Recently, i tried on a dress in & Other Stories. A couple of years ago, I’d have bought it without a second thought. This time, I stood staring at its £69 price tag, before finally putting it back. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford it. It was because I couldn’t think of a reason to tell my husband Ben* about why I needed it.
I didn’t want to hide it at the back of my wardrobe like my mother used to do with new purchases she wasn’t really ‘allowed’. While I wouldn’t classify Ben’s attitude as abuse, he’s definitely become more controlling over my spending. Until last year, I was a senior manager in an accountancy firm, earning a six-figure salary. Ben, an architect, and I had two children and a nanny. But when we had our third child, something had to give – and that something was my job. Now, at 39, I’m financially dependent on Ben, and I’m finding it incredibly difficult.
When we met, a decade ago, our relationship felt equal. At the start, I earned far more than he did as a trainee architect, but I was happy to pay more of our rent and then the deposit for our house. We had our first child, a daughter, six years ago and our second, a son, two years later. Like a lot of women, I made more of the sacrifices, doing the lion’s share of admin and housework on top of a greater share of childcare, but our relationship stayed fundamentally the same. Our bank accounts remained separate – by this time, our earnings were similar, so we split bills equally and spent the rest however we wanted.
I’d reward myself with a bag, dress or occasional expensive meal with friends and Ben never passed comment. Our third child, another girl, arrived in September 2016. When I returned to work it was quickly apparent that three children with two parents working long hours wasn’t viable. We discussed one of us going part-time and Ben argued that he was at a crucial stage in his career. My own career, while successful, had already been impacted by two maternity leaves, so I was the one to go down to three days a week, but found it was simply impossible to cram everything into that time frame, so I quit altogether.
Once I was no longer earning, Ben changed his bank account to make it joint rather than paying me an allowance or 'housekeeping', which I would have felt was demeaning - but naively we didn't discuss how much either of us could spend. We agreed we’d try not to eat into our savings and that we’d need to cut back on holidays, but even without my salary there was still enough coming in. I didn’t anticipate money becoming an issue.
However, having only one salary seems to have made Ben obsessive about money. He constantly checks our account and, if he spots a transaction he doesn’t recognise, he’ll query it. If it’s something I’ve bought, he’ll ask whether I really need it. When he first questioned me, about a pair of boots I’d bought, I got defensive and we had an argument. I explained that I felt belittled, as if I was a child being told off. He apologised, but we’ve had similar rows since and now it’s almost as if we can’t talk about it any more. He can’t seem to help himself. It’s left me feeling nervous about what I spend, and jealous of my working friends who answer only to themselves when they splurge.
Annoyingly, Ben hardly spends anything on himself and rarely goes out, so he doesn’t understand why I sometimes want to buy myself something new. But I also wonder if there’s something deeper going on; if he resents me staying at home when he’s at work, even though I’m actually working harder than I ever did before. He moans how tired he is and how stressful his job is far more than he used to. Equally, I hear myself complaining about how exhausting the kids are, as if it’s a competition.
Still, it’s hard to know how much is in my head. Friends who’ve known Ben for years tell me I’m projecting – that surely he wouldn’t care if I bought myself something I wanted. I do know I’m feeling an acute loss of identity. Being successful and earning a healthy salary made me feel good about myself. By losing my income, I’ve lost control and without the status of my career, I don’t know how to measure my value. Rationally, I know his money is ours - but because I'm so used to having my own, it still feels like his.
I'm aware that I'm lucky: I have three gorgeous children and a husband who earns enough to support us. It feels taboo to say I often feel resentful rather than grateful. But money is such a loaded topic, especially for women; when financial dependence was a tool of oppression until relatively recently, is it any wonder some of us feel uncomfortable about entering that state again? There’s one thing I’m sure about, though: when our children are older, I’m going back to work. I love Ben but, while I’m dependent on him, I feel trapped.
*Names have been changed