However, we keep our finances totally separate – all bills are divided down the middle (though rent is proportional to income, we did split it while he was starting his business but now he has enough data to recalculate the percentage which we will do starting in January – he still makes more money than I do so this will be good for me).  He also pays when we go out – before because he made so much more than me and now because he enjoys getting out of the house and enjoys my company, and that’s the only way I can afford it.  He would LOVE it if I made more than him, though.

Betty Broderick was facing literally being with little to nothing b/c she’d worked and put all resources into furthering her husband’s career znd education while neglecting her own.  I’m never clear on why so many women think that this is a good long term strategy, but maybe it’s a generational thing.  And b/c he was a well-connected lawyer, she wasn’t going to get much of a payout.

Oh, and Betty’s case is a popular topic on crime shows.  She had 4 kids but good Catholic girl that she was, there were about 8 pregnancies, and they took a toll on her body and her looks.  She wears her body out having this man’s kids and he trades her in.  

My mom, who is a teacher, had a co-worker who put her husband through medical school and within weeks of his graduation, he announced to her that he was leaving her, I think for one of his classmates.

My mom just pointed out that you should NEVER work to put anyone through school except for yourself.  She should have let her husband borrow the money just like most people do.  Instead, he got to graduate debt-free so he could start a life with someone else.   There is no legal way for her to get reimbursed for his tuition.  If she’d let him borrow the money, then had they stayed married, she could have assisted in paying it off.  But instead, she probably got left feeling really scammed and a whole lot poorer. 

You don’t have to be a CEO, you don’t need to be a partner in a law firm, but I think that if you do nothing and have no way of earning a dime,  you are kind of silly.   

I think that as much as people say that pre-nupes aren’t romantic (who gives a fig), if you are investing lots of money or time into furthering someone’s career while neglecting your own, you’d better get it in writing what you’ll get should that marriage dissolve.  I’d do the same myself if I was with a less successful partner who had to give up opportunities to support my ambitions.  It’s only fair. 

I can cite Betty Broderick in La Jolla, CA.  Yes, the woman obviously had issues.  But, reportedledly, she was a virgin when married.  Good Catholic girl.  Upper class family.  Worked numerous jobs to put her husband through medical and law school.  Bore him 4 children while maintaining the facade of devoted, attractive wife.  Left for younger version of herself.  I don’t blame her for being pissed, though I never condone murder.

But this is just  another version where being the “Good Wife”  does not necessarily turn out as you’d hoped/planned.

Got a photo yesterday of my best friend growing up–all of us at her wedding, when we were all 19. She followed all the rules–virgin on her wedding day, beautiful, sweet, deferential, helpmate, all of it. Today, now that the kids have gone, she is very angry that her parents wouldn’t let her go to college (she had to work to pay for her wedding, they said), and she wouldn’t get married again if anything happened to her husband. I’ve heard other women who “followed the rules” say the same thing, and it always surprises me, the good-girl admission that marriage and kids wasn’t enough. 

So, it’s a tricky time in the history of male/female relationships, where there are no guarantees that any one life choice is going to offer us security, prosperity, or satisfaction. All the more reason to listen to your own inner stirrings. 

We all looked so young and so pretty in that photo. We were all very naive, too.