Just back from a foray to Jo-Ann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby, where the sales on scrapbooking supplies were 50% and 40% respectively, and am all stocked up. Jenn (friend from enfant terrible days) is coming this eve for a two day scrapbooking marathon.
Am stoked… as well as stocked. And confused.
But, anyway
M just emailed me. She’s transcribing many hundreds of letters she wrote her mom over the years to a computer file so she can print and bind them for all of her kids. Every once in a while she shoots me an email with the latest tidbit of family life. Today she sent me this (from 1983):
The kids are all growing. Jonathan is in the most wonderful honeymoon stage, being almost three. He goes around the house saying, “I love you,” to all of us and trying so hard to please. Kathy Kay is sitting, cooing, and creeping. Right now she and Jon are laughing and playing on the bed. Michael is approaching the age of industry and made several storybooks this morning, then played out in the 55° sunshine with his best friend, Mark. They came running in to announce that the first of our crocuses are blooming!
Speaking of the M, she and I had a nice, sit-down drag-out discussion about women and money and male security today (not in ref. to me, obviously; we were talking about someone else… which sounds a lot like gossiping, come to think, but that’s a whole different ball of wax, which shall think about later in good Scarlet O’Hara style). ANYWAY, I know nothing about it. Apparently men can be sensitive/insecure/anxious/pickaword about their ability to provide for their families, esp their wives, and female spending habits can drive them insane since they feel like they ought to be able to provide some fabulous lifestyle for the women and bairns.
Yeah. I wouldn’t've guessed it was that big of an issue, honestly. As a single person, the equation has always been uber simple: Income minus expenses that are less than income equals me colored happy. That would be the same whether I made $10,000 or $100,000.
Not hard.
But apparently it is a big deal. Apparently men are as sensitive about their jobs as women are about their appearance.
Which could add some punch to that time a guy (then in a relationship with someone else) told me I was entitled and that’s why he never asked me out. I mostly wrote him off as delusional at the time. Perhaps not? My insightful M seems to think my understanding of male/female plus money situations is, um, limited. Perhaps.
But to me, as to most decent women I’ve assumed, it’s never about money per se. It’s about success, which contributes to happiness. Which sounds just as cold, but it really isn’t, I swear.
Because success isn’t just about money. Success is about having goals and working towards them, doing what you’re genuinely interested in doing. Only an idiot would rather be married to an unhappy brain surgeon than a happy landscaper. Not a hard call.
Personally, I’ve never dated anybody who was likely to make a lot of money. I’ve mostly dated struggling artists types (well, or just struggling types), and that’s fine. I mean, you don’t want to starve either. There’s no particular glory in poverty. But beyond the caveat of having dinner and a roof over your head (walls are nice too), it’s about the vision, the sense of direction, the ambition to do something. I almost don’t care what. Be a musician, teach college kids, build houses.
I guess I always assumed that’s what women actually want: a modest ambition, a little passion to DO something in life. It’s not about being the Best In Your Field, it’s about not hating to go to work every day.
But, I suppose telling a guy his income isn’t that important is probably like telling a girl that it really doesn’t matter whether or not her husband thinks she’s beautiful as long as he likes sleeping with her.
Ach. People, people.
… Fortunately, I need to have this one solved about as much as I need to know how to handle celebrity gracefully or prepare a shuttle for launching.
I just hate the idea that money equals success. It’s so destructive to people’s sense of worth and happiness, when the simple shift of changing your definition of personal success to something reasonable, achievable, and genuinely interesting could lead to… I dunno, something better than self-loathing.
2 responses so far ↓
b-head // April 21, 2008 at 4:11 pm |
I have not much to add.
I feel like you do about the subject. A seems to think money has more to do with it than I know. Its always hard for me in these sorts of cases to know how “typical” my particular male is and how much of the situation is “just him.”
Andrea // April 22, 2008 at 12:21 pm |
For starters, I think you’re exactly right about what most women actually want (the decent ones anyway). They want a husband who has drive and vision, a reason to get up in the morning. Happiness is contagious, and so is misery. I think everyone wants to be married to a happy person.
But as far as the money goes, I think men very much want their wives to feel like queens, like they have everything they could wish for, just like women would like it if their husbands’ thought they were the most beautiful women in the world. The secret to being a nice wife in this area, IMHO, is to be appreciative; to genuinely enjoy what your husband has provided for you; to help the dollars stretch, so your home really is beautiful and so there’s a feeling of abundance; AND (this is the hardest one for me) ask for stuff. Give your husband a chance to buy you a present now and then (that he can afford!). Some women mess up big time on this last one. Either they never ask for or buy themselves anything fun (my shortcoming), or they ask for and buy themselves stuff all the time that is way too expensive. Either one will make her husband feel like they’re actually paupers instead of a king and queen. He wants to feel that he can provide her with her heart’s desires. If she doesn’t ask, it implies she thinks he can’t afford it. If she spends too much, well, when he looks at his bank statement, that PROVES he can’t afford it.