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I am currently dating a substantially wealthier English girl with a better CV

Hi, so to be concise I am a third year finalist in PPE at Oxford. I am originally from Finland. Throughout these almost 3 years I only had 1 summer job for an NGO and 1 spring week in a non-flashy bank. I am predicted 2:1 and will probably graduate with a mid-high 2:1. I do not have any job offers as of yet, but I was not really looking that hard. I have submitted some applications but I have even ignored some telephone interviews / assessment centres because of the amount of workload in my final year. I am holding a couple of offers for MSc in Economics / Management / Finance. I am still undecided what I would really like to do academically or professionally.

I was not planning on staying in the UK. I wanted to go back to Finland or go somewhere else like Norway, France or the US. Recently I have been dating this other Oxford student (roughly 3 months now). She is only my second relationship during my time in Oxford. We're getting along very well and I think this could be love.

Important information to consider about her is that she is from a very conservative Methodist family, also a very wealthy family, that she is doing a STEM subject and has a better CV than me.

Why would that bother me, you may be wondering? After all we are both about to graduate from Oxford and have a high prospect of building the future together. This is probably true but then it is all relative. The fact that she is doing a STEM subject and has a much better CV than me makes her a better candidate for the job market and she is likely to adjust much better than I. On top of that she gets a lot of support from her wealthy English household. This creates a problem in the sense that I have nothing to offer her and indeed may seem like a bum compared to her.

This is a little bit like masculinity crisis. It is definitely me who is the one going up the 'social ladder' by dating her in terms of socio-economic status.

I am already a bit insecure because I have always thought that for a relationship to be successful the male has to be offering something: an economic or social advancement or security of some sort. Here it's the other way round.

I mean, I was into academia for a while but now I can only envisage this relationship if I earn more in a bank or consulting firm and try to catch up with her experience. Then again, her STEM background in tech makes her a very good start up candidate and she is very likely to be earning 6 digit figure in the near future.

Do you have any experience / knowledge of relationships such as this one? What do you think about this situation?

Reply 1

999tigger

Presumably she likes being with you and she likes you irrespective of your wealthor earning poterntial?

You are dating her not her parents and not her CV.

You are suffering insecurity, but why not talk to her about things as you seem so serious and maybe she will give you some reassuarnce? I wouldnt go chasing the £ just because you think its what you should do, because she may not want that.

Reply 2

William Pitt

Original post by 999tigger

I wouldnt go chasing the £ just because you think its what you should do, because she may not want that.

This in itself may be the integral part of the problem because she is from a background wealthy enough not to care about earnings so she probably does not think about this now. This does not preclude her being or becoming insecure once the wage gap materialises and she finds that she is really the 'breadwinner' with head start career prospects (and in fact career development overall). Is that not the case that women would generally feel more secure in a relationship from which they can gain / develop socially and economically?

Reply 3

richpanda

I wouldn't like the masculinity crisis either, but look on the good side.

She's rich, will have good connections to potential jobs for you, and is religious, so less likely to cheat etc

Reply 4

999tigger

Original post by William Pitt

TALK TO HER, stop trying to second guess and put away your male ego.
It is only 3 months old and you could have split next year or next month without it having anything to do with earning potential.

Go into IB then if you wnat to compete and see whether you like it.

Reply 5

username1738583

To be honest, she likes you...so, she must have her reasons. I doubt she cares about a possible salary difference between you two. We live in an age where house-husbands and stay at home dads are much more common, now I'm not saying that you will be destined to be one of these things, but gender roles are changing.
And I saw exactly that on my recent visit to Helsinki, the Finnish people are very forward thinking in my opinion.