Woman Praised for Demanding Share of Husband's Bonus for Housework She Does

A working mom has earned widespread support online after suggesting she deserves a cut of the bonus her husband is set to earn through his job.

The division of labor is a source of contention in many busy households. While the role of women in the home has changed as a result of more opting to work, research suggests some old habits die hard.

A 2008 study published in Sociology Compass found that in dual-income families, women still planned more of their family's time together, such as outings or vacations, and worked more during their leisure time whether it was looking after kids or cooking.

Perhaps that is why a working mother-of-one recently decided to speak up on Mumsnet about her situation. According to the post, both she and her husband "contribute 50:50 towards all bills, costs and expenses" but do not have joint savings and tend to keep any money left over for themselves.

The issue arose when her husband was offered the opportunity to work away from home for 8-10 weeks including weekends as part of a deal that would land him a bonus in the region of £10,000 ($13,500) albeit while working "very long hours."

"We really need the money, so I'm happy for him to do this," the mother, identified only as Homealone 01, wrote. "But it is obviously going to make my job a lot harder too, as for those 8-10 weeks what was 50:50 in terms of childcare, cooking, cleaning etc will fall entirely on me, whilst still trying to fit in my job."

At present, the woman juggles working from home with looking after their one-year-old child but is often left working in the evening to "finish off" the tasks disrupted by childcare and other household duties. With this in mind, she wondered whether it would be "fair" for him to split the bonus money with her. Most seemed to think she should push for a cut of his earnings.

Stompythedinosaur felt she was well within her rights to get a share. "You are certainly facilitating him earning the money by undertaking additional unpaid work," they wrote. Sausagedogsarethebest noted: "If you weren't there to pick up the slack then he'd have to pay someone to do his share of the chores/childcare."

Formalineadeline agreed: "He can only take that opportunity if you pick up all of his other responsibilities outside of work. Why on earth should he get to ring fence those earnings as a private windfall?" One user, posting as damelarue, said they had a similar setup with their husband. "When he works away he gives me 30 percent of his overtime," she said.

However others, like Aprilx, felt that the woman would be hard stretched to justify it given that they had never shared money before. "I will never understand why people call themselves partners but then insist upon managing money separately," Aprilx wrote. "Seeing as you do this, then no I don't think you can pick and choose when you pool money and when you don't."

Research has shown the benefits of pooling finances.

A working paper by academics from UCLA, University College London and Notre Dame found long-term committed couples who pooled their money in a joint bank account were happier and less likely to split than those who kept finances separate.

As part of the research, 1,000 married people were asked to rate on a scale of 1 (not very) to 7 (very) how satisfied they are in their relationship.

Those who participated had been married for over a decade while 75 percent had kids together. They found that the two-thirds of the participants who had pooled their finances were the most content in their relationships with a median score of 6.10.

Some 22 percent had both joint or separate accounts and scored 5.82 on average while the remaining 12 percent who said they kept bank accounts entirely separate had relationship satisfaction scores of 5.46.

In September 2021, a woman staged a week-long "wife strike" to show her husband how little he does around the house. Elsewhere a husband sparked fury online after refusing to do any chores for his pregnant wife, branding it a "mother's job."