My boyfriend and I had been together two years. I’d just gone to live with him overseas (he’d moved for his job in finance) when he suddenly asked, ‘So, what’s the plan?’ I’d been packing to go home for Christmas, and told him what time my flight was. He clarified that, no, he didn’t mean the plan with my travel arrangements, he meant the plan for my life.
At the time, I was working at a school in the European capital where we lived, while writing in my spare time. I thought I’d probably tutor when we moved back – as I’d done before – because it gave me the flexibility and time to write, which was all I’d ever wanted to do. But my boyfriend, it transpired, had concerns, in particular about my earning potential. He was worried, he said, that I would eventually be unhappy because of how little money I made.
He even feared he might grow to resent me. At one particular low point, he suggested that I might become a management consultant – though what he thought I could consult on, beyond how to successfully evade permanent employment for your entire twenties, remains a mystery to me. The conversation escalated into an almost relationship-ending argument, as it gradually dawned on me that, all this time, my boyfriend had apparently been assessing my suitability as a life partner based on my income, and had found me lacking. It had never occurred to me before – naively, I know – that he cared about that.
When we first started dating, I’d just ended a relationship with a musician who I’d been living with in a cramped shared flat. He spent most weekdays in his dressing gown, flicking between windows on his laptop: the online competitions he compulsively entered, trying to win holidays; the budgeting programme in which he grimly recorded every transaction; his inbox, which he refreshed obsessively, hoping someone had offered him work (they hadn’t). After that it was nice, I’ll admit, to be with someone who had money, to enjoy the perks of a disposable income.
When my boyfriend first moved abroad, we were long distance, and we’d regularly spend weekends in other European cities. I’d meet him outside the opera house in Budapest or at a bar in Milan. We’d stay in nice hotels and go for expensive dinners. He mostly paid. Generally, I didn’t let men pay for me, but he earned so much that it didn’t feel like an issue. And life was suddenly so much easier. I’d read enough Jane Austen to know that, if at all possible, you should fall for a man who’s stupendously wealthy. I was starting to think she’d been right.
Unfortunately, I soon discovered that, in the 21st century, things aren’t quite that simple. Gender is, of course, impossible to ignore. When one half of a couple hugely out-earns the other, the power dynamic becomes skewed in their favour – and, because men still out-earn women by 15.4% in the UK*, that person is most often the man. For women in these partnerships, because it makes sense for a couple’s decisions to revolve around the work of the primary earner, this means traditional gender roles by default. In my relationship, where we lived – including our move abroad – was dictated by my boyfriend’s job. I did most of the cooking and cleaning. And it was understood that, if we had children, I would be the primary carer.
I knew this made logical sense, given how little I was bringing to the table – but it was hard not to feel like, in my desire to be a free-floating bohemian, I’d somehow ended up in the 1950s.
While our pre-Christmas argument didn’t end our relationship, my finances remained a flashpoint. The topic came up at every moment that made him contemplate the long-term. When my sister had a baby, and he worried I’d want one too. When I met his extended family, and he agonised over them expecting us to marry. When we moved back to London, and he pulled out of the flat we’d paid a deposit on near my family – because it all felt too permanent, I suspect – finding instead an apartment near his office in the City.
These arguments always centred around the same point: he worried about committing to a future with somebody who earned so little.
Once, I asked how he’d feel if I gave up work entirely to have children. He said he’d be fine with it. He’d always assumed, he said, that he’d one day support a wife and children. It wasn’t about the money per se. It was that I was trying to have it both ways – to not pull my weight financially, while also making no compromises and expecting to be totally free.
I had – and still have – conflicting feelings about his attitude. I’d grown up with parents who’d never had separate bank accounts, and I felt strongly that money shouldn’t matter – that relationships were a partnership and money should be shared. Equally, the idea of ending up financially dependent on a man terrified me. Because the simple fact of the matter was that, for all my lofty principles about money not mattering, he had a point. Being with him was facilitating my writing. He never totally supported me – I always worked and contributed to our shared life proportionally – but he did cover most of the rent for our lovely flat, and he continued to pay for meals out and holidays.
I’d become complacent. I felt less pressure to have a Plan B because I knew that, as long as I was with him, I’d be safe. I did want it both ways. I wanted the benefits of his income, without making any sacrifices myself. It was convenient for me to believe that money didn’t matter when he was the one making it.
What it really came down to, though, was a question of values. My boyfriend, I should say, was hugely supportive of my writing – but he also couldn’t believe that someone on my salary could be happy in the long-term, and he didn’t want to end up supporting someone unfulfilled. He was, I know, trying to help. But I didn’t equate money with fulfilment. While I enjoyed the perks of his income, I didn’t enjoy them enough to compromise on what I wanted.
Ultimately, I ended the relationship when it started to colour how I felt about my writing, when the repeated conflict over my earnings made me doubt my own value. I was a few months short of turning 30, and I moved back into my parents’ house with no savings, no plan, but with the draft of half a novel. It was a sad and frightening decision, but he was right – I couldn’t have it both ways – and I chose a life on my terms.