I am 34, have been married for 8 years, and have a son in 1st grade. My husband is 36 and works at an acquaintance’s company that his parents got him into many years ago, with a salary of about VND10 million a month.
My husband’s family has several rental properties, and so after we got married, his parents let him keep all of the rental income from one of them, which is about VND50 million a month. Because of this, we do not have any financial troubles, and if you just looked at the income, many people would even say I am lucky.
But it is this regular sum of money that causes my husband to have almost no desire to advance in his career. In the morning, he goes to work quite late, sometimes stopping by the office for a bit before going to a cafe with his friends, and comes home at around 3 pm.
He says making that much is enough, and there is no reason to throw himself into work if he is living comfortably.
In contrast to my husband, I work as a manager at a company, making about VND35 million a month, but my work schedule is very heavy. There are days when I have meetings from morning until afternoon, and in the evening, I still have to go through emails. Since my husband has a lot of free time, he frequently texts me, sends videos, links, and internet gossip, and then gets upset if I don’t reply immediately.
Once, while I was in a meeting, he sent almost 10 messages, and then scolded me in the evening saying, “You can’t even spare a few seconds to reply.”
I told him bluntly that I couldn’t chat all day like he could during work hours, but he thought I was taking my work too seriously and making things hard for myself.
What frustrates me even more is that even though he gets home very early, he rarely takes the initiative to pick up our child, help him with homework, or do the housework.
We live with his parents, and my mother-in-law usually cooks and drops off and picks up our son from school, making my husband even more dependent on them.
I once suggested moving out so that the two of us could take care of our own lives and my husband would be more responsible towards our family, but he refused.
He said that the house was spacious, his parents were happy to live close to their grandchild, and living on our own was a waste of both money and effort.
When I advised him to take extra courses, find a more suitable job, or at least use his time to do something serious, he replied: “Why do I need to work more when I already have VND60 million a month?”
Lately, I have started to feel that the two of us have less and less to talk about.
When I come home from work, I want to talk about my job, future plans, or our son’s education, while he usually talks about internet drama, his friends, or asks where we should go out to eat on the weekend.
Am I wrong to demand ambition from someone who is already financially secure, or is my husband really too dependent on his parents and not taking responsibility for his own life?