filed in Daily Life
Paying Your Way
For one brief stint in the 90’s, I lived with a man who kept me. By kept, I mean, he paid all the bills, and gave me spending money when I needed it, which was the only way I could agree to walk away from my job and follow him to live in Europe. Never before or since, have I experienced this arrangement, which had its glamorous side. But with his money, came obligation and dependence. I began to hoard, so I could have money of my own. I became a yes woman.
When my stubbornly independent mother was dying, she whispered to me of her shame from no longer having money in her wallet. I never told my Dad, it would have hurt him so. For the rest of her life, I made sure there was always $100 in her purse.
(Image: Domesticated Marionettes by Hayv Kahraman, an artist born in 1981 in Baghdad, who now lives and works in the U.S. Thanks to ajourneyroundmyskull for posting her work.)
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hmmmmm.
hmmmmmm.
hmmmmmmmmmmm.
that is as far as I can get on this one . . . still just thinking . . .
Your topic makes me think of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.” Maybe I’ll read it again.
I often feel grateful for my financial independence – both from a significant other and my parents. The idea of being financially dependant on a man scares me some. I assume there would be a way to work it out, but I would have to trust my partner a lot and, frankly, at this point, it would probably involve some legal paperwork too.
My mother once told me that in negotiation, the person with the least to loose has the most power. We were talking about work, but I choose to apply it here. I would never want to be in a relationship where I didn’t have the means to walk away.