One of my colleagues is a Pastor who leads a singles fellowship. He uses case studies to generate discussion about issues that these singles may face while single and looking, and during marriage. It's like the HBS of singles fellowships :D

Over the last year or so, I have helped him flesh out the cases that he presented to his singles fellowship. The ones I was working on recently were about money matters in the family where the woman earns more money. The pieces I wrote generated a lot of discussion in my office, and so I figured I'd sound out you guys on a few of them over the next couple of days. So with out further ado here is Funke's story.

Funke’s Story

I met my husband as a corper in the bank. He was a second year customer service representative when I began serving as a marketing officer in the same branch. Dapo was intelligent, tall, and handsome with a sense of humor to die for. It is easy to see why I decided that I wanted to marry him within 5 minutes of meeting him. It took a lot longer than that obviously. He says now that he was intimidated by my beauty, that he did not think that I was interested in him. Well he got over that eventually and asked me out on a date. Though by that time I had finished service and was even working at another branch. We were married within six months and have been blissfully happy ever since.


Five years on our marriage remains a true partnership. We take all decisions together and are deliriously happy with two beautiful children. Professionally we have also done very well for ourselves. I am a Senior Manager in marketing at one of the top ten Lagos branches, and Dapo is an Assistant Branch Manager at one of the top 30 Lagos branches.


Our blissful existence was interrupted by the acquisition of our bank by an international bank. We did not think this acquisition would affect us, as both of us were some of the top performers in the organization. However the international bank has a strict policy against staff inter-marriage. We pleaded our case, stating that we were in different lines of business: Marketing and Operations, and that we would never be in a position to show favoritism. However our pleas fell on deaf ears: one of us would have to resign within six months.


In the old days of banking, finding a new job for either one of us would be a simple matter of picking up the phone and calling another bank. However since the banking crisis of a few years ago, jobs are a lot harder to come by. The situation is complicated by the fact that I earn at least three times more than my husband, and with my expected promotion to Assistant General Manager it is likely to be 5 times, though he is also expected to be promoted to Manager at the same time. However my husband earns enough that our lifestyle will not change drastically if we had to live on his salary alone.


If you had asked me a month ago, I would have told you truthfully that money was not an issue in our household and that my husband did not care that I had a better job than him. Today these two issues are threatening to break up our marriage. We have studiously avoided talking about the issue, and the few times we have tried to start the conversation have all ended in screaming matches. This issue is now bleeding into other parts of our lives. We are shorter with each other, and our young children are starting to pick up on our budding estrangement. I want to keep my marriage, and I understand that sacrifices need to be made in any marriage. I just find it hard to accept that I should be the one to automatically make the sacrifice.

So what say you? What should Funke do?