. What's mine is his, what's his is mine. Therefore, I should never say to my husband, I make more money, so I'm gonna make this financial decision. Because it doesn't matter who makes more money. It doesn't matter if it's me, it doesn't matter if it's him. We get to make every decision together. And if I try and and just hold that over his head as a way to try and control, which was exactly what that statement does, then not only does he feel controlled, but he is emasculated through that. So we never want to say anything that even alludes to since you don't make as much as I do, you don't have as much of a voice. Number one, that shouldn't be true either way, whether it's the husband or the wife who brings in more money. And number two, you are a team. That is what marriage is for, to be a team. The second thing that I would advise you not to say to your husband is you're not doing enough or you need to pull more weight. And listen, that might be exactly how you feel. In fact, many of the women that I've met over the past couple of years that are in this unique bit of a situation have admitted that sometimes they have felt that way. I have sometimes felt that way in the past and held that as resentment towards my husband. But here's what I found when we actually talked about these things, which can be very touchy subjects to talk about, because we already know that this can be something that is more of a triggering point for husbands. So it can be a difficult conversation to even really get into and really vulnerably talk about. But once my husband were and I were able to open up and talk about this, I realized that I was only seeing my point of view. I was seeing how I was coming home from a hard day at work, and I would see how there was still dishes in the sink, there were still clothes to be put away, there were still kids who needed help with their homework. And all I could see was, you haven't been working all day like I have. Why didn't you get these things done? I felt overwhelmed, maybe even a bit lonely. And perhaps you feel this way too. Now, here's what I don't want you to hear me saying, because this is not what I'm saying. I am not saying you just have to suck it up and do it all in order to be in a healthy marriage and happy marriage. No, because you wouldn't be in a healthier, happy marriage. You would just be pushing down your resentments like I had been doing. And so what I found was that when my husband and I actually were able to talk about it, I realized I had only been seeing things from my point of view instead of trying to understand his perspective, the things that he had been working on each day, the things he had taken care of. And in fact, that was something he very clearly voiced to me. He said, Kimberly, I would love for you to try and show appreciation for the things that I do, instead of always just focusing on the things you feel like I don't. And here's the crazy thing things began to change. First of all, I learned how to do that, realizing that when I came home in a stressed state, I was more likely to be critical. You know how this is. You're overwhelmed, and guess what? At work, that's what part of your job is to notice the things that are undone and to try and get other people to do them, to help them figure out the things to get done and to make sure they get done. Your house is not your business. Your house is not your work. Just like when my husband was in the military and he would come home and bark orders around, he had to learn our home was not his military unit and I was not a soldier. We cannot bring our work home with us and expect to be the same person at work that we are at home. It's a marriage. It is different. While a lot of the relationship principles that we teach at Marriage Helper can be applied to so many different situations, your marriage is still the most important earthly relationship and it's different than any other. Therefore, it deserves the most attention, the most care, and the most, dare I say the word, submission on both sides. So here's what that looks like. Instead of saying you're not pulling your weight, start focusing on what your husband is doing that's helping you out and thank him for it. Help him feel appreciated and like he is doing something to provide and to protect. Once you start doing that and he begins to feel respected by you, it's going to be so much easier to work together as a team. And it's going to be easier to be able to tell him in the future when you get home from work after a hard day, hey, I need help with the dishes tonight and do that together. The third thing that I would recommend that you never say to your husband is, why don't you just become fill in the blank? Why don't you just become a stay-at-home dad? Why don't you just try to go and become a realtor? Why don't you go do this, that, or the other? You don't get to choose what your husband should do with his life when it comes to a career. You should support, you should encourage, you should ask questions, you should be the sounding board, you should be, as the word in the Bible says, the helpmate. And here's what that means: a strength equal to his own. You should be a sharpening tool for each other. Literally, both ways. I'm not saying that you should just keep your mouth shut and let your husband do whatever he wants to do. But if your husband feels like you're not gonna truly accept him or love him unless he does what you want him to do, it's continuing that cycle. It's continuing the cycle of I'm the one who's in control and you should do what I say. And that doesn't make a healthy marriage on either part, on either part. I would say the exact same thing to husbands. But I'm talking to you as wives because I understand how it can feel. I understand how it can feel like you, the whole world and the weight of the world is on your shoulders. And unfortunately, I have seen some of my friends who have been the successful wives, the ones bringing in more money, the ones climbing the corporate ladder or running their own businesses. And I've watched their marriages crumble and fall apart, even when they were trying, because their husbands just couldn't ever feel fully respected. And that's what we need to help do. That's the that is the environment that we need to help foster in our homes because it's what leads to a healthy marriage. There's three reasons that marriages fall apart. It's because one or both people don't feel liked, loved, or respected. And here's what I can guess. If you are a leader, if you are running your own business, if you're in the C-suite and you're a woman, you value respect. You value getting things done. You want to make a difference. You don't even care about the money, more than likely. You just care about having an impact and being able to add value in the world. And you want it all. You want to be able to make that impact and have an amazing marriage and be able to be a great mom to your kids. And you're already carrying a lot of guilt. Because every day you come to work, there's a small part of you that thinks, am I doing the right thing? But you just know that you have so much to give to the world and you want to do it. And I'm here to tell you that you can, but there are costs. You can, but there are things that you need to be aware of. You can, but please don't let your success at work be the downfall of your marriage and your kids. You're gonna have to realize that you are constrained. You can't do everything perfectly. And so you're gonna have to pick and choose what you want to do best. I think what you should want to do best is invest in your marriage. Secondly, invest in your kids. And third, focus on your business. Don't let it be the thing that is running your identity because it's going to one day not be there. But your husband will, your kids will. So, how can you show up at home in a way that shows that you like, love, and respect the people that you live with? I know it's hard, but the things that we teach here at Marriage Helper can help you do this. So be sure to subscribe. There's so much on our channel about how you can say things differently about how to stop pushing your husband away and how to start pulling and even more. So be sure to subscribe. Be sure to share this video maybe with a fellow successful wife and friend that you have that could find value as well. And I'd love to hear your story below. Leave a comment and let me know have you struggled with this feeling? Where have you felt stuck? And what have you learned from this video that's going to make a change to how you show up at home? Until next time, remember, there is always hope.