Money

I was having a girlie chat with some friends when one girl admitted that in her early years at college she entered into a couple of relationships with married men. Although she didn’t consider herself a prostitute she was ‘funded’ and she probably wouldn’t have entered into the relationship if he hadn’t promised to ‘help her’.

I looked over at S. I expected her, as a married woman, to be horrified by all these disclosures. To my astonishment she wasn’t. She said that there have been times that the one of the reasons they have stayed together was money. As a couple they a fantastic lifestyle and if they were to split up that would all change. She only ever dated men who had a good income and couldn’t see any thing wrong with expecting the man you are in a relationship with to contribute financially. The second reason was their social circle, family and all the disappointment it would cause.

I want to be married so badly but I admit that those two things scare me as well. What if it doesn't work out? What would it be like to come out the other side?

Now I was the one shocked. Of course S has never worked. She understands why women want to. But she doesn’t need the power and security a job brings as she already has it. Two words strike fear into any married man with money, ‘fifty percent’.

S said she thinks I am foolish not to ask him for upkeep. For me though that is one line I never want to cross. I can’t get out of my head that women who get paid are prostitutes not some one’s lover.

S says that she traded her life, her fertility, her time, her body, maid service, counselling and so on for money and status. Of course love was part of it. But money, and the ability to provide her with the lifestyle and identity she wanted, was the first criteria that had to be met.