Girl Talk: I Felt Financially Trapped In A Relationship
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
relationships
3:30PM, Monday December 15th 2008
For about four years in my mid-twenties, I dated and lived with a guy who was as wrong for me as a double-breasted blazer. He certainly wasn’t the only guy I ever got involved with who wasn’t Mr. Right, but he’s only one I stayed with about three years longer than I should have. I could cite plenty of reasons why it took me so long to leave him: he was comfortable, I was afraid of being alone, I got free turkey sandwiches at the restaurant he managed, but if I’m being honest, it was my financial dependency on him that made it so hard to end the relationship. Even now, I’m embarrassed to recall how I, an “independent woman,” allowed myself to be dependent on a man, but the truth is I was lazy and spoiled.
At 24, 25, 26, I couldn’t fathom having a roommate again, like I’d had in college, but in a big city like Chicago, I knew it would take more sacrifices than I was willing to make to afford my own place. I’d have to get a better-paying job, work longer hours, and give up the luxuries I’d grown accustomed to, like cable and my expensive shopping habit. Plus, there was no guarantee I’d be any happier on my own or that I’d ever meet someone who was a better match for me. So I convinced myself it was just as well I stay with the safe bet—the nice but boring guy who could provide a stable lifestyle while I bounced around from one dead-end job to the next, trying to “find myself.”
It all came to a head the summer I turned 27, when my boyfriend spent three months in another city, opening a new restaurant. For the first time in years, I was on my own. My boyfriend made sure his half of the rent was paid for the entire time he was away and even offered to give me a “spending allowance” while he was gone, a gesture I’m happy to report I refused. It was my chance to see how well I fared without him, and I wanted to get a real idea of what life would be like without his support, emotionally and financially. By the end of the summer I had my answer: I needed to leave him, even if it meant getting a—gasp—roommate. When he returned home, we had a serious talk, I made some big lifestyle changes, and we began the untangling of our intertwined lives, a process that proved much easier than I’d always imagined—mainly because we had so little in common to begin with.
Writer Karen Karbo asks, “Is it better for the longevity of a marriage if one party (usually the woman) feels financially trapped?” While I can’t say with absolute certainty that it is, I can say that based on my own experience, it’s much harder to end a relationship when it means making certain lifestyle downgrades. The question is no longer: “Would I be happier without him?” It’s: “Would I be happier without him … and the nice apartment and the digital cable that he pays for?” The financial aspect muddles the compatibility issue, making it harder to see the forest for the trees, making it easier to stay in a relationship that’s no longer satisfying.
In the end, hard as it was to pack up, move out, and, yes, find a roommate again, it would have been so much harder to continue lying to myself about being happy in a relationship I’d long since outgrown. The funny thing is, all the stuff I thought I’d hate giving up? I really didn’t miss it. Well, except for HBO. There was still one more season of “Sex and the City” left to watch, after all.
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joyy
wrote on December 15 2008 @ 04:34 pm: [report]
The best advice I was given before I moved in with my bf came from one of my guy friends: move in with a bf if I want, but do NOT become financially dependent on him. And I never will.
Yes, he makes more than me and occasionally treats me to things I otherwise wouldn’t spend my own or as much money on, but I have my finances set up so that no matter what happens (from a break up to him losing his businees or the house, neither of which I foresee happening), I am able to put a roof over my head and food in my mouth.
When stuff got rough with my parents, there was a night/fight where I thought my mom would finally be fed up enough to leave. When I asked if we could go, she just looked at me and said “Where would we go? What would we do?” They’re still together today, unfortunately for my mom (my dad is a @$*##bag). I’ve chosen to learn from her lessons and be prepared to support myself.
par3
wrote on December 16 2008 @ 05:30 am: [report]
i don’t know if it’s how i was raised or maybe bc i live in chicago the land of the golddigger, but i can’t even stand the idea of him paying for dinners and drinks always- i def don’t like to be bought or have him beaming at the table like ‘oh yeah-i got this one in the bag’. tsh.
