My Husband Claims He Makes More Money Than Me Even Though He's a Willow Tree I Married in an Elaborate Ceremony

My husband is a willow tree. It might be unconventional, but it’s love!

We married in an intimate (streamed on Youtube) ceremony five years ago, where we exchanged emotional vows (me, with actual words, him by rustling his long branches in the wind, which made me weep.) Ever since then it’s been a happy union, albeit one that has a few setbacks. Sure, it’s hard to relate to him sometimes (I like rom coms and he enjoys action films) and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to have children yet, which is something he’s more than excited for. But the biggest problem we face is that he tells the world he makes more money than me even though I know that I make much more money!

At first I wondered, where does my willow tree husband get off proclaiming that he makes $15,000 more a year than me? Why does my willow tree husband hide behind these lies? But it turns I’m not the only one having this problem. New data from the Census Bureau finds that in marriage in which wives earn more money, women underreport their income and men overreport theirs:

When a wife earns more, both husbands and wives exaggerate the husband’s earnings and diminish the wife’s. But, husbands overstate their own earnings less than wives do, and wives devalue their own earnings less than husbands do.

In other words, survey reports of earnings are more heavily influenced by gender norms when earnings are reported by a person’s spouse.