This conflict is only superficially about the money. The real difference here is what the money means to the husband and to the wife. In order to reach an accommodation, it is very important for both partners to understand what is at stake.

Money represents security for the husband. For whatever reason, the husband needs (emotionally) to have a lot of money to feel secure. It could be the result of financial insecurity while growing up, but it could also be the result of the way Husband saw money used within his own family. For example, money may have been used as a weapon within his immediate family, or as a weapon used against his parents by other family members, i.e. his parents may have been humiliated by their family members because of lack of money.

Subconsciously, Husband may have taken away from this experience the conviction that he was never going to let himself fall into the situation that his own parents dealt with. He may have promised himself that he was going to do whatever it takes (work harder than he wants; work at a job he does not like) to make enough money to protect himself from becoming like his parents.

Unfortunately, when it comes to money, many people simply don't realize that there are lots of ways to view money. They tend to think that everyone views money (the need for it, the uses for it) the same way. So Husband has no clue that his view of money is not shared by everyone, particularly not by his wife.

I'd be willing to bet that Husband sees himself as making great sacrifices to ensure that both he and his wife are protected from the humiliation or powerlessness that he believes his parents were subjected to. In his mind, this is a sign of his love for his wife. Therefore, he cannot understand why his wife will not do the same for him. He has absolutely no clue that money does not represent security for his wife in the same way that it does for him. She does not need more money to protect herself and she does not need to flaunt the money they have in order to assure herself that whatever happened to his parents will not happen to them.

Accordingly, it seems to Husband that if his wife really cared about him, she would be working as hard as he is (and making lots of money) to acquire the money he needs to feel secure. He is particularly unsettled by the fact that many of his coworkers have wives that earn a great deal of money. He has no idea that these women are doing so for their own purposes (the psychological need to work, the psychological need to have their own source of income). He imagines that in those marriages, husband and wife are mutually engaged in the effort to acquire enough money to feel secure. He can't figure out why his wife won't do the same for him.

This is not going to be solved by a simple discussion between husband and wife. However, the place to start might be to raise the issue to Husband that different people can have different ideas about money based on personal experiences. Through many conversations, over months, they might explore what money means to each of them, and the fact that Husband psychologically needs more money than his wife, and that his wife psychologically needs job satisfaction more than Husband does. In that way, they can reach toward a compromise where each partner tries to do more to support the other partner psychologically. Most importantly, the letter writer can explicity reassure Husband that her quest for job satisfaction over money does not mean that she loves him less than he loves her. She simply hadn't understood what the money represented to him.

Whoa, wait a second; when did it become the job of LW to change her in-laws views and behavior to those she approves of? Frankly, it is none of her business.

One of the most valuable lessons in life is that you cannot change other people, you can only change your reactions to their behavior. This should be the foundation of any decision that LW makes. She does not have the power, the obligation or even the right to set herself up as arbiter of other people's views, no matter how distasteful they are to her (and to me as well). The only thing that she has the right to expect is that her future in-laws respect her wish to avoid those topics in her presence and in the presence of future children.

Should LW punish her boy friend if his parents express appalling views? That seems extreme to me. After all, it is not his fault that they think the way they do and it is not his responsibility to change them. She should judge her boyfriend for who he is, not for who his parents are.