DancerNinja
wrote on December 16 2008 @ 07:55 am: [report]
I was once in the opposite situation. I was a graduate student (!) and he was financially dependent on me. I lived in Houston, where it is leaps and bounds cheaper, but it became such a drain to know that we “had” to share MY car, that if I didn’t send in the rent check, the utilities check, and of buy the groceries there wouldn’t be a place to stay or eat. Close to a year of that I said enough was enough (it didn’t start out that way), but because of that, I know I’ll always fend for myself in the future.
On the upside, handling that on a tight, grad student budget has made living on my own in the SF Bay Area totally easy!
crmsnkatt
wrote on December 16 2008 @ 12:22 pm: [report]
@ DancerNinja:
I too was once in the opposite situation. Only, it was my ex-husband who was financially dependent on me. We were both in the military when we first met, and after he got out, he moved in with me. We got married a few months later, and he took a job making $10 an hour (after making roughly $15 an hour in the military and still barely making it on his own).
After I got promoted, he quit his job. He took another 3 months later, making $8 an hour. He took $100 out of each paycheck for his “play money” but didn’t realize that included beer, snacks, movies, etc. While I was busting my butt, working 60+ hours a week and being full-time mom/wife/maid/cook/etc, he complained about us never having any money. I finally left him after returning from deployment to find that NONE of the bills had been paid the entire time I was away.
Also: I’m from Houston, but we were stationed in San Antonio at the time. Small world…
Annika Harris
wrote on December 16 2008 @ 03:24 pm: [report]
@par3 Why do you call Chicago “the land of the golddigger?” Just curious.
makc45
wrote on December 18 2008 @ 09:20 am: [report]
Since I worked I reminded my husband of 34 years that I was with him because I wanted to be with him not because I financially had to be. Having a profession also paid off when he had to retire after a stroke and it took half a year or more for disabilty to start-which of course was a lot less than his salary. A woman should always be able to support herself and her children because you never know what the future will bring.
kansasrefugee
wrote on December 18 2008 @ 01:37 pm: [report]
I am so glad to see this topic addressed. Thanks, Ms. Atterberry.
I am 43, maybe a little older than the average Frisky reader, and have watched so many women in generations ahead of mine suffer for confusing love/money/marriage and placing blind trust in a man to provide for them for the rest of their lives and not keeping a sense of financial responsibility for themselves. I still see many women in my generation doing this and it scares me for them.
As a member of one of the first generations of girls benefiting from Title IX, and the daughter of a 1950s-style marriage, with a submissive and coddled mother, who was weak not only in her relationship with my father but as a functioning mother, and a controlling, insecure father who got his way, often at significant costs to the rest of the family, because he brought in good money, I have very strong views that financial independence is critical for both men and women, and for healthy relationships, childrearing and families in general. Back in the day when we were all farmers/hunters, women shared very much in “providing” for the family, and men were around their children and were much more involved in interacting with them. It is only in the industrial age that the coddled housewife and the preoccupied, sole breadwinner husband emerged.
A couple good books that touch on this issue: Women & Money and The Gaslight Effect.
DidSheReallyGoThere
wrote on December 19 2008 @ 11:42 pm: [report]
I ‘wore the pants’, and he rebelled. The notion of being ‘owned’ by a (usually MUCH) older man who expects accountability for everything but my episodes in the bathroom don’t light my fire either. I now fantasize about 1. Being financially secure and independant 2. Connecting with a partner who is the same 3. Uncontestedly signing a neatly-typed PRE-NUP! I don’t want another relationship where the fella’s bowing his head in shame everytime I pick up my wallet. I vomit at the thought of calling someone other than my father ‘Daddy’ as I fake it in bed, just because he’s keeping some bills paid and food in the fridge. Yup; the above three fantasies sound DELIGHTFUL for me!
redraven
wrote on December 20 2008 @ 11:08 pm: [report]
Oh, this post was right on the money for me in every way. Startling seeing it in black and white like that.
clark005
wrote on December 22 2008 @ 12:15 am: [report]
I am glad you got out of that relationship. It sounds like you could’ve done a lot more damage than you did, so you basically left him like you found him. Right on!
Also, Chicago is full of Gold Diggers. I still live in Chicago, but I USED to live on the “Viagra Triangle” Rush just south of Division. I was in my early twenties, and I would always see these beautiful girls my age with men over 35, some over 50 easily.