Jan 15
During my lunch break (where I sit at my desk and gulp down whatever it is that I have brought to eat) I was reading an article on CNN regarding relationships and particularily the conundrum that comes from suddenly realizing that you are settling for a relationship that is financially stable instead of a love match. If you are at all curious about the article you can read it here.
In the article the writer (a female) writes honestly about how she stayed “too long” in a relationship in which she was financially supported by a man that she didn’t think that was “Mr Right”, and how hard it was for her to come to the realization that she wasn’t happy with him and their life together just because she liked some of the things that came along with the relationship.
Two things that came to my mind when I was reading this article:
1. I understand how she feels.
2. I am sure that she and I are not the only women out there who have been in relationships that might have started out honestly, but who stayed because they did not feel that they could make it out there on their own without the man that they had become tied to.
Was it right?
Part of the guilt that kept me staying with STBX well after it was clear to me that being with him made me miserable was the fact that I was well and truely tied to him financially. Was that right? If the comments on the article (mostly by MEN, I have to add) are any indication of the public opinion on this matter, my staying with my husband after I knew I no longer loved him was “gold digging” and “sickening” behaviour “common of the opposite sex”. But was that what it was?
I don’t think so.
When I started dating STBX neither of us had anything. We BOTH went to university and we both worked to get through and to get jobs. While he graduated with an Engineering degree, I recieved my bachelor of arts in Psychology, and therefore he scored a job that earned significantly more than I could. Which meant that we lived where HIS job was, rather than picking up and moving somewhere where I could more easily get a well paying job.
I’m sure he thought I was a gold digger too… after all… what did HE get out of the situation, after all? He supported a wife that didn’t work most of his marriage, who went to school and who stayed home.
But wait.
We had 2 children… so despite me not being as economically “viable” as my husband, I was also WORKING in a very real, albeit non-paid, job. And I was working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week… I was working in the middle of the night when the children cried. I was working first thing in the morning when I had to get up and change diapers and make breakfast while my adoring husband swore at us and slept in. I worked from the moment I got up to the moment I slipped into unconsciousness. I cared for him and our children, I cooked, I cleaned, I managed the household, I made his appointments, I did the errands, and I tried my best to please the person I married who had become a hard-hearted incommunicative authoritarian dictator.
So, yeah… I didn’t have an income to fall back on when I realized that I would have been much happier without my husband, and I did have concerns about moving out and losing the small comfort that came from having someone who could earn 3 times what I could… but that did not make me a gold digger, it made me someone who was “lost” in herself and who had followed a path that she was told was the right one for women, and realized late in the game that there was more to life.
Being financially trapped with a man sucks
I know I am not the only woman out there who stayed in a relationship because they were financially taken care of… and I am not the only one who felt that this was the best they could hope for. And why? Because I had heard it from 2 generations of my family… “well, at least he takes care of you”. It seems that, even when you marry for love, the ideal is to marry and have someone who can take care of you financially — so you can have children and raise the next generation without having to go out to work and leave them with strangers. So you dont have worry about how to pay the bills or buying groceries or proving the necessities of life for your children.
There is a lot of pressure on women to find a financially stable man who can care for her and her children… and perhaps that is just as important a factor in finding “love” as is attractiveness or common interests. But I do not think it is a conscious decision for a lot of women, I do not think that I purposely married STBX because I thought that I didn’t have to work or because he coudl support me, and I know that I have friends who went through similar situations — marrying and then realizing it wasn’t right and feeling financially trapped.
But I did leave…
And now I must be even MORE of a golddigger because I am asking my ex-husband to provide me with child support and spousal support, even though I was the one who left HIM with the house he so desperately wanted. And because I don’t think that I want to pay off debts that he has incurred because HE has a terrible track record of spending too much on too much crap.
But I’m not.
Worse was my relationship with Stalker…
Stalker provided me with all kinds of things while I was in a relationship with him. He gave me money necessary to get away from STBX, and bought me things and paid for things for me… sometimes things I didn’t KNOW about, ask for or even CONSENT to.
And this was the relationship in which I TRUELY felt financially trapped. Because here was a guy who didn’t have enough to pay his own bills, who was in his own financial trouble with EVERYONE, and he was buying things for me and doing things for me — and always REMINDING ME that he had done “so much” for me especially things that he said “I can’t even tell you about them because you’ll feel guilty”.
I didn’t want to be bought. I didn’t want someone to give me gifts or buy me things or pay for things for me. I wanted an equal, a partner… I didn’t want to live with an invisible ledger behind me, where I was going to be reminded of all the “THINGS Stalker DID” for me whenever I wasn’t grateful enough, where there were allusions of things I didn’t even KNOW about, of sacrifices that he had made FOR me without me even realizing it.
And so I made sure that before I broke things off with him that he agreed that we were clear on things, and I paid him back for whatever he felt that I owed him. And I know that he thought that it was stupid of me to try and balance things, so he low-balled me on how much he wanted back to even things out.
And you know what? TOO DAMNED BAD.
I never asked for him to do the things he did for me, and I told him on many occasions I didn’t want him to get things for me because I knew in the end he’d be holding up a ledger of what he did and what I did and a tally of who loves whom more… and I get it, he loved me more than i loved him, but that doesn’t mean that the things he did were anythign less than HIS choices. In the end I realized that he had decided, completely on his own, to do the things he did, to buy the things he did that I never asked for, didn’t need, and really didn’t want…
What I seek…
I realize I made mistakes in my life, and as far as I am concerned I have acted in accordance to my personal beliefs. Where I have failed I have no recourse other than to try and do better. And so, to do better, I have decided that I will not allow myself to be financially supported by another person.
That does not mean that I will not accept the child support that I recieve from STBX. That is a different matter, and a legal obligation set upon him from the government of Canada. He might think its my greed, but in reality it is something imposed on him from outside of me. I will also accept the stabilization that comes from spousal support, as that is yet another economically required payment necessary in order for us to finalize our divorce.
What it does mean is that I want someone that will be a financial as well as emotional and social PARTNER in my life, if I ever get to the point where I choose to live with another person again. I want to make sure that I continue to contribute, where I don’t have to feel like a burden on another person (even though in neither situation would I really have been a burden)…I want to be able to give back and contribute in some way, because that is essential.
Pam’s Life lessons…
- sometimes what men consider “gold digging” is just an economic reality for a woman that earns less than her partner
- a “gift” is something freely given, not an obligation… but don’t accept gifts from someone if you suspect that said gift comes with an unspoken obligation of some form of repayment
- contributions come in many forms, and the distribution of wealth and work is often such to make things equal
- don’t stay with someone you don’t care for because you feel you owe them something… such situations have a habit of snowballing
- some men consciously try to buy your love, or tie you up in financial obligations in order to prove their love, purchase love, or to buy themselves time to prove to you that you love them because of all they can give you… watch out for this
- love cannot be bought, it just IS
- things cannot replace love
- People are more important than things, and sometimes walking away from a financially secure sitation in order to save yourself is a GOOD thing
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