Dear Prudence,
My wife left work about a year after the birth of our first child when we could not get decent child care. The children are older now, but there is still a ton of running around. I have an excellent job, but I work from home with about half of my income coming from commission. We already split homemaking work about 75-25. If she goes back to work in an office, she could at most make about a quarter of what I make, while I would probably have to cover at least half of the housework. To me this seems like an obviously bad idea: I double my home workload while endangering our primary source of income. If I had any extra time, I would probably be better off working more and getting more commission. She does not dispute any of these facts but still wants to work. I don’t want to work harder so she can work harder, for just a little more money. How do you solve a relationship problem like this?
—Home-Life Balance