Alpha males can’t cope with a ‘breadwife’
As research reveals men’s health suffers if they’re outearned by their wives, Diana Appleyard shares the toll it took on her own marriage
Ican still picture my husband sitting slumped over his computer at our home in Scotland, head in hands. Next to him was an ashtray piled high with cigarette butts and a half-drunk cup of coffee – his fifth or sixth of the day.
“No luck?” I said, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. “What do you think?” he snapped. This was just two years ago – and for the previous eight our roles had dramatically reversed, as I became the sole family breadwinner.
Last week’s revelation by sociologists at Rutgers University in the US, that having a wife who is the primary earner is potentially dangerous for a husband’s health, holds no surprise for me. Retrograde as it might sound, proud alpha men still want to be top dog in the earning stakes. The study, carried out with nearly 2,000 couples over 30 years, monitoring changes in earnings and status, found much higher rates of stress-related illness as well as heart problems and type two diabetes in “kept men” whose earnings were outstripped by their wives’.
For the first two decades of our marriage, Ross, 56, always earned the most as a reporter with Sky News. I was happy to be the one at home, tapping out freelance articles between bringing up our two daughters, Beth and Charlotte, in our lovely Oxfordshire farmhouse, horses grazing the fields outside and dogs asleep on my feet as I wrote.
Ross relished his role, too: flying out of the house at six each morning, smartly suited and booted for another frenetic day at work. He never knew what each day would bring – covering national news or flying out to a war zone at a moment’s notice. Having been part of award-winning teams covering wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Sierra Leone, his career was fuelled by adrenalin and he thrived on the pressure.
But 13 years ago he decided he could not go on. I could see it in his eyes; too much horror, too much death. Soldiers are trained to deal with the effects of war, yet many still fall victim to PTSD. Journalists tend to swagger in and swagger out, reliant on derring-do and the camaraderie of drinks in the bar, but no one witnesses the horror of war at close hand, over and over again, without it taking its toll. Having achieved everything he wanted to at Sky, at the age of just 43 he was reaching burnout.
So Ross gave up his job, and set up a company making corporate films. At first it did well, with clients ranging from Tesco to the wine company Berry Brothers. But then the recession hit, and marketing budgets were slashed. He could see his work drying up, and I stepped up my writing career as his income dwindled.
In the midst of this we made the – possibly rash – decision to upend our lives, selling our cosy farmhouse in Oxfordshire to buy a huge crumbling 15-bedroom pile in Argyll in Scotland. Ross needed a change, and this would become his new career, managing the estate and setting up self-catering cottages and a B&B.
He also planned to carry on making films to keep the cash flowing – but there was no work. The renovations on the house were haemorrhaging money, and I was working 14-hour days to try to keep everything afloat, with one child at an expensive boarding school and another about to go off to university. We always managed to bumble along, but Ross would be sleepless, wracked with frustration and guilt.
While I’d been happy as a pig in clover working from home and bringing up the girls, Ross never saw being a parent as a primary role, and besides, both girls were away. Being a homemaker held no kudos for him. Having steered his little band of womenfolk through life’s stormy seas and kept us safe, now he was rudderless and becalmed.
Losing his career meant not just losing his earning potential, but his identity. If he wasn’t “Ross Appleyard, Sky News”, who was he? Ross Appleyard, failed film-maker?
Far harder for me than bashing away at my typewriter at all hours, was seeing this proud man crumble. He put on about two stone in weight, had frequent headaches and was drinking far more than was good for him.
I tried to persuade him to exercise, but he didn’t have the energy or the motivation. His stress levels soared, and he seemed to take no pleasure in anything, even his beloved fishing. He moped around the house until frankly I could have killed him, and our marriage suffered badly as every conversation seemed to turn into an argument. He was touchy, badtempered and a shadow of his former self. I used to look at him and think, “Where has Ross gone?”
He says, now, that when everything you touch seems to be failing, just getting out of bed becomes a major effort. It was soul destroying for him, watching me stressing over money and working so hard to keep our heads above water, while no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the magic formula to make a small Highland estate turn a profit. It was eating money and bringing nothing in. Never one previously prone to depression, I could feel its dark tentacles encroaching upon him. Physical and mental health are so intertwined, and if you feel you have nothing to show for your efforts, both plummet.
Gradually, however, things turned a corner. The cottages were finished, the three new B&B rooms at our home, Kirnan, were open for business. Ross started to take bookings. The money began to flood in. The first thing I noticed was the humming. I’d come downstairs to find Ross in the kitchen, humming to himself. I’d try to talk to him when he was on his laptop and he’d hold up his hand. “Not now,” he’d say importantly. “I’m busy.”
The house came alive again, with Ross at its beating heart. The man I had thought I had lost was still there, after all – his soul had just been buried deep by his loss of stature. Rightly or wrongly, as Professor Cary Cooper of Manchester Business School says of the latest US report, “most men still think they should be the primary breadwinner”. Work is so much more than that one, simple word – it means pride, and it brings a sense of identity and value.
As Ross’s earnings soared, so did his spirits. He stopped smoking and cut down on his drinking. He began cycling, and taking the dogs for great long walks in the forest. He was back fishing his river when time allowed. In short, he blossomed.
This year, for the first time in 10 years, his earnings eclipsed mine. The grin on his face stretched from ear to ear when our accountant informed him. Now he’s full of plans. He’s using our improved profits to install a hot tub, a BBQ hut, and obtained planning permission for two new cottages. He’s constantly coming up with new ideas, a man reborn.
And me? I’m bloody thrilled. I can cut back on my relentless work. I’ve got time to go on cycling holidays with my chums. I’ve taken up running and wild-water swimming. I have HOBBIES.
Ross loves handing me a bundle of cash. “Buy yourself something pretty,” he says, with a twinkle and an ironic grin. We’ve always been equal, but being the breadwinner has brought this old silverback roaring back to life.